First Cup of Coffee – June 5, 2026

I'm back from retreat and pleasantly relaxed. Looking forward to the weekend events ahead - especially the RomCon at Books on the Bosque in Albuquerque tomorrow, June 6, 10am-3pm!

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Blades, Books, and the Bandit

Love, Lies, and Ley Lines

MAGIC REBORN

Never The Roses

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Among The Thorns

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Thank you for listening! You all take care. 

Transcript

00:01.37
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy. Also writing as Jennifer K Lambert, author of epic fantasy romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:15.38
Jeffe Kennedy
Very good. to- Today is say it with me people. It is Friday. 5th.

00:23.35
Jeffe Kennedy
And i am back home not that you all would have noticed this but I was gone all week on retreat and it was lovely. It was um yeah just utterly delightful i got some things done that I needed to get done that I wanted to work on and i helped people with some other things with their stuff and it was relaxing. It was just a very good low key thing.

00:54.87
Jeffe Kennedy
So now I am tanned rested and ready ah my joke that nobody gets nobody else remembers this comic. Um, but yeah, I'm I'm feeling pretty good about things and getting ready to kick into writing again next week writing never the roses 3.

01:16.98
Jeffe Kennedy
And it's, it's a funny thing because, um you know, like having been on hiatus the last couple of weeks and working on other things, it's been slow in like my inbox. I don't know if it's the time of year or whatever, but it was like, oh, well, you know, not that many people are around. And now like in the last couple of days,

01:42.84
Jeffe Kennedy
things have started happening and I've started getting um, just uh, you know, like oh by the way here are deadlines for this uh, for the um, special edition of among the thorns which I believe has not been officially announced but I need to do some bonus content for that and a letter and that kind of thing.

02:05.72
Jeffe Kennedy
So I got deadlines for that. And then out of the blue, it feels like out of the blue, this gal contacted me about being in an anthology.

02:17.05
Jeffe Kennedy
And I looked and we had last communicated about it in November 2024. So coming up on two years. So i was like, oh, yeah, I totally forgot about that saying I would be provisionally interested. They just got the funding for it. So I'm running that through Agent Sarah.

02:35.83
Jeffe Kennedy
more to come on that it would be fun to do. Ah yeah, so it's it's interesting when the universe does that right? You know, like here I am. um you know, it wasn't that I told people to leave me alone, but somehow the universe did and now we're ramping up. so Okay, we're done leaving Jeffy alone. So

02:58.84
Jeffe Kennedy
Here I am, um feeling pretty good about getting things going again. I got a lot of gardening done last weekend. Uh, I'm whittling down my to-do list. I only have a couple. I'm trying to decide if it counts. How it does it count? Is three or four major tasks still to do on the to-do list, but I've gotten other things off that I needed get off. And that was great.

03:24.79
Jeffe Kennedy
So, um, Yeah, it's going to be a busy weekend if you are in Albuquerque area or if you want to be tomorrow I will be attending the rom-com street festival thing market thing at books on the Basque, uh, in Albuquerque that I mentioned Albuquerque, uh,

03:52.54
Jeffe Kennedy
And ah the delightful Vela Roth will also be joining me.

04:02.74
Jeffe Kennedy
So I paused for a second to make a note of something I needed to ask someone about. and Now I've forgotten where I was. Was I talking about rom-com in Albuquerque? um Vela and I will be on a panel together and there will be all kinds of fun things. It sounds like booths and vendors and we'll be signing books.

04:24.92
Jeffe Kennedy
And Ursula Vernon slash T. Kingfisher will be there also. A bunch of other great people.

04:33.02
Jeffe Kennedy
So if you're in the neighborhood or want to be, ah come on, come on down. Vela is coming in today. Today is actually her birthday. Happy birthday, Vela. Woo. Woo.

04:46.07
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, and she and i are going to out for a nice dinner and then we'll do rom-con tomorrow and on Sunday we're going to go to the spa. You have to say it like that. Uh, and I'm going to get buffed my skin, get rid of lizard skin and re regain princess skin.

05:06.74
Jeffe Kennedy
So um, yeah, it'll be should be a fun weekend and she's going to be here through Monday. So we'll see if maybe she wants to be on the podcast. We'll ask her.

05:18.89
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, she has to drive back to el Paso on Monday so we'll see if she has time.

05:25.24
Jeffe Kennedy
Let's see so other things going on.

05:30.74
Jeffe Kennedy
Oh, I started listening to the audio book of Among the Thorns. It's, um, three, three different narrators for the three POVs and it is.

05:44.61
Jeffe Kennedy
Fantabulous people. It's really good. Uh, I love that I got to choose the narrators and we chose them for very specific reasons to help reinforce certain aspects of the story. And I think it's working great. I'm super excited about it.

06:05.72
Jeffe Kennedy
So listen to that as I drove down and drove back from retreat. um Another thought on retreats. I was thinking about...

06:18.35
Jeffe Kennedy
uh, yoga writing or not yoga writing, just yoga retreats, Jeffe. Um, has anyone ever gone on a yoga retreat? So I love my yoga class. I love my yoga teacher. Uh, I have started practicing yoga every morning, most every morning.

06:36.60
Jeffe Kennedy
And I think it's really good for me. Uh, there are a lot of things I love about it. Um, I have no interest in building my life around yoga. And sometimes I wonder,

06:49.11
Jeffe Kennedy
I don't know. It just seems like some people do right. I know a lot of people who get really into yoga and then they do like the yoga teacher training. And you know nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this. I I'm saying I don't get it because my yoga teacher also does these retreats and they look enticing on the surface right? You know I get these emails about it with the beautiful pictures and it's like you know a seaside resort in Mexico or an island in Greece and you go and you um, know you're gone for a couple of weeks and it looks

07:26.90
Jeffe Kennedy
It looks enticing. It looks relaxing, except that I don't want to have to go and do yoga. I realize that this is the point, but when they say things like, you know, we spend the morning doing yoga of various kinds and then the afternoon is yours to relax or do things. And then we gather again in the evening for more yoga. And it's like, that's that's a lot of yoga. Um, and I don't,

07:55.32
Jeffe Kennedy
I don't understand wanting to do it that much but this is apparently why I'm a writer and not a yoga teacher.

08:02.78
Jeffe Kennedy
But I also don't like the idea of some some kinds of spa resorts I guess where you go and you eat only certain kinds of food and i don't know I don't even know why I'm telling all of you this just ah.

08:20.31
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah, if I go on vacation i I want to have this is okay this is what my thing is if I go on vacation i want to be able to um do exactly what I want to do.

08:34.84
Jeffe Kennedy
I don't want to be. in a yoga class all morning long I don't want to have to reconvene in the evening and chance I don't want to have to.

08:46.74
Jeffe Kennedy
Do anything except for exactly what I feel like doing at any given moment that's. That's my ideal vacation. So this is probably why you will never also find me on like one of those things where they tour you around, you know, and send you, you know, put you on the bus and you go see this thing on this day and all that sort of thing. Um, I don't like being trapped into doing stuff.

09:10.23
Jeffe Kennedy
And so, um This could be very much a me thing because I know a lot of people out there prefer to have structure. Maybe that's a difference. The personality difference whether you like externally imposed structure or internally.

09:27.38
Jeffe Kennedy
So yeah, I um. but I'm just probably never going to go on a yoga retreat. I and I guess I feel like on some level that this is a personal failing like if I were a better human being I would want to go on yoga retreats but I actually don't.

09:47.00
Jeffe Kennedy
I think some of it is because.

09:52.22
Jeffe Kennedy
that I think because I'm fortunate dabble life that is generally quite peaceful and has space for me to be able to do things and so I don't necessarily need to go somewhere else to to have I don't know mental space. Ah.

10:12.26
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah. Yeah.

10:15.83
Jeffe Kennedy
Excuse me there. Um, my nose was itching. So let's see what was else you know I don't have that much to say do I I think because I've just been kind of spacing out the last few days.

10:34.79
Jeffe Kennedy
Refilling the well. Yeah I think I'm ready to to write this book and I'm excited because I have a lot of time to write it and I was realizing on Monday I'm going to start and I don't really know.

10:51.54
Jeffe Kennedy
where I'm going to start exactly and it doesn't matter i get to start wherever and I can always change it. Um, and that's going to be that's going to be excellent.

11:06.36
Jeffe Kennedy
Um,

11:09.75
Jeffe Kennedy
Let's see what else I guess I just don't have that much to say. All right. I rather than sit here and talk about how I don't have much to say and my brain is empty. I am going to go ahead and get some things done and i will talk to you all next week maybe or maybe with or wi without Vela.

11:28.56
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, you all take care. Bye bye.