00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I'm here with my first cup of coffee.
00:12.71
jeffekennedy
Ah, nirvana! today is say it with me people. It is Friday whoopoo may twenty fourth I apologize that I was not here the last Monday and previous friday. I think I forgot to tell you all that I finally finally went to Tucson it had been delayed so many times that I like forgot to mention but I figure you all probably figured it out I also as I always do had this sort of nebulous idea that um. I would podcast from there which I always think I will do and I never do we left on Friday and I kind of thought I might podcast before we left but I didn't do that either? So um, there we are then so I have. A number of things on my list although they feel slightly stale at this point because of aforementioned long pause in the podcast Ah thank you all for bearing with me. It was a good trip. It was a great trip to go see my mom. It was um, she's doing really well you're doing really well mom. She's even talking about like going to a senior social group next month which I think is great for her. She said she doesn't want to get married again.
01:40.12
jeffekennedy
But she thinks it would be nice to someone want to go out to dinner with sometimes and not be lonely and I think that's fantastic and she looks really good. She's looking really well rested. So she's still sad and she misses my stepdad I miss my stepdad but she's. She's doing great so that was good to see and we got a bunch of the financial stuff handled. So I mean we're like 98% of the way there all great stuff. Um, yeah, so ah, the lovely Deena Ray who um is on submission now. So everyone say a nice um prayer of to who I my whomever you pray to or the universe or whatever wishing her luck on that. Um. She asked me to talk more about the meeting with tor and actually I had to look at my calendar actually I have to talk about it at all here on the podcast because I did um I had that meeting on whatever it was Monday the thirteenth. And as we've already covered in exhaustive detail I have not podcasted since so um.
03:09.48
jeffekennedy
Yeah, ah I'm sorry I had to think about it for a second the meeting with tor I've met with Editor Ali and her assistant Dianna and agent Sarah and we had a Zoom interview. And we primarily talked about the second book that will follow never the roses and we wanted Ali is I feel like this is open news now going on maternity leave soon and so I wanted to talk to her. About what the premise would be because I'm going to be writing this book while she's out and she's being great I think I did mention this she's being great about she is not going to be available. She's not going to look at email. She's not going to take phone calls which I am in total support of I really feel like it's important. When you have those babies that you have to be there and present and focus on the babies and not be like trying to do work too. But that means I'll turn this book in in November which comes back and I won't really be able to talk to her about it and so if you don't know it is. Very common almost I want to say standard practice when you have a contracted book because Tor bought books 1 and 2 from me book one was already written book. 2 is obviously not written ah very very very often.
04:42.51
jeffekennedy
Editors will ask for outlines of book 2 so that they can weigh in and I adore Ali because she even said flat out I'm not going to ask you for an outline and I said that's good because it would be a lie because case you don't know. I mean unless you're one of the 2 people out there who lives under a rock and doesn't know this about me. Ah I cannot outline I cannot pre-plot. It's not that I don't know how it's not that I don't understand the principle. It's that this is not how my story rain works.
05:19.26
jeffekennedy
I have to discover the stories I write it. What I can do is I can talk about it some um and the oft given advice out there which I may have given myself It's certainly been given to me is if an editor requires you to write an outline. That you write one anyway, you make it up and then if you diverge from it. No one cares I hear that a lot. Um and I suppose it's true ish in principle but then it's like well. What's the point. Why? Why are you even doing this It's like you know to give them an outline so that they think they know where the book is going but then you're just lying about it because that's what it would be for me. It would be like oh yeah, um, for those of you who have listened for a long time. Ah, you followed some of my process with writing the book that started out as amethyst run and then became first order of the fae realms. You know I wrote the first what did I write it wrote about 27000 words close to a hundred pages and. When I we decide and and we went on submission with it and we got a lot of interest but people wanted the full manuscript so I went and I wrote the full manuscript and when I did that the story changed considerably because.
06:53.25
jeffekennedy
And and I haven't met many writers who say that that does not happen. But for me, it's like well then why bother having an outline to begin with because you know even though everybody says well the story diverges for them. What. Why not just go with that. Why not let it diverge and know from the beginning that that's what's going to happen. so ah so yeah um so Ali said not going to ask you for an outline. She understands. My process. We talked about it and she's very she's a really great editor that way that she wanted to work within my process. So um I had talked about the idea a little bit with agent Sarah just some there's some strategy involved. So 1 piece of strategy is that Editor Ali had asked that book 2 not be a direct follow on to book one not a direct sequel because she said that ties the success of book 2 to the success of book 1 which I can absolutely see you know and sometimes that's good if book one is super successful. Then yeah, you get all that momentum on book 2 but if book one doesn't do what you want it to do and you never know right? then book 2 gives you a second chance.
08:25.76
jeffekennedy
Right? Ah and I had been thinking about and I know none of you have read this book. Well actually a couple of you have but most of you have not and it ends at this place that is not a cliff hangar by any stretch. It's a conclusive ending. But there are threads unresolved and and you're gonna want to know what happens to some of these people. Um, you can guess but and and there there's really good reasons for this so you know apologizing in advance kind of. But yeah, it's. That's the kind of ending it has so 1 thing that agent Sarah suggested was that actually let me back up slightly I was what I want to do is this story that I have in mind. Um. Thought would take place kind of in parallel to the events of book one and and Sarah liked that idea and she said but don't tell us what happened to the people in book one they're going to overlap. They're going to intertwine. We don't know yet how much right? because. This is how I write but though Sarah said don't tell us too much about what happened to them so that that way everybody is really wanting the conclusion of that story right? So we can sell to our another book. So that's the strategy there.
09:57.80
jeffekennedy
And Editor Ali was great with this concept. We didn't put it to her exactly that way. Actually Sarah did me I'll take that back Sarah did and Ali said that's great thinking. Ah so Deena asked me to talk about. What it's like let me I wrote down her wording what it's like to talk about an amorphous idea. Um, and so one thing I'm going to copy out this at the beginning is is I am pretty good at talking about amorphous ideas right now. At this point my career because dear reader that's all I ever have. Um and so what I did was I gave them pieces that I knew as a jumping off point. Ah, and I'm going to try to. Do this without spoilering the premise in part for you but largely for me and this is I think an important thing to explore discuss is that sometimes over talking an idea can. Drain the energy from it. There are a few people I will talk to about my ideas that group I absolutely trusted. Um, because I'd worked with Alie as an editor because I've worked with Sarah for so long and more important they trust me.
11:29.19
jeffekennedy
Um, they have confidence in my ability to make a story work which is a really wonderful place to be at this point my career and I think that if you're a newbie author this is going to be harder for you because you just don't have that. That bank account that karmic bank account built up where you know people aren't confident that you know how to finish a book that you know how to land the plane as it were I used that metaphor with someone who is an aspiring author not long ago and it it didn't make sense to them. You know they asked me to explain what I meant and it's it's just sort of the and sort of a physical idea of or a physical metaphor of writing a story right? where you have the you know you go down the runway and you take off and you fly fly fly fly fly. And then you descend and you land the plane and some writers usually okay, let me back up slightly every writer has problems with part of that process. Usually there is going to be 1 piece of that process. That will make um that it will be your eternal stumbling block I suppose there's it can vary from book to book. But you know like there are some people who ah cannot start. Ah Doinda duringda jones is one of those people where she will rewrite the beginning.
13:02.85
jeffekennedy
50000000000 times until she gets it right? and then she writes the rest of the book like that. Ah for many many many authors. It's the middle they you know you hear people talking about the sagging middle. They lose steam they lose momentum they get bored.
13:20.63
jeffekennedy
It's that cruising altitude that just does the man other writers cannot land the plane george r martin is a writer who cannot land the plane That's why he hasn't finished a song of ice and fire. It's really really hard for him to land the plane he loves taken off. And he's you and he's a master storyteller he can he can get that plane in the air you you're with him from I don't know you're with him from buy him the ticket right? You know you're like yes, you're on board. You're down the runway you're taken off. He's great at cruising altitude you know and like you fly all over into amazing worlds. But you ain't never gonna land. Um, and I say that with love George it's just it's it's hard. It's you know everybody has a hard part with the process. Um, and that was a little bit of a tangent and I'm losing my train of thought oh that they have confidence in me and that I can land the play. What part of the process is difficult for me I don't know I think it might change with every book. At this point.
14:33.82
jeffekennedy
It's probably around for me. It's like that maybe getting up to cruising altitude I can get down the runway and take off but then maybe I have a bumpy taking off. It's usually like around that act 1 climax I I tend to spin. In fact. Unreluctant wizard I have gone back I've let's see I've hit um du to du done to den to done I'm looking at the wrong page wrong book there. We go? Yeah I at 26614 words I've got back to the beginning and am revising to try to get the right head around this story. And I have done that more than once so talking about the amorphous idea for me stories always start with character and situation. So I threw out there that here are the characters that I want to have and it was all about the. The heroin and I said this is how I want her to be this is her challenge. This is what she's the situation that she's in this is how it plays into the politics of the overall world because her particular situation is very pertinent. To the politics of the overall world and to things that were established in never the roses and and I you know that was about all I knew and 1 thing I was very nervous about is that ah never the roses has has big emotions in it. Um.
16:07.70
jeffekennedy
I think ah the assistant editor Dinas Dnna sorry said um that you know like she was looking forward to finding out how I was going to stomp on their hearts this time which is intimidating right? It's like what if I can't stomp on your hearts. Ah which is funny isn't it. Um. And so one of the things we talked about was and I and I just said that flat out I said I'm I'm a little nervous about that because I'm I'm feeling pressure the first book just came out of me I'm not sure this is something I can make happen. So as we were talking about the story and they all really loved my premise which was great. You know and and Ali suggested she said what if this time the the huge emotional piece is related to this kind of relationship instead. And I went oo and everybody did there were a couple things that I do love talking stories with people like that. Ah they said well what if and you because they said well what about romance Jeffy In't mentioned romance at this point and and Ellie's I she's being very dumb.
17:22.90
jeffekennedy
Diplomatic with me and she's like it's there going to be a romance because of this bramble and I said yes I said of course because it is bramble and because it's me it's I don't think I've written a book without a romance with the potential exception of prisoner of the crown. But that's because the first book was about the trauma and the romance happens in the next 2 books and I really regard that trilogy as being almost a almost more like lord of the rings but shorter um, where the. It's it's really one one arc but I know some people have not wanted to read prisoner of the crown because it's all about trauma and and not romance, but it's an important story anyway. Ah so.
18:15.96
jeffekennedy
So they said what about romance and I said okay so here is my very vague idea that this is the I don't know who the hero is yet but I have this idea that he would have this kind of romantic interaction. And they all really liked that and Ali suggested she said well what if he is has this role in the world and we all went who and so there were there were several pieces of that and as we were talking I said how about if I do this with the pov. And and Sarah was like I just got goosebumps. So. It's that kind of conversation. Um, you're talking with people who understand tropes and stories really really well and they had already all read this book and knew this book and the world and the characters. Well. So it was easy to have that kind of conversation. Ah, you're not always going to be able to have that. Um, when you're a newbie author. Ah you know you don't have your track record yet. The people you're talking to may not have read your book and your world yet. So you're not going to have that same kind of harmony. But that's what you look for. Is you try to find ways to focus on character and situation. What kind of tropes and trajectories. There will be how it's going to play out over time.
19:44.55
jeffekennedy
Um, and so you know like I can land the plane but I don't know where the plane is landing if we're going to extend the metaphor. So I don't know how this book will end I'm not sure how it's going to work but I'm super excited about the idea and yeah. So there. We are then happy to answer questions. You know you can hit me up on any of the social media if you want me to explain further and otherwise um I hope you all have a fabulous weekend and I will be here on Monday even though it's memorial day in the us but I have podcasts to catch up on. So. You all have lovely long weekend if it is for you and I will talk to you all on Monday you all take care bye bye.
