First Cup of Coffee – August 29, 2025

How endings of books can't be changed by simply lopping off final chapters and adding new ones - the story must point toward the finale all the way through. Also, US politics to wade through at first, especially state vs fed rights.

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Transcript

00:01.89
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, author of Epic Fantasy Romance, also writing as Jennifer K. Lambert. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:15.51
Jeffe Kennedy
Ah, heaven. Today is, say it with me, Friday! Woohoo! um August 29th, 2025. twenty twenty five

00:30.99
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, the, uh, beginning of Labor Day weekend here in the U S we get, um, Monday's a holiday. Uh, who knows? Maybe the last holiday, uh, politics, politics.

00:48.70
Jeffe Kennedy
Um,

00:52.05
Jeffe Kennedy
yeah, I'm trying to decide if I want to say anything. I probably don't, uh,

00:58.85
Jeffe Kennedy
We'll see. Maybe I'll wind my way back around. I think actually I am going to say, because one of the things that's been getting under my skin and I realized that our worldwide media system is really worked and that the images that people get are very curated, maybe even manipulated.

01:25.55
Jeffe Kennedy
I fell for one the other day I just like skimmed it I told a friend of mine this piece of news that I saw and and he asked a question so I looked it up and then it turned out it had been debunked and I was like.

01:39.77
Jeffe Kennedy
That's what I get that's what I get for skimming. Ah yeah but um. I've been seeing people say things I realize that it is very fashionable, especially amongst Europeans to talk about how stupid Americans are.

01:57.79
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, it's a, uh, arguably punching up, or at least it used to be. um but yes, there's always been this disdain that, uh, Europeans are, you know, older countries and smarter and more sophisticated than all of these things. And,

02:17.35
Jeffe Kennedy
whatever i really do believe that no country is a monolith and that there's all kinds of people in every country, uh, with, um, variations of intelligence.

02:29.80
Jeffe Kennedy
I've been seeing a lot of snarky remarks about how stupid Americans are and uneducated and so forth. And it's like, well, yeah, we do have stupid and uneducated people.

02:40.29
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, good thing. You don't have any of those people in Europe, right? Or Canada, uh, Canadians love well punching south ah at the U.S. But, yeah, I've seen people saying things like, why aren't Americans out there protesting every single day?

03:03.66
Jeffe Kennedy
And aren't we smart enough to know how much danger we are in from a fascist government and all of this kind of thing? And it gets a little aggravating because it's like... um We have a saying in the US s which is how's the view from the cheap seats.

03:20.55
Jeffe Kennedy
ah Great line from the American president Michael Douglas one of those fantasies where the president is someone who ah is actually cares about the country.

03:33.09
Jeffe Kennedy
But um,

03:36.35
Jeffe Kennedy
but Yeah, you know, we know. And and I saw some really good replies to this, you know, trying people earnestly trying to explain, you know, like, and I think one thing that people forget, and it's certainly easy for me to forget, is how freaking big the United States is. Okay.

03:57.03
Jeffe Kennedy
It's a big country and it is comprised of States. Right. So, you know, here's here's our little U.S. history lesson um from the very beginning, from the 13 colonies and the initial states that formed the Union after the Revolutionary War.

04:17.04
Jeffe Kennedy
There has always been a tension between federal rights and states rights. ah And it's not to the extreme of, say, like the model of the city states of ancient Greece, but our states have quite a bit of autonomy.

04:33.16
Jeffe Kennedy
And whenever they show the maps, you know, and talk about this being a red state or a blue state, ah some are more purple states. It's reflecting the fact that A lot of different kinds of people live in each state, but also how each state is run is different. Um, each state has its own set of laws.

04:57.08
Jeffe Kennedy
So one thing about why are we not out there protesting protesting every day? Well, there are people who are out protesting every day. You don't see it necessarily on the news, but also, you know, like we have people protesting out here in my little neighborhood.

05:12.54
Jeffe Kennedy
We have people protesting down at the Capitol building down in Santa Fe. ah But

05:21.16
Jeffe Kennedy
there is no There, it is not like a country, the size of Germany or France or England. We, um, we are spread out. We are ah huge country with a huge population, but we are spread out and, and I realize it's easy to forget because um you know, like I forget how big Australia is.

05:47.15
Jeffe Kennedy
I forget how big China is. Like I was invited to go do an appearance at China and I thought, well, maybe I could go see this one site that I've always wanted to see. And I looked to see, you know, like maybe I could do like a little day trip out to see it.

06:06.84
Jeffe Kennedy
And it would take me like a full day to get there because it's like way out in the boonies. And Yeah, I mean, that's where it's a big country. Um, and so, yeah, there's a lot of awful stuff happening, but the thing is, is that people are resisting in countless ways and fascinating to me politically, and I am no politician or historian.

06:34.26
Jeffe Kennedy
So probably other people have said this better, but it has been a frustration this tension between federal rights and state rights where federal laws technically override states laws, but it is technically at some, you know, these federal mandates, it's kind of the what exactly is the.

06:58.88
Jeffe Kennedy
Hammer to to enforce that so like one thing that used to be in the past when I was a contractor for the Environmental Protection Agency, which is a federal agency that tries to tell the states how they manage their you know various aspects of the environment.

07:20.35
Jeffe Kennedy
um Endangered species is one of them. Highway speeds is another. So like I remember back in the seventies there was a federally imposed speed limit of 55 miles per hour and it was it was partly because of the gas crisis and I mean gas crisis I want to put that in quotation marks because I'm not sure how much of that was real.

07:48.14
Jeffe Kennedy
Ah, but Like if you drive slower you burn less gas. It was considered to be i don't know safer and this kind of thing. Well, the western states which is where I live out I've lived in Colorado at the time where I grew up one of the big square states out west and in Colorado.

08:09.19
Jeffe Kennedy
and other Western states, 55 miles an hour is dead slow on ah big empty interstate and when you have hours to drive. The joke in Texas is that if you go on a road trip, if you live in Texas and go on a road trip, the first day is getting out of Texas, which is not wrong. I mean, Texas is enormous.

08:29.91
Jeffe Kennedy
So what the feds did was they withheld highway funding to get the states to capitulate to the 55 mile an hour speed limit because they couldn't make them do it.

08:43.63
Jeffe Kennedy
And that's kind of where we are at this point in history is that Trump is trying to figure out how to make states capitulate to his immigration policies, to allowing these thugs that call themselves ICE to go in and grab people pretty much willy-nilly, at will, at willy,

09:08.81
Jeffe Kennedy
ah And so he's using the national guard to as like his own private army to try to enforce this, but it actually doesn't work.

09:23.18
Jeffe Kennedy
but I mean, it's yeah, it's, it's heinous that it's come to this. Everybody predicted it was come to this. It's funny because I did see a thing where somebody said, at what point,

09:37.66
Jeffe Kennedy
did you realize how bad things were going to get? um You know, like what, at what event of them Trump's instigation did you realize? And I didn't answer because I really do try not to answer everything on the internet, but I, I would have said on the morning after the election, when I saw that he had really been elected for a second time. And i I knew. i mean, we predicted everybody.

10:05.49
Jeffe Kennedy
It wasn't freaking hard to predict because he said what he was going to do. And Project 2025 said what they were going to do. So the amazing thing is that there's anybody who is surprised.

10:19.31
Jeffe Kennedy
Like, this is all absolutely on the agenda. But what's interesting is is seeing how what was frustrating to me as someone who worked for Environmental Protection Agency about trying to get states to capitulate to federal laws on environmental protections.

10:38.26
Jeffe Kennedy
You know, like Wyoming was a notable one with with wolves. You know, wolves were an endangered species. People in Wyoming wanted to be able to kill wolves at will. There was still a state law saying that you did not have to have a license to kill a predator.

10:55.10
Jeffe Kennedy
So any animal that was a predator ah could be shot on sight. And they would say, we don't care if the federal government says that it's a law, that they're an endangered species.

11:10.19
Jeffe Kennedy
This is our state. This is our land. And we don't have to do what the feds say. And so it's interesting because the Republicans have long positioned themselves as the party of small government, right?

11:23.68
Jeffe Kennedy
That they don't want federal law ah imposing on individual freedom on states. So Wyoming has always been a very conservative Republican place.

11:35.04
Jeffe Kennedy
and And that was long-held tension. Well, what's fascinating now that now that the Republicans have abandoned all pretense of wanting small government, because that's not really what they wanted.

11:48.33
Jeffe Kennedy
They just wanted to be able to do what they wanted to do. um and Trump trying to impose authoritarian law um with military might on states, that actually it's turning out what's saving us is states' rights.

12:06.71
Jeffe Kennedy
Because the states don't necessarily have to do everything the feds say. Uh, and I think that this is really different from other countries. I'm not super familiar with how other countries work. So, you know, mea culpa and correct me if I'm wrong, i I would love to know, but, um,

12:27.64
Jeffe Kennedy
one thing that like is great about living in New Mexico is that our state government is really good and is working hard to protect the citizens of new mexico so this sort of comes back to what i started with with people you know saying how terrible things are and you know all the things are happening well we're not seeing it here uh which is not to say that i'm not super concerned about it happening in other places But, you know, like we still have the right to abortion in New Mexico. We still have the right to birth control.

13:03.76
Jeffe Kennedy
ah We still have all kinds of things that are protecting us. um Recreational marijuana is legal here. And i our governor took some of the immense revenues the state's gotten from that And gave them gave every person living below a certain income level of a bonus from that money, you know, which is what should happen.

13:31.78
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, so, you know, it's this, the macrocosm versus the microcosm and Um, yeah um the whole thing of house of you from the cheap seats. I get that people are very upset and frustrated about what's happening here, but to imagine that we are not equally upset and frustrated and that there aren't very smart, intelligent, educated people, um, here doing all kinds of things to resist. And it's, it's resistance to the courts, to the laws.

14:06.66
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, our governor here in New Mexico, activated the National Guard to combat ah the heroin gangs.

14:17.55
Jeffe Kennedy
And Espanola, I believe, was the official line. But the clever thing about this is, because everyone was at first kind of mystified, because it's like, well, we've always known that there's a problem with heroin sales, and you know we're not perfect, nobody's perfect.

14:30.18
Jeffe Kennedy
ah But you know like why why the sudden interest that we want National Guard? Well, if our National Guard is activated, then the feds can't call them up. So it's like, oh, sorry, our state's already activated the National Guard. You're going to have to go elsewhere.

14:45.74
Jeffe Kennedy
And that's them's the rules, right? So you use the rules to fight. Anyway, I've spent 15 minutes talking about this and I didn't really mean to. But, yeah, that's stuff that's been on my mind.

14:59.87
Jeffe Kennedy
ah None of us are safe, of course, but please don't think that that we're not fighting, fighting to the nail.

15:10.42
Jeffe Kennedy
And donating funding funding the people in organizations who are doing things which you know doesn't make for a great hot take on social media. So um here I am. um I'm still working on this revision.

15:25.83
Jeffe Kennedy
i am 86% of the way through it. I got a little nudgy email yesterday from my editor's assistant asking saying no pressure.

15:36.05
Jeffe Kennedy
But what did I think my delivery would be? And I kind of wanted to say ah if you all would um stop giving me additional dev edits would finish a lot faster.

15:49.99
Jeffe Kennedy
But I appreciate the dev slash Debbie edits um developmental. ah Thanks to all of you who sent me suggestions for someone to do my social media.

16:04.07
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm very excited about moving this forward. Special thanks to ah John Barr. i I am going to contact the person you suggested. So hopefully that will work out great.

16:16.01
Jeffe Kennedy
I haven't done it yet, but I will today. And yeah, so revision of among the thorns, I just have to rewrite the ending at this point, uh, because I'm changing the ending. i ended up having, I slowed down the last couple of days cause I to change a lot of stuff that was building up and pointing to the ending.

16:36.64
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, Yeah. If any of you ever think that, uh, all you have to do is like chop off the last couple chapters and write new ones. That's not how it works. Right. Because, uh, the story flows to the ending. It's it, the ending grows out of the rest of the book.

16:57.99
Jeffe Kennedy
So you can't just change the ending. You have to change everything that leads up to the ending. ah And i this sort of takes me back to, it's not exactly a pat pet peeve, but I always roll my eyes a little bit when somebody says that they see the ending coming when a reader is like, oh, well, I thought the ending was very predictable.

17:18.63
Jeffe Kennedy
I absolutely saw it coming. Even the twist. And it's like, well, that's great. You're a good reader, um, paying attention, but also you saw it because the author pointed you to it.

17:30.53
Jeffe Kennedy
That's that was actually a well-constructed story. If the ending feels exactly right, if it feels meat, like you knew from the beginning, uh, that this is where the story was headed,

17:47.29
Jeffe Kennedy
That's a good story, right? and And you're enjoying the journey of it. There's this idea out there that like the ending is some somehow supposed to be a surprise. And I suppose there's a very particular genre for that. You know, like the people who love the twist ending that comes out of nowhere. But frankly, a lot of the times when it comes out of nowhere, it's because the author left you deliberately in the dark about it.

18:11.63
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, which is one way to do things but also I don't know it's not how I do things someone a friend of mine was reading never the roses and ah has been sending me occasional commentary about it which I I really enjoy it's fun.

18:27.67
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, but he commented that anyone who complains about the ending must not have been paying attention along the way. Because everything points to an ending that's at least bittersweet and it's true. That's the ending that that story had to have.

18:46.12
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, and yeah, a few people have complained. It's I think it's a happy ending. I think it points to a happy ending. I understand why some people feel like it's not.

18:58.27
Jeffe Kennedy
but I also I'm fine with an open-ended story and I know not everybody is there are people out there who want every little thing tied up and they want to know exactly what happened and I'm okay with not knowing you know with being able to imagine i actually kind of like being able to fill in my own.

19:15.77
Jeffe Kennedy
this is what I think they did after it ended it but I understand that everyone does which is why there are also all kinds of books on the world. Um, Yeah, so I have to write this ending, but I also last night after I finished and I was drinking wine on the magic portal over at the Casita, which Kelly and I have decided is a magic po portal because she finished her novel there too.

19:43.39
Jeffe Kennedy
no, I guess she finished her novel there period. Uh, but yeah, i I got an idea for for, the romance in this book. And so going to have to backtrack a little bit, but I am going to be done by next week.

19:58.42
Jeffe Kennedy
I'd hope to be done today. Not quite going to happen. Uh, yeah. All right. So i am traveling this week, um, on Monday going to, ah my mother's house in Tucson.

20:13.52
Jeffe Kennedy
So I may do a podcast on Tuesday. i may not. We'll see, see how I feel. I know a lot of times I don't, I might just get up early and go work on this book depending on where I am.

20:24.83
Jeffe Kennedy
And then on Wednesday, we're driving back here. I'm bringing her back here to visit for a while. So that will be nice. All right. Uh, so if you are in the U S and I over explained everything you already know about us politics, I apologize.

20:40.94
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, but if it is a long weekend for you, I hope you enjoy. um Try to enjoy everything you can. That's the other thing is we can't be outraged and protesting every minute.

20:53.47
Jeffe Kennedy
ah You know, we still have lives to lead and you still deserve some rest and relaxation on what is considered to be our last hoorah of the summer.

21:04.76
Jeffe Kennedy
ah So go out there and hoorah. All right. i You all take care. Bye-bye.