Kickstarter

Hot Flashes of Life . . .

It's still a working title for the collection of my favorite 30(ish) stories of Flash Fiction I have written over the last 3 years.  Stories like An American Blonde with French Plumbing, To Be Loved Like Annabel Lee, I See the Moon, and Bicycle Safety, will surely make the cut and find their way into this first collection.

FYI - Flash Fiction is a style of fiction known for its extreme brevity.  Word count limits run the gamut from 50 to 1,500 words, although a story told in 1,000 words or less seems to be the most common definition.

Why A Kickstarter Project? 

I had published two other books and for each of these projects I have "nickeled and dimed" my way along.  The funding I am seeking will allow me to pay my editor, produce the cover art, assemble and produce the book.  ASAP, IMMEDIATELY, NOW and without a lick of creative accounting in my budget!

I know I have an immediate audience willing to purchase the finished product.  Kickstarter funding will enable this book to become a reality in very short order!  And move me closer to my dream . . . of becoming a publicist's nightmare!  In true Dorothy Parker style, bourbon brings out my wit and my BLONDNESS . . .  LOL

Who does this chick think she is?

Rachel Ellyn, aka The Disfunctional Diva, lists her accomplishments in life as Author, Radio Show Co-Host, Serial Divorcee, Hopeless Romantic, Bourbon Aficionado, and mother of 3 plus Pixie, her adorable CHUG!

So where did all this start?  I'm glad you asked!

Family members have told me since college “you should write a column like Erma” . . . Erma Bombeck that is.

I would look at them like they were crazy, which in my family is not far off the mark, and continue to write letters and then emails keeping everyone up to date on where in the world I was and what the hell I was doing.  (I can hear my aunt’s voice now asking my mother, “What the hell’s Rach doing now?”)

Then one day I woke up, and I needed to write.  There was this little story inside my head.  Really, it was a character, and try as I might this little character’s story just couldn’t get out of my head.

Years later, a few months after starting my third divorce, it felt as if there were hundreds of ping pong balls bouncing in my head, each one a story, bouncing around trying to escape.  I picked up a pen and started to write each story as it bounced to the front of my brain.  That was the birth of The Disfunctional Diva website.  A little place to hold all my flash fiction – my little stories – for all the world to see ... whether anyone else read them or not.

By this time, I had already written and animated the DVD Basic Money Management 101 as a business endeavor based on my prior life in financial software design.  Which, by the way, is used in a number of Kansas and Missouri schools and was also picked up by KSU for incoming freshman orientation.  But, that summer while driving my kids to camp, the story of the Dust Bunny – Louie Fights the Night – finally wrote itself in my head.  How To Train A Woman, my second book was published August 2011.  It is available as an eBook as well as a paperback.  A first for this little girl!

So why do I write Flash Fiction?

• I write to be less BLONDE!  I figure the more stories I get out of my head, the more memory and processing power my brain will have.
• I believe you gain immortality by the stories you create in someone’s life.  And if you can teach this person to be a great story teller you shall live on forever.

“When I stand before God at the end of my life,  I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me’.”  Erma Bombeck

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My first flash fiction story . . . (May 4th, 2009)  

How Did I Get Here?

So how did we get to this point in our lives that we wonder why we are still half sane?

I am 48 and working on wrapping up my third divorce.  I have three kids.  Oh, to be able to say one from each husband would be so white trash wonderful, but really one is from ex-husband #1, and two are from ex-husband #2.  My third soon to be ex is, I guess, maybe my cougar experiment.

I am college educated.  I have lived all over the country as well as internationally – of my own doing, not following a man or his career.  It was always my career or my desire to venture forth to what looked like greener grass.  Now, I am finally trying to learn how to grow where I am planted, or at least where my kids want to be planted.  Damn their little social lives!  And at this point in my life worrying about my retirement savings trumps paying for counseling for the kids because da Mama wanted to run away to somewhere new.  Maybe this is what becoming a responsible adult feels like.  Yuck!

Really, my kids are incredible. Watching them grow up has been a great insight for me to see where each piece of my own dysfunction derives from.  Quite interesting!  Sort of like performing your own surgery in a MASH unit.  I might not have all the tools to fix the damage perfectly, but I can correct the damage just enough to pass muster.  And if I can keep the scars to a minimum I might just be able to wear a bikini!

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I hope this answers your questions on who I am, what I write, and why I write.  Hopefully, you'll join the fun helping me launch this collection!

Serendipity happens – be prepared!

Now, go buy my book(s)!  Pretty Please.

Rachel xoxoxoxo