First Cup of Coffee – August 12, 2026

Ego, really bad writing advice, and what I think Jeff Bezos has in common with creators who believe they're successful because they are just that special. Also, an interesting story about "AI" tags and Bramble - another reason to love them!

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Among The Thorns

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New Releases ~

Blades, Books, and the Bandit

Love, Lies, and Ley Lines

MAGIC REBORN

Never The Roses

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Thank you for listening! You all take care. 

Transcript

00:01.26
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

00:16.64
Jeffe Kennedy
Delicious. Today is Wednesday, August 12th. um 10 days left. of my 50s. Not that that bothers me.

00:28.67
Jeffe Kennedy
It's just weird. It's weird. Last weekend, I was in Tucson visiting my mother. And I hung out with my stepsister. who We are weirdly very close to the same age.

00:42.15
Jeffe Kennedy
did not become stepsisters until our forties even though we did go to the same high school. It's like this weird coincidental thing. But she was a year behind me in school because I'm an August baby and she's a December baby.

00:56.46
Jeffe Kennedy
But she is awesome. turning 60 this year and uh we were just musing on how very strange it is. You know, and perceptions of age are so bizarre I mean, I think partly because it's...

01:12.43
Jeffe Kennedy
changed so much that you know like what we remember our parents being like at 60 or our grandparents sixty at 60 is not how we feel. now So that's...

01:24.20
Jeffe Kennedy
There's that disconnect. But then there's also like this cultural perception disconnect where I saw someone complaining about how um, his father still has A landline.

01:37.49
Jeffe Kennedy
on his wall and how What a sign of like... age this is and Even though he never, hasn't gotten calls on it in years. Why does he keep this landline? And yeah you're picturing this poor old man. And the guy is 54.

01:54.69
Jeffe Kennedy
No. It's like... Really? So it's it's ah it's a funny thing. um you know it's gratifying to me that people are always telling me that I don't look.

02:07.83
Jeffe Kennedy
Like I could be turning 60. I mean, long-time listeners will recall the Botox story. of where I won't tell the whole story again, but the short version is... is where a woman told me how much she admired the fact that I was successful and yet had never had Botox.

02:27.28
Jeffe Kennedy
um which was just very weird. backhanded compliment. I was like, Do I need, do I need Botox? Um, But, and I. Oh.

02:38.56
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm very grateful to all of you who Tell me that I... um Yeah, looking good. Not that many lines. My step sister was saying that. I don't have that many lines on my face.

02:49.00
Jeffe Kennedy
probably because I have a little more. subcutaneous fat then i should oh It's a trade-off. one or the other. um I was telling my stepsister to hope Ciao, ciao.

03:04.92
Jeffe Kennedy
I watched this. interview like one of these clips on instagram right that comes through with Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow talking about being on Friends and what it was like being on Friends together.

03:17.79
Jeffe Kennedy
And. It's interesting because Here are two. Of course. immensely successful actresses, celebrities both still working.

03:29.96
Jeffe Kennedy
Jennifer Aniston, I mean I don't claim to know what kind of work she's had done, but she Looks incredible. right? She looks amazing. No lines, no sagging.

03:44.02
Jeffe Kennedy
Amazing! Amazing. uh, I have a lot of admiration for Jennifer Aniston. I think she's great. And Lisa Kudrow has clearly not had as much work done. um You can really see it in her neck. I always think of...

03:59.48
Jeffe Kennedy
Nora Ephron's essay slash book i can't recall the length where she said um i feel bad about my neck Right, because... It does show. Just show on Probably on everyone, but women are self-conscious about it. um Elisa Kudrow has the the lines and the sagging skin on her neck and her face is not as tight as Jennifer Aniston's.

04:26.09
Jeffe Kennedy
I just looked it up and Jennifer Aniston is 57. and Lisa Kutrow is 63.

04:34.37
Jeffe Kennedy
So a little bit of an age difference, but but basically both of them on either side of me. Oh. Yeah. So. There we are on that stuff.

04:45.28
Jeffe Kennedy
Um... I wanted to tell you all an interesting story. because I know that all of you Listening are not AI stands. I hope that you are not.

04:57.43
Jeffe Kennedy
I appreciated all the people who... commented about my tirade on. not feeding AI and making it starve, like not feeding the trolls.

05:09.16
Jeffe Kennedy
Oh. but I had seen on Facebook I think. Yeah, I think it was Facebook a post from bramble toward bramble my publisher ah with a thing for, you know, an illustration.

05:26.50
Jeffe Kennedy
of for um i mean Sorry, I'm not. This is how you could tell my age, right? amazing. thing I don't think it was a choke map, it was um...

05:38.69
Jeffe Kennedy
It was like the vibes are immaculate and had a... photo collage. So anyway, for Among the Lithuans. And it was beautiful. It was really nice. And there was a tag on it. for AI.

05:52.27
Jeffe Kennedy
And I was... distressed because it's in my contract and everything you know no none of this no general today i you know respect the arts and artists and So I asked my agent about it.

06:06.63
Jeffe Kennedy
And she... went to Bramble about it. And I wanted to tell you all they were fantastic. And they said, immediately replied, they were going to check this out and research it because they are Staunch lady. anti-generative AI, they are um you know, do not use it.

06:26.08
Jeffe Kennedy
Same way out. And so it turns out. that No. generative AI was used to make the image and that it was Facebook slash Meta.

06:38.37
Jeffe Kennedy
that tagged it that way, and they didn't understand why. And they took it down, and they were going to find out and then would. posted when it could be posted without this.

06:50.07
Jeffe Kennedy
erroneous tech. And I thought, Cool. I thought that's great and I appreciated how seriously they took my concerns and I also thought it was very interesting.

07:01.99
Jeffe Kennedy
that it was tagged as such and was not, which I know there's a lot of this going on. reference last week's podcast. So... um Yeah.

07:15.94
Jeffe Kennedy
I thought that that was an interesting thing that I wanted to share.

07:20.72
Jeffe Kennedy
The other thing I wanted to talk about today is and um I hope that my thoughts are formed on this. well enough. Hello. But I was thinking about one of my standard complaints.

07:36.39
Jeffe Kennedy
about

07:40.10
Jeffe Kennedy
and I guess it falls under the category of author advice. And I know I've talked about this multiple times. as it is one of my standard complaints. which is...

07:51.02
Jeffe Kennedy
The author who...

07:54.89
Jeffe Kennedy
who thinks that they're successful because they're the shit. I mean, that's that's what it boils down to. and And you can see this happen. fairly often where there is someone who is has a wildly successful book and they will.

08:12.71
Jeffe Kennedy
give it advice something like, Well, what you need to do is write a really good book. which I think is the most odious advice that there is in the world because What? not It's like you're not trying to do that. Everybody is trying to do that, right? And when you're a newbie author, you don't know what a really good book is.

08:33.25
Jeffe Kennedy
And I mean, there's a lot of things to be said about that. And I could talk about that more if anyone's interested, but. The worst part of this advice is that they act like That is...

08:46.43
Jeffe Kennedy
the defining qualifier. that because they are the shit and they wrote a really good book. that they naturally succeeded The cream rose to the top and the world fell at their feet. And isn't that wonderful? And it's it's utter bullshit.

09:04.68
Jeffe Kennedy
We're definitely going with that particular word today. It is. It's just, and it's... books. because None of that is true. um, there are Well.

09:16.82
Jeffe Kennedy
many a flower has bloomed unseen right there are so many really good books that have gotten little to no notice that maybe never got published. I had one writing friend very early on in my first critique group.

09:31.83
Jeffe Kennedy
who um would never send out her work. She sheep oh Yeah, she she lacked the confidence. She kept thinking she would get better. And she wrote exquisite.

09:45.67
Jeffe Kennedy
stories. exquisite. And I don't think any of them were ever published. I don't think anyone outside of our group ever read them.

09:55.38
Jeffe Kennedy
There are lots of books that... get published and... vanished without much notice for various reasons. there are plenty of books that are not great, that are very successful for various reasons.

10:13.87
Jeffe Kennedy
I love you. But... So much of it has to do with timing, with the public mood. whiz. packaging with price point, with what's Hot. At the moment,

10:28.72
Jeffe Kennedy
um It's... There are so, so many variables. And I'm going to... boil it all down to Serendipity. right it's It's a little bit different than luck.

10:40.77
Jeffe Kennedy
right Serendipity is... What? determines whether or not a book is super successful. and I'm i'm gonna, this is a hill.

10:52.69
Jeffe Kennedy
that I will die on. um You know the right book talker gets a hold of it at the right moment and phrases it the right way that lights people up. There are certain things that can be done.

11:06.02
Jeffe Kennedy
to push the popularity of something. But... Really, it comes down to serendipity. Timing. What's behind it? Who's behind it?

11:18.58
Jeffe Kennedy
and The authors that I respect Wow. and the people who I think. have something useful to offer you.

11:32.11
Jeffe Kennedy
by way of advice are the people who will acknowledge the role of serendipity. who will acknowledge that they were in the right place at the right time and they wrote the right thing. And for me, a really good example of this is...

11:46.56
Jeffe Kennedy
neck of the roses, coming conveniently over my shoulder. Yeah. Ah. Never the Roses was

11:54.38
Jeffe Kennedy
and I'll tell this fast because I've told this story a lot, but was the book I was not supposed to be writing. It fell on me from out of the sky. It kind of dictated itself to me. I did not expect to write it. I thought it was weird. I thought it was going to go nowhere. It came from a... place of pain i was going through really hard things and it came out of that place of pain and i wrote it kind of for myself.

12:19.86
Jeffe Kennedy
and And then... what it hit the USA Today bestseller list and just barely missed the New York Times bestseller list, but alas. um And part of why it didn't hit the New York Times list was because...

12:33.92
Jeffe Kennedy
a couple of other big fantasy romances. Harry Potter. fanfic. came out that exact same day and bumped it down the list, and so it goes. I mean, that's like how these things play out, right?

12:49.55
Jeffe Kennedy
oh but And Never the Roses is a special book. I love this book. It's a wonderful book. It's done many things for me. It's different in some ways, but also it is my...

13:04.19
Jeffe Kennedy
73rd? published title something like that right and i've had other books do really well i've had other books. vanish without A ripple?

13:15.23
Jeffe Kennedy
And it's like, well. I'm the same writer and I don't think that my... quality varies that wildly anymore. I think it did in the beginning.

13:26.21
Jeffe Kennedy
But. You know, I think. you know It just has to do with. subject matter and timing and what kind of cover it gets and um the fact that Tor Bramble published a whole bunch of copies of Never the Roses, and it was everywhere for a while.

13:44.48
Jeffe Kennedy
um Sanctuary. right And if... An author gives you advice on how to get published or how to be successful.

13:55.74
Jeffe Kennedy
and does not acknowledge the role of serendipity. I would give them the sun guy. because there's so much ego going on there. And I was thinking about this again the other day because I was thinking about someone like a Jeff.

14:11.79
Jeffe Kennedy
Bezos. These are spaces I don't even know. um or some of these other tech bros. who are positioning themselves to be the Incredibly wealthy.

14:27.60
Jeffe Kennedy
billionaire, millionaire, oligarchy, you right? Billionaire, I guess, oligarchy. um and that they think that they are What's the word? Say it with me. They think they are the shit.

14:40.29
Jeffe Kennedy
right? Because they Think that they did that. All by themselves. And we'll stick with Jeff Bezos as... an example. that he created and built up Amazon. right and he made it happen and now he is a billionaire and he ditched his starter wife.

15:03.75
Jeffe Kennedy
who turns out to have tons more class than he did, so you know. Good for you, Mackenzie. ah And. married this Uh.

15:16.56
Jeffe Kennedy
This woman, I mean, I don't want to. shame another woman but uh Let's say that she can't hold a candle. Put it that way. uh, But...

15:28.12
Jeffe Kennedy
He trots her out like a trophy. And he goes to these things and he acts like he is the shit. Right? and He...

15:40.76
Jeffe Kennedy
is not acknowledging the fact that. There is a huge world of people. who enabled him to be successful. Right?

15:51.50
Jeffe Kennedy
All of those programmers, all of those brilliant programmers who worked for him, all of the people who supported him, who gave him ideas who executed ideas.

16:05.01
Jeffe Kennedy
all of the people educated by our public school systems who could drive to the Amazon offices on our roads, the fact that the U .S. postal system was in place and existed for him to capitalize on to deliver goods, right? These are all things that Bezos did not create, but he acts like he created them.

16:30.62
Jeffe Kennedy
Right? He acts like he is this. demigod? God? who like waved his penis, and... brought this world into being.

16:42.98
Jeffe Kennedy
And it's it's ego. It's that same kind of ego. and So many of you know that I consider myself to be a practicing Taoist. and the Daoists All.

16:56.24
Jeffe Kennedy
um You want me to say it all? because Dallas are individualists, right? We are all individuals. No. ah um you know, is the one of the credos One of the main principles is to avoid ego.

17:13.18
Jeffe Kennedy
that, um, therefore the The sage hides the jewel. in her heart. right you don't Put your jewels. out there and dance them around for the world to see because Ego is a trap.

17:27.72
Jeffe Kennedy
Eco is... Another thing you shouldn't feed. So here we have AI and we have ego. And Jeff Bezos, don't feed any of them. Or the trolls, don't feed any of these things.

17:39.06
Jeffe Kennedy
Um. Feed the good dog, not the bad dog.

17:45.12
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm not gonna put a... value judgment on the black dog versus the white dog. Huh. Although I suppose that's a fairly well-established metaphor. Bye. But yeah. um Choose what you want to feed.

17:59.51
Jeffe Kennedy
And I... strongly encourage all of you to Pay attention to the advice givers. or the successful people.

18:09.88
Jeffe Kennedy
who acknowledge the role of serendipity. who acknowledge their support systems, the people who help them do the things that they're trying to do.

18:21.04
Jeffe Kennedy
and the people who recognize that they are Well, that's just, you know. not necessarily the ship that that there are a lot of people doing really great stuff out there and you know some Some get luckier than others.

18:38.25
Jeffe Kennedy
Bye. and Lucky now? Maybe not so lucky later. Not so lucky now, maybe lucky later. Up and down, up and down. There goes the carousel of life, right?

18:50.74
Jeffe Kennedy
Alright. On that note... I am going to get to work on Number of the rows is 3. I finished through Scene three. So I'm at like 40 ,000 words on this book.

19:02.79
Jeffe Kennedy
and let's go So. You all can remind me of this that I'm happy with it right now when I hit midpoint in. decide that it's a complete disaster.

19:13.83
Jeffe Kennedy
All right. ah i will talk to you all next Wednesday. and you all take care.