Yvette Keller's Blog, page 14

Jack, from Costa Mesa

I have been picking up notebooks randomly and transferring notes and Random Writings to the computer. I do a lot of writing the old fashioned way, with paper and pen. Typing them is good practice (I never learned to type properly) and I also have them backed up online. It is the slowest possible way to clean out my office and practice my typing skills, but I enjoy the little bit I do each day.

This dialog (I wrote nothing but the dialog between the two characters) is from September of 2017....

I feel…

This weekend I attended another session of Write From the Body, an incredible workshop designed by the dancer-runner-writer, Elizabeth Schwyzer.

This is the workshop that inspired me to get back into creative writing seven years ago. It is an amazing combination of movement, sound, visuals, tastes, and touch; basically inspiration for every physical sensation our bodies possess, used to feed the most important non-physical “senses” imagination and creativity.

After a lovely session of...

December Daring

I’ve been reading this book since Apr 23, 2012.

(According to Goodreads.)

But have I? Have I really?

Of course not. The book is only 278 pages with indexes and appendices.
I read more pages of fiction than that in the last two days.

What’s really happened is that I have wanted to read this book for 7 years and not made time to do so. (I got about halfway through.)

So WHY haven’t I finished it? Here are my theories:

In 2012 I stopped being employed as a training professional by a big...

Publication Announcement: For The Empire

I’m excited to share that my story, For The Empire, is in Imitation Fruit Literary Journal. Find it here!

Finnemore Fridays: Who are the bad guys?

One reason why I am such a huge fan of John Finnemore is that his humorous sketches convey a clear and unambiguous message about who the bad guys are in our world.

Bad guys are not interested in 1) Being Nice 2) Having Fun or 3) Empathy.

DOWN WITH BAD GUYS!
MORE GUYS IN THE WORLD LIKE JOHN FINNEMORE!

What am I blathering on about? This sketch is about one of the bad guys.

Finnemore Fridays (Early Edition!): Millionaires at Halloween

One very specific way I know I’m better off financially than my parents were is that I have all the Halloween decorations I can possibly want. I have an orange and black bin of lights, a cauldron of props, and a clear plastic bin that’s mostly bones and birds.

How do I know that even living in a million-dollar-home I retain the scarcity mentality taught to me by my parents, that was taught to them by their parents?

I have an orange and black bin of lights (many need troubleshooting to see which b...

Finnemore Fridays: Spooktacular!

Halloween-themed, wordplayfull, JFSP!
My favorite line from this one, “I’m not your marketing department.”

Finnemore Fridays (On Monday. I forgot to Hit Publish Last Week): You see, the problem with writing is…

…everyone has an opinion. At the Santa Barbara Writers Conference in June, I read aloud three chapters from the travel book I’m writing. The critique from the pirates in the room was, “Give me more story about the main character.”

I’ve also sent chapters to my writing group. Their feedback was the same, “More you! More of YOUR story! I care about you and your journey!” So I made a few small changes to the old chapters, and the new chapters I’ve been writing have focused more on travelogue-ing.

However, I recently had...

Finnemore Fridays: Are You Registered?

Are you registered to vote in elections this fall? I hope so, but if not (yet), I’ve included handy registration dates and an online link!

Please participate.
Please get out there and mark a ballot for what you believe in.

VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINES:

BY MAIL: Monday, October 21, 2019
IN PERSON: Tuesday, November 5, 2019
ONLINE Get registered! Monday, October 21, 2019

Now I have a funny message for you about voting via a John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme sketch which is about ghosts who ha...

Finnemore Fridays: Summer

The Equinox was last weekend and summer vacation is officially over. Not so the “summer” season. Luckily for us, Indian Summer ensures the heatwaves will probably go on until Halloween. Maybe even Thanksgiving.

On weekends, ice cream trucks will continue their slow, drive-by-temptings.

British ice cream trucks are painted a bit differently than Californian ice cream trucks. Maybe it is our proximity to the Magic Kingdom itself, but I’d never seen one of these bizarre, slightly-off, artistic...