She
emails me and says:
I
love you. I love that your books aren't anything. [This novel] is like urban
and traditional fantasy had a baby.
It’s a
funny message to get from your agent – one that makes you laugh even as your
heart clutches at the confirmation that, yes, this is yet another hopelessly
cross-genre novel.
I did
warn her. I met her at RWA after she read Rogue’s
Pawn and loved it. I told her it took me years to sell that book, because
it was neither fantasy nor romance, an urban fantasy, kinda, that takes place
in a non-urban landscape. So, I wrote her back and told her I know I’m
hopeless, that I don’t try to be this way. She responded with strategy to sell
it to the perfect editor.
Which
is why I signed with her. At least she gets me.
And
then I commiserated via IM with one of my critique partners, who is also
hopelessly cross-genre and she wondered what is wrong with us, that we write
this way. Why we just can’t help ourselves. Why we can’t just color inside the
lines for once.
Which
made me remember back when I was six years old. We had a special art project to
paint acrylic flowers and then go over the painting with black marker, making
big, swooping outlines around the petals and leaves. It was supposed to be kind
of abstract and free (this was the early 70s, after all).
I painted
my flowers, bright orange petals circling a yellow center. The image is still
strong in my mind, those colors so vivid and perfect. Those paints had an
intensity I hadn’t encountered before. But, when it came to it, I couldn’t
disrupt that lovely color with big, careless loops. Instead I outlined each
petal with a precise black line.
The
teacher gave me a C, for not following instructions. And the painting won the
grand prize in my school art show. My mother had it hanging up for a long time,
too, in a lime green frame that matched my carefully outlined leaves and stems.
I
suppose the moral here is obvious. As much as I would enjoy getting an A+ from
those editors who pay the big bucks, those bestseller list nods, there’s
something in me that values the story more. Ultimately, I make that choice to
honor the story and characters over the genre rules. It might feel to me that
it needs to be that way—just as those
orange flowers needed to be that way—but I’m still making that choice.
At
least my agent loves me.
BIO:
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author with a writing
career that spans decades. Her works include non-fiction, poetry, short fiction,
and novels. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts
Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday
Memorial Award. Her essays have appeared in many publications, including
Redbook. Her fantasy BDSM romance, Petals and Thorns, originally published
under the pen name Jennifer Paris, has won several reader awards. Sapphire, the first book in Facets of Passion has placed first in
multiple romance contests.
Her most recent works include three fiction series: the
fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of
Thorns, the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion, and the post-apocalyptic vampire erotica of the Blood Currency.
An avid user of social media, Jeffe engages daily with thousands
of fans on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.
She frequently guests on publishers’ Twitter-feeds and reviewers’ blogs.
She’s been an active member of RWA since 2008. She served two terms as
president of RWA’s very large Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal
special-interest chapter and continues as an advisor to the current board.
Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com
or every Sunday at the popular Word Whores blog.
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