First Cup of Coffee – July 29, 2026

Very exciting new gate installation today! Otherwise, I'm talking about drafting Never the Roses 3, how to identify the root cause of "writer's block," and approaches to resolving it. Also, choosing the worldbuilding elements that are relevant to your story.

Preorder ~

Among The Thorns

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New Releases ~

Blades, Books, and the Bandit

Love, Lies, and Ley Lines

MAGIC REBORN

Never The Roses

The posture correcting sports bra I love almost more than life itself can be found here

Thank you for listening! You all take care. 

Transcript

00:01.11
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.

00:14.56
Jeffe Kennedy
It's delicious. Today Wednesday, July 29th, last podcast of July. a We are finally getting rain here in Santa Fe. The monsoon rains have finally started kicking in. So, well, things aren't quite greening up.

00:35.19
Jeffe Kennedy
It's taking a little bit. We got seriously baked there. Um, and not in a happy stoner way. Uh, hopefully my garden will eventually recover and I am very exciting news for me having a new gate installed today. Uh, and I think by the time I upload this podcast,

01:00.92
Jeffe Kennedy
I might be able to include a photo of the new gate. So for those who don't know, and maybe I'll have to do like some before and afters on Instagram or something.

01:11.58
Jeffe Kennedy
i have what's called the secret garden, which is a walled garden sort of behind the house. But one of the walls faces the driveway and the road.

01:22.94
Jeffe Kennedy
It's sort of beside the garage. And it is a wooden gate. set into the Adobe wall frame. Well, it's faux adobe, Disney adobe, plaster and lathe, stucco kind of thing.

01:38.20
Jeffe Kennedy
But it looks like adobe.

01:42.26
Jeffe Kennedy
And the gate has pretty much since we bought this house, I moved in. I mean, the house is 30 years old now. I keep thinking this is a new house, but it's, it's not ah so, but that gate, um, like it drags and it catches on the little gravel things and it is a pain to latch and I've needed to replace it for a while.

02:04.25
Jeffe Kennedy
The hinges are, you know, like, did I mention 30 years old? So anyway, I had been trying for a while to get a new gate. And what I really wanted was instead of wood, um, which looks fine and matches in some ways, I wanted like raw iron, right?

02:24.31
Jeffe Kennedy
I wanted something where you can actually see into the secret garden, kind of like, um, in New Orleans, right? Where you can see through those, um, gates into the courtyards and you get this glimpse of how pretty it is. Cause even well struggling along without water, the secret garden is really pretty and lush. And then there's a huge lilac right there. And the, the great arbor is right there.

02:53.05
Jeffe Kennedy
And I'm, excited for this thing. So I created a design and it is, I want to say reminiscent of drawn from never the roses and send among the thorns.

03:09.14
Jeffe Kennedy
And I'm excited for you all to see it. I'm excited for me to see it. So now yeah hopefully it'll be amazing.

03:22.58
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, in other news, I am kind of getting back into a routine. finally, I've got over a thousand, 30,000 words on never the roses three. Um, I book release book tour kind of slowed me down, which I did allow for. And I'm trying to be Zen about that. And then I have to like ramp up again, but it is what it is. Right.

03:49.85
Jeffe Kennedy
so I'm actually doing better this week than I have, I think a month maybe. So and that's with only two days down this week. So that's good. I'm getting, getting my, getting back into shape. Right.

04:06.14
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, I have to, I'd hit a chapter before book release and book tour that bogged me down and I try not to get bogged down.

04:17.53
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, People ask me a lot about how I deal with writer's block. And I say, I don't believe in writer's block, which I actually don't. And just to be very clear about this, because I know that like not all of you have been listening to me forever.

04:35.89
Jeffe Kennedy
i think that there are multiple levels to the thing that people call writer's block, which is why I don't believe in it. I don't think that there is a particular block that writers get, right? I think there's a number of different things that people like to throw into that kettle and that it's not useful because you're not addressing what the actual problem is because you're throwing it into the stew. And so we don't know, you know, like, is it the carrots? Is it the potatoes? Is it the fact that the meat is too old? Is it the fact that you used a stock that's too weak, right?

05:13.24
Jeffe Kennedy
It's, it gets lost in the stew. It becomes meaningless, right? So you could say, oh, well it's because the stew is bad, but we don't know why the stew is bad. Right? So I think that the first things to rule out with any kind of feeling like you can't write, like you've gotten bogged down and the words aren't coming.

05:34.97
Jeffe Kennedy
First thing to rule out is the the physical, mental, emotional, right? That, you know, like, are you healthy? Are you struggling with depression or anxiety?

05:47.48
Jeffe Kennedy
Because those things very often get in the way of being creative. I often talk about Maslow's pyramid of needs as being a really useful lens through which to view these things, because you have to make sure that your, um,

06:01.88
Jeffe Kennedy
um the base of your pyramid is handled before you can ascend to the creative part of the pyramid. Right? So, you know, are you secure in your food and your housing? Uh, do you have what you need to feel safe?

06:19.90
Jeffe Kennedy
If you don't have these things in place, it's really hard to scale up to being creative. So, so yeah, let's go wellbeing, emotional stuff.

06:32.23
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, And those are things that you address, right? So, you know, one thing that Kelly Robson, my friend and I talk about a whole lot is that writing takes a lot of emotional energy. And if your emotional energy is going to other places, it's really hard to have any for writing. So you have to handle that.

06:57.40
Jeffe Kennedy
If those things are handled, then You know, it's kind of like you figured out that your ingredients are fresh because we're back to the making stew analogy. Uh, your, you've made sure your ingredients are fresh. You use the right stock. You've got the right combination, but somehow the stew isn't coming together. And that's when it gets a little bit more interesting because it's like, okay, well, what do you need? Does it need to simmer longer?

07:26.04
Jeffe Kennedy
do you need to add certain spices? Do you need to rethink your recipe? I know a fair number of writers who say things like that when they get stuck in the story, then they know that they have reached a blind alley, that they went the wrong way and they need to go back and change directions.

07:46.58
Jeffe Kennedy
And to this I say no. Nay, I say. ah What I think is, at least for me, because I do think you have to figure out your own signals, your own process. You have to know when when you slow down, what does that mean?

08:03.10
Jeffe Kennedy
And it can mean several things for me, but very often for me, if I've hit a part where I'm feeling bogged down, where i hit a wall, I keep chipping because that means that there's something good here.

08:15.77
Jeffe Kennedy
There's something that I need to dig out that I need to excavate and find. Um, Sometimes it means that I have lost my threads because there's always a certain point in my drafting where I feel like I need to go back to the beginning and rise revise from the beginning and work through. And I can generally tell when that is. There's a different kind of feeling of skidding to a stop and I don't know where the story's going next.

08:46.14
Jeffe Kennedy
And i mean, I never know where the story's going next, but it's a different feeling of Like it's just, um there's a vacancy there absence. And I need to go back to the beginning and gather up my threads again.

09:01.85
Jeffe Kennedy
In this case, what I needed was expert help. And I don't want to spoil it, but I did throw out a question on social media saying that I needed help from someone who could talk to me about abstract math, imaginary and irrational numbers.

09:25.78
Jeffe Kennedy
And for those of you who are big fans of Never the Roses and Among the Thorns, which thank you very much, you will be able to guess why I need to know this. but So I put it out on Blue Sky, Facebook, and Threads, basically saying, let me read out my actual question.

09:51.99
Jeffe Kennedy
Okay. So I feel like it's, I mean, maybe spoilery, but it's on social media. So get what you get. I asked, who do I know that can talk to me about sophisticated mathematical theory around irrational and imaginary numbers and equations?

10:12.82
Jeffe Kennedy
And the reason that I asked it this way

10:17.62
Jeffe Kennedy
was because i needed to be able to talk through this. Like I know Up to calculus and biochemistry, I understand a fair amount of mathematics as it applies to neurophysiology,

10:35.00
Jeffe Kennedy
but I don't really know abstract numbers, abstract math, imaginary numbers. I know what they are, but I don't know how to, how to solve my plot plot problem, how, or how my character could use these to solve their problems.

10:55.86
Jeffe Kennedy
And I needed to talk it through. So, um, interestingly, I will, um, jump to the TLDR too late. I, uh, best answer came from Facebook, right? You know, it's always like, I got like no, almost no engagement. A couple of people like Reposted it on blue sky, but otherwise no engagement on the blue sky. looks, I keep wanting blue sky to to happen. I want it to be fetched and it's just not Facebook. I got a number of comments, a few, for some reason, on this question brought out the wise asses.

11:35.77
Jeffe Kennedy
and I got several jokes. Uh, but one person, oh who I knew in high school told me that his son does abstract. math and research and was willing to connect me. And so the, so the short version of this story is that I ended up texting with this son who was an utter delight. I mean, i love this guy.

12:03.86
Jeffe Kennedy
I love this guy. I mean, he obviously could be my son. and I've never met him in real life, but he was so engaging and he really, um, embraced the question.

12:17.14
Jeffe Kennedy
And helped me solve the problem. And he, one of the things that I loved about him, and I think I love this about younger people in general, is that they have so much less.

12:31.19
Jeffe Kennedy
i know I don't know if it's less misogyny, if it's less um sexist bias. I mean, he knew that he was talking to a female high school friend of his dad's, right? I don't know how much else he knew about me except that like I write novels.

12:48.43
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, he didn't treat me like I was dumb, which I half expected and which some of these threats comments, threats were the the worst for bringing out like reaching people who I don't know and would just say snarky things.

13:08.82
Jeffe Kennedy
so I'll read you a few of these threads comments. Well, one person said, ah I got you, call me. And then matter of fact, video chat, we're going to need a whiteboard, LOL. And was like, I'm sorry, do I do i even know you?

13:24.89
Jeffe Kennedy
Which, no, I don't. um Someone replied, so who do you know that can talk to you about equations? Did anyone guess right? Which is just like, what this was an opportunity to be snarky. And it so I actually answered that one because yeah, it turned out I knew several people who could talk to me about this. Like they think they're picking apart my etymology, the my phrasing, like I didn't ask the right question. like, oh no.

13:55.48
Jeffe Kennedy
yeah someone said lots of universities publish course notes online, some intro to number theory. I'm sure if you want complex analysis, I'd learn a good amount of analysis first. So you're not totally lost.

14:09.88
Jeffe Kennedy
of And it's like, okay, so you paid no attention to what I'm asking for, right? It's, I already know a fair amount of higher math, just not how to solve this particular problem.

14:22.23
Jeffe Kennedy
And then there were a couple of, jokes more like math jokes, which I don't know why this brought out the math joke people. Some people told me, um, that I could watch videos with visualizations on the topics.

14:40.11
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, someone said math is a hoax. And I don't know if that was just like a way to be witty or something. um Somebody said you might be shocked at how good the AIs are at explaining mathematical theory, which a yes, I would be shocked since the AIs are garbage out and often get things wrong and also does not solve my problem.

15:09.46
Jeffe Kennedy
Like, why would you even say this? um Somebody wrote on there, are you people serious? And I don't know if that was in response to the snarky comments or what.

15:23.00
Jeffe Kennedy
Somebody sent me a video that was like how imaginary numbers were invented. And they said, you will enjoy this. And it's like, of will I? And I don't care because that's not answering my question.

15:36.76
Jeffe Kennedy
So anyway, the um delightful son of my high school friend, uh, treated me like an intelligent person. perhaps his dad, I mean, he and I were like in the honor classes and stuff together. So he might've said, you know, she's not a math idiot, but, um, he, yeah, you know, explain things to me in a way that was easy for me to understand and actually illuminated. I'd like realized that I had ideas about this already. And he helped me connect those dots and he's going to be in the acknowledgements. And I sent him copies of the books and it was amazing.

16:18.71
Jeffe Kennedy
So that was really cool. And I was glad that I did it when I did, I had considered doing my usual drafting.

16:30.33
Jeffe Kennedy
process, one way to get around getting bogged down was bookmarking and skipping. I thought, well, I could just write that he gets himself out of this situation and now he has the tools to to do this thing that he needed to do.

16:47.67
Jeffe Kennedy
um And I and kept writing. And maybe I should have done that, but I felt very strongly that I needed to solve this problem. It's a big part of the character arc.

17:01.94
Jeffe Kennedy
I think it's going to strongly affect how the rest of the book plays out because it ah has to do with how the magic is applied, which is like how problems are solved and how enemies are defeated and so forth.

17:17.27
Jeffe Kennedy
So while I will advise very often that you not spend a lot of time on world building, because I do think this falls squarely within world building. It's like, how does the magic system work?

17:30.68
Jeffe Kennedy
Right. Uh, and this was like, how does this magic system work in a different circumstance? Uh,

17:39.48
Jeffe Kennedy
I think while I will often advise to get the story in place first, because I think world building can be a real displacement to activity. I think that if you really, really love world building, it is easy to spend all of your creative time filling up the file cabinets with world building stuff and not actually writing the story.

18:02.90
Jeffe Kennedy
And so I will often say, you know, like, don't worry about naming the place or don't worry about um I know what the weather is, what season it is. I sometimes have my stories take place in one season and by the end of the book, I figured out what season it needs to be and I change it.

18:22.14
Jeffe Kennedy
Because for me, most of the time, it doesn't matter that much, but for the things that really matter for the story, and this is when I do my masterclass on um world building from a character driven perspective, this is what I'm getting at because you want to look at the world building that's actually going to affect what happens to your characters.

18:47.22
Jeffe Kennedy
So like it may not matter if it's summer or winter, if your characters are living in a nice house and never go anywhere. If you are trying to move an army through a landscape,

19:05.14
Jeffe Kennedy
then it is going to matter if it's summer or winter, right? Like how difficult is moving them through it? Uh, if I hate to use politics because I think politics always affects things.

19:19.45
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, but let's say if if it doesn't matter to your characters, whether it's a democracy or a monarchy, which I would argue it pretty much always does, but let's just say that like, it's a, a small story they're doing,

19:35.70
Jeffe Kennedy
I don't know, rebuilding a castle in some part of the the country. It doesn't really matter who's sitting on the throne, right? of Except that it always matters.

19:47.32
Jeffe Kennedy
But you don't necessarily have to nail down the political system for every story. The magic system...

19:59.22
Jeffe Kennedy
You know, a lot of times the magic system's nebulous and it may not really matter to the story. It's like, oh, well, everybody has a little bit of magic or everybody's psychic or um everybody can shift into a different animal. Everybody can shift into a werewolf and then that's determined certain things.

20:16.22
Jeffe Kennedy
But how your characters... employ magic can strongly affect the story, right? what What are they able to do? And I know like a lot of superhero stories, their origin points come from, you know, like, well, things like, what if we had Superman battle Batman? What can they each do? what are they what are the flaws in each? And those are like fun thought problems for people, right? Like how would they battle each other? Who would win?

20:47.09
Jeffe Kennedy
What advantages would they each have? what would be that the downfall for each of them. So, sometimes you have to get these things figured out along the way. And you learn it over time, which I know is like not terribly helpful.

21:05.72
Jeffe Kennedy
So, anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I will continue to write this week and I will talk to you all next week.

21:17.98
Jeffe Kennedy
You all take care. Bye-bye.