First Cup of Coffee with Jeffe Kennedy
First Cup of Coffee with Jeffe Kennedy
First Cup of Coffee – April 21, 2026
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How living in the world with insane politicians is a macrocosm of having crazy and toxic relatives - we're all along for the ride and have to do our best to maintain our own balance. Related: Taoism, Ursula Le Guin, the ups and downs of the publishing industry, and filter bubbles.
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Thank you for listening! You all take care.
00:01.40
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.
00:15.93
Jeffe Kennedy
So good. Today is Tuesday, April 21st four twenty one twenty six And it's a good Tuesday. I hope it's a good Tuesday for you.
00:29.23
Jeffe Kennedy
I've been having a great time with my friend Kelly Robson visiting and she came in Sunday evening and we had a lovely dinner and then yesterday we wrote for a while and then went to 10,000 waves.
00:42.78
Jeffe Kennedy
A very relaxing afternoon noon at the spa and then a late lunch early dinner happy hour ish thing um at Izunami which is delicious.
00:57.14
Jeffe Kennedy
And tomorrow i head to Apollycon very early in the morning. So don't know why I'm a little hoarse there. um I got a wonderful email from the, listen to me.
01:13.08
Jeffe Kennedy
I feel like I should do those vocal warmup exercises, right? I don't know where that sudden hoarseness came from. horse is a horse. um well No, I'm not punching. Why do you ask?
01:30.10
Jeffe Kennedy
Delightful email from the ever fabulous Lexi Ryan, who listened to my podcast, wherein I raved about her upcoming book, Night Tide. I'm still crafting the blurb to capture my enthusiasm. Um, I really loving this book and I wouldn't just say that.
01:48.12
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, anyway, but Lexi explained the soothing thing, why she finds the podcast soothing, which I found really interesting because, um Yeah, because I know I go on rants. And she said that she wouldn't even call them rants, that she likes listening to me talk about this stuff because I've always talked about it in terms of that we'll get through this and everything will be okay. And I'm really glad to hear that because I absolutely believe in that.
02:18.26
Jeffe Kennedy
um You know, things rebalance. Things um have always been crazy and topsy-turvy and there have always been awful people in the world who um i start wars and want to have all the bananas that they keep to themselves.
02:42.26
Jeffe Kennedy
And they kind of drag the rest of us along on their emotional roller coasters, just like in our own families. you know, like we all have the people in our families who have mental problems or personality disorders or various kinds of trauma.
02:58.65
Jeffe Kennedy
I want to say trauma, various kinds of trauma. which leads to various kinds of drama right where they end up dragging the entire family along on this roller coaster of generated by their crazy and sometimes we have to go no contact with those people sometimes we have to find various strategies to deal
03:26.46
Jeffe Kennedy
it's um It's the way of the world. It's all of us monkeys in the bottle here together. And this is what we have to deal with. oh Which is the way it goes. I just finished reading The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin for my um science fiction and fantasy book club. I had not read it before. And it's interesting because you know, she was a Taoist like me, me and Ursula were just basically the same person.
03:59.43
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, you know, she did a translation of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu and it's a really good translation and she writes a little bit of her commentary in there and I enjoy looking at her translation.
04:17.24
Jeffe Kennedy
and the lathe of heaven she has epigraphs on each chapter describing uh i'm sorry from various Taoist philosophers Zhuang Zhou and Lao Tzu and some others um and the book is ultimately here's my book report there's like things keep getting worse and worse and worse it's um Well, it's an older book, so I'm going to spoil the premise. It's basically about a guy who dreams effectively is what he calls it. Effective dreaming and what he dreams becomes real.
04:57.08
Jeffe Kennedy
And he ends up in the clutches of this unscrupulous psychologist, psychiatrist. I don't remember what his creds are, ah who decides to take advantage of this skill rather than curing him of his crazy. The therapist, let's just call him that, decides to send them have on this improving the world, escapades, series of escapades.
05:28.34
Jeffe Kennedy
And of course, there's a monkey's paw aspect to it in that each time he tries to improve the world, it gets worse. And i i don't know if I loved the book, but I enjoyed the book. And it was an interesting outcome in that things keep getting worse and worse and worse. And these things that you don't want to happen, happen.
05:50.30
Jeffe Kennedy
um And in the end, it kind of balances out, it evens out. And things don't go back to the way they were, but they're also okay. And I think that that is kind of the of that that is one of the core oh ideas behind Taoism, is that the universe will balance itself out.
06:16.70
Jeffe Kennedy
And it's, um, it's good to, so to be able to see that and to, to know that change is inevitable and change is not always good, but that, um, that we are along for this ride and that we learn from it as best we can.
06:38.74
Jeffe Kennedy
So.
06:41.86
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm having to adjust my camera a little bit. I, am I've been embarking on this project of trying to remove areas of friction in my life. And so one point of friction is, is when I turn my monitor, uh, to stand or sit, it's like this whole production. And I have all of these gew gaws I probably shouldn't have there, but I, and I periodically clean them up, but then they reproduce, uh, and,
07:09.24
Jeffe Kennedy
So I always have to rearrange all the gew gaws. So the other day it occurred to me to buy a lazy Susan type carousel for under the monitor. And so now look at this, if you're on video, Ooh, Ooh, you have to make that noise. When you do it, you could just like spin the monitor around.
07:28.31
Jeffe Kennedy
that great. But, um, no, my camera focus is a little off. I have to get my best side. You know, one thing I've always wondered is how do people know what their best sides are? It's like, it's a thing that's always mystified me.
07:45.02
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, you know, like best side is the back of my head. I don't know. It's an interesting thing to pick. Maybe people don't even say that anymore. I haven't heard anyone say that for a really long time.
08:02.49
Jeffe Kennedy
I am saw some people talking yesterday. Clearly today's podcast is random notes about nothing. I saw some people talking yesterday on social media saying that Gen Z is the Christopher Columbus generation because they act like they've discovered things that people have known about forever, which I thought was really funny.
08:27.13
Jeffe Kennedy
But apparently one of the things that they have discovered that's like the new trend is the unmiked podcast where you sit around with a group of your friends and exchange ideas, but you don't broadcast it.
08:42.03
Jeffe Kennedy
It's like, oh, wow, you all have discovered conversation. Hysterical.
08:51.51
Jeffe Kennedy
It's interesting too, as far as publishing industry goes, because even though this week's drama or this week's crisis feels pointed and new, uh, things keep going and you know, I can't tell you how many times in my, um, well, I mean, now it's like 30 year career as an author.
09:18.19
Jeffe Kennedy
Is it more than that? four fourteen No, it's it's a little over 30 years. How many times I've been told that publishing is dead, traditional publishing is dead.
09:27.90
Jeffe Kennedy
And I was having a very interesting conversation with Jennifer Estep the other day where we were looking at my, she asked to see my sales numbers for Never the Roses, which did really well. And it did great in the brick and mortar stores. And I shared them to her, you know, quietly.
09:47.10
Jeffe Kennedy
and because she was sort of trying to figure out what she's looking at. And the thing is, is those numbers are really great. And, and it's, the book has generated a lot of money and she and I both self publish, but it's, it's much better than what we've been able to do self publishing. So this idea that traditional publishing is dead and that you can make way more money, um self-publishing isn't entirely true.
10:17.94
Jeffe Kennedy
And this idea that traditional publishing is publishing these big hardback books and selling them through the brick and mortar stores is not only a viable business, but a good business is actually true.
10:34.26
Jeffe Kennedy
come ah But what's funny is, is if you look at the Amazon rankings, how many there are for it, for Never the Roses, it's not reflected there because it's a totally different audience. The people who are going into a bookstore and buying a hardback book are a different audience than the people who are rating and reviewing on Amazon. Right.
10:59.70
Jeffe Kennedy
Which we kind of knew, but it's one thing to be intellectually aware that you are in a particular filter bubble and another to actually integrate into your life and to be aware of these things that exist outside of that bubble.
11:21.42
Jeffe Kennedy
It's difficult to keep in mind. oh But a story that Kelly was telling me, we were having this conversation, you know, sort of gossiping about writers and editors the the way one does.
11:36.57
Jeffe Kennedy
um And I'm just going to throw out a completely out of context. Well, not completely, but mostly out of context. A word of advice is um for you writers out there.
11:49.84
Jeffe Kennedy
Don't have an affair with your editor. Never works out well. Uh, in fact, you know, it's that sort of the, uh, the universal, ah guide to good behavior is not to have affairs with the people that you work with because, um, it, it leads to trouble. And the problem is, is if the love affair goes south, then that affects your, uh, career. Right. So.
12:19.74
Jeffe Kennedy
I think the, uh, yeah, I, I used to know a guy who said, never, never shit where you eat, which I think said a lot about, I also refer to him as the great mistake. So that says a lot about, um, how he conducted his love affairs, but still don't have an affair with your editor.
12:45.02
Jeffe Kennedy
But we were mainly talking about people who hit it very big early on. And this is something I know I've talked about many times, but she was telling me a story about a friend who, like way back in the 90s, had a fantasy trilogy published and...
13:02.75
Jeffe Kennedy
Well sold the three book deal and was really feted was treated like the next hot thing and felt like the next hot thing because this is the thing that happens is people who hit it very big on their first thing. of Tend to think it's because they're that amazing. it's Maybe it's like the filter bubble. It's really hard to escape that lens, that perception that that you're hot because you are the shit and not because you got lucky. It's difficult to perceive that you may have just gotten lucky on that first time out, which is what it is
13:44.10
Jeffe Kennedy
99% of the time because there's a lot of people who write very good things that don't get lucky. Right? And if you've been coming up through the ranks and suffering rejection after a rejection and all kinds of setbacks by the time you finally.
14:00.63
Jeffe Kennedy
get something that does hit, that is the big deal, that does, you know, skyrocket or what have you, you have more of that jaundiced maturity to deal with it. Because you you know that it might not last, that it probably won't last, right? You know that it's going to go up and come down. The people who haven't gone through the downs, they think it's going to keep going up and then they are inevitably disappointed.
14:30.62
Jeffe Kennedy
when it comes down. ah so this gal that Kelly was talking about, um, yeah, was, you know, really given the Cinderella treatment and the first book came out and did not do well, uh, for whatever reason. And then the second book, um, they just kind of kicked to the curb and they never published the third book at all.
14:55.19
Jeffe Kennedy
And, And this was 30 years ago and the author is still bitter about it. And, you know, we could say justifiably so justifiably bitter. And yet it's also, um it's, it's the way of the business, you know, sometimes things don't hit. Um, love lies and ley lines is not selling all that great. And I, I'm not sure why, um you know, it might pick up with the second book. I don't know if it's, you know, like not a great cover or if it's just, um, too much of a departure from what I usually write.
15:32.82
Jeffe Kennedy
But, um Yeah. You know, and it's like some series are like that. Some things you think people are just going to eat up and love. They don't necessarily. And there are a lot of people out there who will, um, flog themselves and flog the public to try to make them like it. Love this thing. You will buy this thing. You will love this thing. And it doesn't work that way.
15:58.81
Jeffe Kennedy
So I'm doing abbreviated podcast today. I have to run off and do writer coffee with people, but, uh, and no podcast on Friday. I will talk to you all next week. You all take care.
16:09.59
Jeffe Kennedy
Bye-bye.