First Cup of Coffee – June 24, 2025

My revision process: how I estimate how long a revision will take, the metrics I use to track progress, how I approach making changes, etc. Also, working with a great editor, the danger of perfectionism, and wishing for rain.

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Transcript

00:01.58
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy. Also writing is Jennifer K Lambert, author of Epic Fantasy Romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:16.82
Jeffe Kennedy
Ah, that's so good. Today is Tuesday, June 24th, 2025.

00:25.66
Jeffe Kennedy
And this is literally my first cup today. I had trouble waking up this morning. I was sleepy.

00:35.11
Jeffe Kennedy
Oh, no, what I hit tired last night too. um Been working hard on this revision. Maybe that's why. am on target.

00:46.81
Jeffe Kennedy
I've been figuring about 42 pages which was partly People often ask me about how how to track editing revising um how to i don't know predict you know because because there's a lot of conversation about word count and how many words can you write an hour and how many words can you write a day a week a month etc.

01:13.34
Jeffe Kennedy
But we don't always have very good metrics for editing and revising I feel like. ah So for me because of course I keep my spreadsheets and I track everything.

01:27.21
Jeffe Kennedy
ah i have a lot of data from many different projects where I know basically my rate of revision and some of it will depend on what level of pass it is and how how extensive the revision is.

01:49.55
Jeffe Kennedy
if um If I'm just doing a polish pass, if I'm just going to make sure that I didn't miss any typos or details or that kind of thing, I can do as many as 80 pages a day. 78, 79 is really what it comes up to.

02:08.11
Jeffe Kennedy
But that is over three one-hour sprints. I still do my three one-hour sprints for editing or revising. That seems to be like what I can do working wise with breaks between.

02:27.39
Jeffe Kennedy
My nose is running a little bit this morning. Um, oh so you know that works out to like 25 pages in an hour which is you know probably a little bit slower than I don't know how fast I read actually if I'm just reading would be good to know anyway.

02:47.93
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, And and these are always averages too because some sections you know like I'll get through seven pages in one day and other times I'll get through like a hundred pages in one day.

03:05.45
Jeffe Kennedy
So a lot depends on how much work there is to do which I know is one of those dependent conversations that um yeah. ah I'm probably not articulate today. I must be. I think I've got a little bit of brain fog here.

03:19.97
Jeffe Kennedy
Yesterday was difficult. I still got through. i i made nice progress. Let's see here. um I am up to page 158 out of And... eleven and

03:40.29
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, sorry, trying to kickstart my brain. I'm looking at these numbers and they mean nothing to me. Nothing. Uh, I got to 46 pages yesterday. Uh, but it was still pretty intensive. I, I made a major change. I decided to change something between the characters. Um, that I think will work better this way.

04:07.85
Jeffe Kennedy
And I'm trying to think of how to describe it or if I can. um I had changed it from I think I can talk about this. The the heroine. um Had believed that the hero was genuinely attracted to her and that he had no.

04:33.20
Jeffe Kennedy
agenda no other motivation and this is how it was and that and then when she discovers that he does have this ulterior motive she feels very betrayed and I took that out I changed that up for reasons.

04:54.25
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, partly because trying to still trying to think how much I can tell you. Um,

05:04.49
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah, it was just a little too shitty of him, I guess. And also it was a little bit um oblivious of her. She's not that person.

05:17.73
Jeffe Kennedy
So what this involves is just like, it's not a rewriting of a scene. um I'd had this scene where they were fighting and when she discovers this,

05:30.90
Jeffe Kennedy
and is very upset and there's plenty of other stuff to be upset about. So I just sort of had to like pull out those particular details and I had already made that decision. So I'd laid it in earlier that she I mean she knew what his agenda was and she was still like okay well whatever.

05:55.80
Jeffe Kennedy
No reason we can't have a good time in bed right um, Yeah, so so that's an example of the kind of revising that I'm doing and I think that just took a lot of thought yesterday.

06:14.81
Jeffe Kennedy
Balancing out their motivations and why what they're trying to do. Yeah, no so so who knows who knows why yesterday was but by the evening I hit tired.

06:34.32
Jeffe Kennedy
ah So but it is I think this revision is going well. um Like I said I've made good progress. So so where I'm at right now I'm about 37 percent through the book.

06:50.62
Jeffe Kennedy
um And we're going to have a check in meeting on Thursday. so i am anticipating that.

07:02.81
Jeffe Kennedy
Well. I'll probably, I'll probably be at least halfway through. And I'm also tracking what, um, the kind of the outline ish thing for them because they wanted to see where the beats are.

07:17.08
Jeffe Kennedy
And, you know, for those of you who have listened to me whining about like, Oh, i have more work to do. And this is hard and all that.

07:28.64
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, one of my friends who read this and was, um,

07:35.96
Jeffe Kennedy
I don't gave me some, some feedback on stuff, uh, was marveling at how great it is to have an editor this devoted to the book, uh, which is absolutely true because these days, uh, very often it seems like some editors just don't even read the book.

07:53.54
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, cause they're just so overworked and, um, I don't know, tired. Uh, so not only having read it, um editor Ali having read it once to for that first revision but reading it again and there will be more so that is one thing that they say about if you get involved in publishing that you have to love love love books because you will end up reading the same book I don't know four or five ten times

08:28.29
Jeffe Kennedy
So it's interesting to get back into the texture of this book and.

08:34.83
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah, I think that the revisions are going to make a really interesting difference.

08:41.08
Jeffe Kennedy
And I'm trying to think of did I start down any other roads I was talking about editing and revising and how you go about it. I think you know, like all things that comes down to process so how you conceptualize the story.

08:58.79
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, for me, I revise like I write beginning to end. Um, unless it's a later stage like line edits or copy edits will bounce through track changes.

09:13.25
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, and occasionally I'll even still do a read through from getting tend on those. It depends on if I'm concerned about whether or not it's hanging together by the time we get to minor strikeouts and comments on that sort of thing. I'll usually just bounce through track and changes and give it one more read at some point for just continuity.

09:35.62
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, it's amazing the continuity things you can lose along the way.

09:42.49
Jeffe Kennedy
Ah,

09:46.00
Jeffe Kennedy
my clock is not going but I think that it's um, I think it's an illusion

09:57.44
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah, it was. I don't know why Zencastr's being so weird this day these days. Is it Zencastr? Is it Chrome? Ah, all right. So anyway, um, one thing that struck me because it's always stuck with me, I guess. Um, Susan Elizabeth Phillips has a very meticulous method for revision, but she's also like a one book a year writer.

10:22.58
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, ah But she goes through and edits for or revises for a particular element. She does a pass for each character arc.

10:33.46
Jeffe Kennedy
She does a pass for each, you know, like plot line and that sort of thing. It doesn't split out that way for me. That's why I kind of go beginning to end.

10:46.29
Jeffe Kennedy
But in the same way that I draft, I have this feeling like I want to hold the whole story in my head. and So as I revise I'm accumulating in at my head. That's probably why I'm feeling brain foggy because I'm like really trying to have this whole thing and make sure that the interweaving of the threads is working correctly.

11:10.79
Jeffe Kennedy
So. um Yeah, I don't know if I have anything more to say about it than that. It's

11:22.78
Jeffe Kennedy
it's it's meticulous work revising um and you know and we talk about a lot that most writers tend to fall into the either the I love drafting camp or I love revising camp.

11:34.70
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, and I used to hate revising I used to especially when I was a newbie writer regard revising as fixing everything I got wrong the first time ah which now I look back on that and I'm like wow that was a lot of hubris.

11:53.87
Jeffe Kennedy
But um I still love drafting best, but there is a there is a what is the word I want? I want to say like relaxation.

12:05.38
Jeffe Kennedy
There is a it's almost therapeutic revising because maybe that's sort of why I've changed my mind on this because I um It's not fixing what I got wrong the first time. I think I've learned that.

12:23.73
Jeffe Kennedy
It's instead having the opportunity to, to polish, to, to layer things in. Uh, I don't know why I used to have that idea we that it had to be perfect the first time. I probably related to some sort of latent perfectionism. And yes, I do have perfectionism, um, in my, in my blood. It's, uh,

12:49.31
Jeffe Kennedy
a part of my family. And my aunt warned me about it very, very early when I was having a hard time finishing my thesis. She wanted to know if I was paralyzed by perfectionism and told me how much that had affected her life and how I needed to ditch that early. And so now I feel like I have. I have embraced the imperfect.

13:12.98
Jeffe Kennedy
I have embraced the the beauty of iterations. That with each iteration you get something. o i don't want say new but deeper deeper Richard Fuller.

13:28.38
Jeffe Kennedy
So ah yeah, that's that's where I'm at on this. ah I saw a really cool opportunity for. um I'm trying to think. Flametree. Flametree Press is doing ah an anthology of romantasy. They're doing two.

13:52.10
Jeffe Kennedy
One ah on the theme of time, and which I think is kind of a an odd choice. But, you know, that they're called. But I feel like there's not really that much romantasy themed around time. But if you have something themed around time, ah go for it.

14:10.44
Jeffe Kennedy
ah The other one is dragons of which there's obviously tons. ah Short stories 2 to 4,000 words and ah if I fit oh excuse me if I finish this revision in time. Oh that's I started to say that earlier didn't I that in some ways I came up with my 42 pages a day because my friend Kelly Robson is coming to stay here. She's arriving on July 2nd evening of July 2nd and I would love to have this revision done.

14:43.76
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, by July 2nd. So i looked up my working days, not counting weekends and came up with 42 pages a day, which is well within my usual, uh, this stage revision ability.

15:01.16
Jeffe Kennedy
Okay, I should come up with names for the various stages of revision, right? That would be kind of amusing. So, so far i am averaging. Let's see.

15:15.08
Jeffe Kennedy
Oh, we need to move it over here. bear with me.

15:21.65
Jeffe Kennedy
and having to change the parameters of my formula, which is not wanting to cooperate.

15:31.54
Jeffe Kennedy
Okay, let's see here.

15:35.74
Jeffe Kennedy
Sometimes mouse work is hard, average 49 pages a day. So I am a little bit ahead of schedule, and which is great. Better that than the reverse.

15:49.75
Jeffe Kennedy
um Yeah, and so this revision is actually going more smoothly than I had thought. Although, when we were on the editorial call last week, I said I thought this would take me two weeks to do, and it's going to be pretty much um like 11 working days. Yeah.

16:07.60
Jeffe Kennedy
It's gonna be like 11 working days. So ah sometimes i impress myself at how good I am at estimating things and a friend of mine who is very very good for my ego but by the way commented that of course I am because I have this professional expertise at this point where I've really honed intuition.

16:31.50
Jeffe Kennedy
and that I just know these things because I have so much experience and I thought oh that's kind of cool to um, Pat myself on the back or or he patted me on the back for it.

16:44.90
Jeffe Kennedy
So let's see what else is going on. Um, we're supposed to get rain today. That's very exciting very exciting for us. Um, which is if only the rain could put out the fire in the world.

16:58.42
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, but There we are. Yeah,

17:04.97
Jeffe Kennedy
yeah we won't we won't talk about how awful how awful our government is today in the US and other governments around the world.

17:19.41
Jeffe Kennedy
ah These boys these boys wanting power right? So well there I talked about it a little bit.

17:29.14
Jeffe Kennedy
Um,

17:32.98
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah, i had ah I had a great weekend. I spent a lot of time in the garden. I got the secret garden all cleaned up. The grape arbor. is boy i feel like we're doing a lot of catching up on deferred maintenance which is which is great we're in a better financial position uh building the casita has really spurred me to kind of get things fixed up i guess because it's so clean and pretty and now like the rest of the house i'm like oh um but the grape arbor where i used to do this podcast from a lot long time listeners will recall

18:08.51
Jeffe Kennedy
um I don't anymore just because I kept having so much connectivity issue out there. But umm the the pergola upon which the grapevines entwine. Oops, sorry.

18:20.51
Jeffe Kennedy
Gesturing into the wind chimes. ah I feel like that's going to be in the future when people look back fondly on this podcast. Who knows um that that will be like a drinking game, ah a feature.

18:33.47
Jeffe Kennedy
but How many times did I accidentally gesticulate into the wind chimes? Anyway, the pergola has got wood rot and ah we're going to have to.

18:43.89
Jeffe Kennedy
fix it because it's going to fall down. I mean, it's, it's at that point. And we had a ah handyman here yesterday looking at some of our kitchen cabinets, which are bad. I mean, that we think of this as a new house, but it's a 30 year old house. So the 32 year old house, 31.

18:59.75
Jeffe Kennedy
thirty one ah And so there are just things, you know, like the cabinet hinges are breaking and they drive me crazy. And so it's like, okay, we're going to replace the cabinet hinges on the kitchen drawers because the runners aren't working right.

19:12.76
Jeffe Kennedy
And we're going to, fix the pergola so that it doesn't fall down and it's all good things right all good things. All right.

19:23.76
Jeffe Kennedy
um I'm going to get to work. I hope that you all are able to get some things done. We were having this conversation yesterday and one of my author groups that you know someone was ah criticizing her for like not being more upset about the, the U S bombed Iran. Right. That's, that's what's happening ah for those living under a rock or ah in the future to give you historical context for what's going on right now. Yeah. Trump bypassed Congress, did not declare war, decided to go ahead and bomb i Iran.

20:01.26
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, Iran, I should say. And so, yeah, this author friend of mine, one of her readers supporters was criticizing her for not talking more about this.

20:14.95
Jeffe Kennedy
And, you know, the thing is, is we're doing all we can, you know, it's like the, a lot of us are along for the ride in this cart that is on fire. And, you know, we've We tried to not elect this guy and we're doing what we can to resist and supporting those organizations, protecting civil rights.

20:36.82
Jeffe Kennedy
And I mean, the US Congress couldn't stop Trump from bombing Iran. I don't know what us writers are supposed to do. So anyway, you know, my, my philosophy control what you can try to make your corner of the world as good as it can be.

20:57.15
Jeffe Kennedy
And you know, resist where possible. And yeah, that's where we're at. So i hope you all have a good week as good as it can be.

21:09.70
Jeffe Kennedy
And I will talk to you all on Friday. Okay, you all take care. bye.