Member Spotlight: Yvette Keller

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Reading was my first love, and as a child, my only escape. Writing makes me feel whole. I love the glow on the faces of writers who are journeying through their imagination, communicating the ineffable with the precision of tap-tappity-tappi-tap-tap. Douglas Adams said, “I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don’t think they’re doing art but are merely practicing a craft and working as good craftsmen. Being literate as a writer is good craft, is knowing your job, is knowing how to use your tools properly and not to damage the tools as you use them.” Whether we are artists, craftsmen, or both, I love working in a field where mistakes are easier to fix than a botched surgery, a faulty wiring job, or a collapsed bridge…and yet powerful enough to give meaning to those or any other failure.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Writing prompts that are visual or movement based, e.g. dance to music for 3 minutes; Look at a magazine, find a subject or image with a person in a particular position and take that position yourself physically for 60 seconds, then start writing again.

What is your favorite time to write? In the dark, whether pre-dawn or post-dinner.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Embrace the shitty first draft. Along the same lines, never compare unfinished drafts to any book you’ve ever read. Honed, pro-edited, polished writing has as little relationship to your unpublished draft as a supermodel on the runway has to a blood covered newborn.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? The ability to “find my people.” Connecting directly to a niche audience of readers who love what I love and care about what I care about is the gift of modern technology.

Yvette Keller’s Douglas Adams’ London is out April 15 with Herb Lester Assoc.