Category: writing

April, the month of doom for my blog….

~ K ~ 3 Comments

April has managed to kick me in the butt.  I’m busy at work and my blog has fallen to the wayside (like my children…well, I think I have kids or at least I have a vague memory of them).  It’s not like I don’t want to write in my blog but I feel guilty writing when I know I have work to do.  It seems like endless projects like to pop up to steal my time away. Quite annoying, eh?

Keep in mind that we have all been told that if something is important, you’ll make time for it.  I make time for work, for my family, and the millions over projects.  Blogging is important but it doesn’t pay the bills and hence why I’m still a photographer (and not a bestselling writer!).

I like writing but I also like to make sure my writing is something to be proud of.  Sure, not everything I write is prize winning but I want you to read it, to enjoy it, and want more.

Is that too much to ask for?  To have readers that care?  Readers that worship me?

Now, I’m going to make the effort to finish off the month of April with a bang in the blog department.  Let’s pump out some great blog entries for you to thinks about and enjoy.

Thanks for reading.  Leave those comments (good and bad!).

Gravatar Portraits: How Sexy is too Sexy?

~ K ~ 11 Comments

I think I need a sexier Gravatar portrait on my blog.  The one I have is way too boring for all the witty comments I make.

Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with your Gravatar photo, it is usually the photo that appears when you make a comment on a blog.  It’s not like I’m a blogger expert, so this advice might fall into the “I’m right 97.9% of the time” category.

Visualize this: Me in a minivan with my bald head shining brightly, wearing some really cool looking shades, and the summertime Aloha Shirt.

Sounds pretty awesome, huh?

That would be the typical middle aged father you never wanted to become but because time marches on, you have become.  Unless you are a woman.  Then that picture became a whole lot stranger.

A couple of problems I have with my upcoming portrait that need to be addressed.

Minivan:

We don’t have a minivan. Sure, I could borrow one.  I’m hoping someone I know has a real weird color.  Maybe a pink or bright red one…with a racing stripe on it.  Now, that would be cool.  And flames on the side with custom rims and low profile tires.

Bald Head:

This I don’t have a problem.  I really haven’t had hair on the top of my head since 1996.  However the shiny part will be hard.  I live in Seattle and we don’t get the sun shining out much expect for ten days in August.

Cool Looking Shades:

Again, in Seattle we don’t have a lot of sun so finding sunglasses might be hard.  However, I do have some really neat looking safety glasses that might work.  Of course, I don’t want to look like MMA fighter either.

Aloha Shirt:

I’m from Hawaii so this isn’t a problem.  My real problem is which one to wear; that will be the hard part to decide upon.  Do I go with the casual business style Aloha shirt or the obnoxious tourist style shirt from Hilo Hatties?  The casual business style is more professional and won’t make me look like a dork on vacation.  But clearly the obnoxious Aloha shirt will scream out to others that I am a fun loving blogger.  Yet will the obnoxious Aloha shirt makes my witty comments less effective because I look like a clown?  Then there is the whole issue of how many buttons do you undo on the shirt.  Do you go with all but the top button buttoned up?  Do you go with a few buttons unbutton?  Or do you really “man it up” and leave all the buttons undone, letting your massive muscular chiseled chest with rock hard abs glisten in the sun?  This Aloha shirt issue is pretty complicated.

So you see my new Gravatar photo is something I really need to think about.  The planning process itself might take weeks, perhaps even months.  In the meantime, I’ll leave you will this new Photoshopped photo of me.

7453 Kevin Yellow

As always, your witty and sarcastic comments are welcome.  I still am waiting to hear from you.

Really, you have time to leave a comment….just go to the bottom of this post and add something…make me feel like I have a reader besides my Mom and my imaginary stalker Cyndi!

How I became a New York Times Bestseller author!

~ K ~ 2 Comments

If you really want to be depressed, do a little research into making that creative career switch.  As my imaginary stalker Cyndi and you both know, I have a dream of writing that next New York Times Bestselling novel that will make me rich!  Oh yeah! I’ll be jet setting around the country in first class (sweet!) and wearing a tweed jacket, reading passages from my latest work to adoring fans, sipping an Americano and chuckling at my good fortune.

I got into this research mode with a stop this afternoon at the local grocery store. I noticed they had some brand new books for sale on a display table near the checkout stand.  As I flipped through a few pages of the novels, I wondered how much money the author would receive from this hardcover book.  Since it wasn’t a genre I had any interest in, I made a mental note to look up the author when I got home (which I since have forgotten the author’s name and the book’s title).  Oh well.  I decided to see what an author might expect to sell their first novel for (in terms of advances) and how many copies the first book might actually sell.  Was it ten thousand books?  Twenty thousand copies?

Yikes!  What a wake up call.  It might be as low as 500 books!  I know that everyone wants to write a novel and become a published author.  I didn’t know the pay was so bad.  I looked around at a few blogs and some people commented that they wrote because they love to write.  Bravo for them!  That is fine as a hobby but not as a career.  Some comments even alluded to the fact they would make more money flipping burgers at the local fast food restaurant than as an author writing for a whole year.

I have nothing against writing as a hobby.  However, if it is something I’m really passionate about and I want to make a living at it, then I do want to get paid more than the average burger flipper.  Call me greedy for chasing the dollar but my family does like to live in a nice house and have food on their dinner plates.

Sure, I could say “Follow my heart and the money will follow”.  A better piece of advice would be to write that novel in my spare time, try to sell it, and don’t quit your day job.  We all know that no one has spare time; it would be an evening and weekend endeavor.  I don’t mind doing that as a hobby but it sure would be nice to get paid if I am doing a part time job on the side.

Writing isn’t easy.  Characters and plots take time.  You have to develop a story, write a rough draft, and edit it.

Am I whining too much?  Sure.  I’m entitled to do a little whining.  Like everyone else, I want it to be easy.  I know it won’t be easy but it might be enjoyable.

I just hoped that by investing that amount of time into a project, it would at least spin off some additional income I could invest with.  Maybe build up my retirement that much faster.  Being 40 and having a stock market crash and real estate crash knock me down a bit, it would like nice to have an extra income stream to rely on.  A business that I only had to work on a few hours a week yet would spin off some nice cash flow.  Maybe a blog about fairy tales?  Because this is what this blog entry seems to be about!

As always, your comments, concerns, and suggestions are always welcome!

Death of the Christmas Newsletter: Don’t leave me hanging…..

~ K ~ Leave a comment

Christmas is a few days away and I have yet to see the Christmas newsletters I love so dearly.  Now, the Christmas letter has been given a bad rap over the past few years.  People have complained that they only tell the “good things” that happen in their lives or are merely fabrications of an overly drunk mother clinging to the false belief that her children aren’t losers and her husband still loves her.

I don’t believe that.  Christmas newsletters should be revered for the author’s ability to make the mundane and average dribbling of a mad person into a work of unrealistic family perfection.

Call me slightly crazy but I actually enjoy the Christmas newsletters for a number of purely holiday cheer reasons.

They allow me the chance to catch up on everyone’s yearly activities.  Look, I don’t have time to stalk everyone I know on Facebook and the Christmas newsletter fills in the blanks.  Besides, a lot of people don’t update their FB statuses like they should.  Yes, I do want to hear that little Billy has taken his first poo-poo in the big boy potty, that Jacob is in the 10th grade, D’Shawn scored the winning touchdown at homecoming, your 13 cats are alive and well, your daughter Uneek is a musical genius, your daughter Alison got her black belt, your Mom is now living with you, you ran over your neighbor’s hamster, and your wife thinks your totally awesome (but you haven’t been married for the past six years).

My life is boring and I need your Christmas letters to keep me from killing myself before Christmas rolls around.  I need something to do besides watch old reruns of the Dukes of Hazzard and reality shows like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  I would like some uplifting Christmas newsletters to read while I drink my hot butter rum and eat my neighbor’s awesome Christmas cookies.

Heck, I know you are a liar.  I understand you don’t want to share that your kid isn’t perfect, your father didn’t love you as a child and now you have “daddy issues”, your children hate you, you are working too much, your job sucks, you are lucky/unlucky to have the job you hate, your only joy in life is to read my blog at https://khellriegel.wordpress.com, you lost everything in the some ponzi scheme, and you hate pancakes with strawberries.

I want to still believe in Christmas and read your Christmas newsletter.  So please take the time to write out your Christmas fairy tale and send it my way.  I really need the help to make it through the holidays!

https://khellriegel.wordpress.com

Ten Great Reasons why I hate Frosty the Snowman

~ K ~ 12 Comments

Ten Great Reasons why I hate Frosty the Snowman!

It is the Christmas season and the wonderful time of holiday TV specials has begun.  I like most of the Christmas TV specials like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, the Grinch who stole Christmas, etc.  However, the one Christmas Special I can’t stand is Frosty the Snowman.

  1. Really what is Frosty the Snowman?  He is a bad LSD trip of some whacked out meth head.  The only redeeming quality of Frosty the Snowman is Andy Griffith is the narrator of the cartoon.  The rest of it I hate.
  1. Frosty always says “Happy Birthday”.  Really?  What is he a homeless bum who thinks every day is his birthday?  Is he too drunk to remember it isn’t everyone’s birthday?  Does he need a reason to drink?  “Oh, it’s someone’s birthday!  Let’s go out to Appplebee’s and get wasted!”  That one saying drives me nuts.  “Happy Birthday?”  It’s winter and almost Christmas, I’m not thinking of your birthday, I’m thinking about Christmas presents, Christmas cookies, and egg nog.
  1. He is a cry baby whiner.  There is a scene where he is all sad that the kids are leaving to go back home.  Oh, poor homeless snowman.  Jeez, stop your whining.  Man up, build a snow house and make a snow dog to keep you company.
  1. He sleds by just getting on his belly and sliding down a hill.  Seriously, we all know that Frosty would be jumping on his belly, knocking the wind of his snowman lungs, and cursing up a storm for being so stupid.  He would be doing a belly flop into three inches of snow.  Don’t you think that would hurt?  Darn right it would.
  1. And really, Frosty wouldn’t be sliding down the hill.  Instead, a big pile of snow would build up right in front of Frosty and he would stop in three feet.  Frosty isn’t going anyway fast.
  1. Frosty is just a homeless bum.  After the kids go home to their families or single mothers.  He just wanders around after dark without a purpose…just like the guy who lives under the overpass.
  1. And do I darn mention the sequel “Frosty Returns”.  Do we really need more of Frosty’s inane drunk babblings of “Happy Birthday”?
  1. Frosty promotes smoking.  In this day and age of Political Correctness, why hasn’t someone digitally erased his corncob pipe?  Seriously, if they can change E.T., then they can change Frosty.  It’s a cartoon!  It can’t be that hard.
  1. Frosty likes little kids….too much.  He hangs around kids all day long in a nice pedophile way.  Creepy just like Michael Jackson and his “Jesus Juice”.  Next thing we know Frosty will want to invite the boys and girls over for a nice sleepover in his snow bed.  Just plain creepy.
  1. And in the song, doesn’t Frosty die?  Sure, he melts away and in a Star Trek world he comes back.  But in the lame TV holiday special he makes it to the North Pole with Santa and lives on?  This is all after he puts Karen into life threatening situations (like the refrigerator train car).  Karen takes a long trip ride in a freezing cold refrigerator car were most people would be a Popsicle at the end of the trip.  Hell, why can’t Karen be a normal kid that just sticks Frosty on the train, sends him on his merry way, and forgets about him in 10 minutes?

Frosty the Snowman sucks.  This is one holiday special I wish was lost forever in the depths of CBS television studios.

 

 

Too Many Blogs?

~ K ~ 2 Comments

I stumbled upon a pretty good sarcastic blog the other day.  http://nickhateseverything.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/nick-hates-blogs/

Now, you know I am trying to be less sarcastic in my general attitude because it is suppose to make me a better person.  I won’t hurt anyone’s feeling and we can all get “Participation Certificates” for being alive.

Maybe I’ll get a gold star for writing my blog today.

Or a ribbon for waking up and writing something (at least I didn’t write about my cat today).

Anyway, I like Nick’s rant about the boring blogs out there.  Which made me think that I had better step up my game and write better blogs with more interesting topics.  Maybe less blogs about my cat Mr. Mittens…..

Back to Blogging!

~ K ~ Leave a comment

Today I received an email from an old friend about how she had just started her own blog. It made me realize that I need to get on the ball and start writing again. She had some wonderful comments about my blog and how I inspired her. You can imagine my head was getting pretty big at this point. I was worried it would fall on my keyboard and delete my files but here I am, back to blogging.

Seriously, it did make me realize that I probably don’t do enough writing as I should. I seem to have enough time to watch TV but not enough time to write. Hmmm, that seems out of balance. I have made an attempt to do more multi-tasking such as fold laundry while watching TV but usually I forget those silly housekeeping tasks until after my show is over.

So I must say a big “Thanks!” to my friend and her email today! If you are interested, please feel free to read her blog at http://jombytrack.blogspot.com/

In the meantime, I’ll think of some great blog topics, forget to write them down, and end up watching TV until 1:39 in the morning.

As always your comments, monetary gifts, and questions are always welcome!

Heck, if you can't make fun of yourself...who can you make fun of?

Stupid Like the Rest of America!

~ K ~ 2 Comments

I’m stupid just like the rest of you!

One would assume that since I blog that I am naturally a great and gifted speller. That is far from the truth which also leads into the fact that I’m quite terrible at grammar. I switch from past tense to present tense and really couldn’t tell you which is which. The only reason any of my blogs or writings make sense is due to my love of reading.

I am a good example of learning by example. I like to read and when I do, I actually study how the sentence was structured, how it flows, and why it makes sense. It probably also helps that 80% of the population reads at an 8th grade level so it is quite easy to write at this level. Considering that, I probably don’t write to a higher level because I’m lazy. So in essence, I am lazy and stupid. Man, my college professors at the University of Washington would be so proud of me!

Let’s face it, I’m not very good at writing and I can admit it.