Episode 244
#244 - Interview with author Jordan Keller
Cincinnati-based science fiction author Jordan S. Keller. Joins the pod to talk about the stories that shape us, the grief that drives us. The real power of finding your voice through chaos. We dive into her new release, "Failing Gravity" a cyberpunk love letter to the metal album The Death of Peace of Mind. Also, the quiet unexpected moments that helped it take shape.
From Dungeons & Dragons to writing her way through the loss of her father. Jordan opens up about her creative process, nerdy influences. Why stories grounded in emotion are the ones that stick. It’s a conversation about community, expression, and not being afraid to tell a story. Just because it doesn’t fit the mold.
Where to Find the Guest
🌐 Website: https://www.jordanskellerauthor.com/
🎧 Work: Failing Gravity and the Ashes Over Avalon trilogy available now:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3WJX87X
📲 Social: Follow Jordan @jordanskellerauthor
And of course, you can find all the links for L.I.T.G, and where to listen at:
👉 www.linktr.ee/lostinthegroove
Transcript
Dave: Me through, through the process with your like writing style because like, again, there are so many sci-fi and fantasy and horror and psych psychological thrillers, and I've had a lot of authors on this podcast, but like, I don't know, there's something about where in my gut, maybe it's my soul when I just like feel like, oh my God, there's something, there's something here.
I gotta, I gotta, I gotta dig, I gotta figure this.
Jordan S. Keller : Um, so my, usually when I, when I first have a project I wanna write, um, it's been inspired by either a scene from, um, like a, a daydream, mainly inspired through a song lyric or a, a music video or just an album, something that's planted some sort of image in my head. And I'll write to find the story that can come from that image.
els like if there is enough, [:Um, the third draft is when I usually go to beta readers, um, but I'm part of a writing group and they see all of the early pages and try to help me get it all cleaned up as best I can. Um, and then I do a fourth draft with beta reader comments, and then I do a fifth draft with a professional editor just to make sure it's as clean as polished as I can make it. Um, I'm a terrible speller, so they always help me find all my,
Dave: Same.
Jordan S. Keller : and
Dave: Same.
Jordan S. Keller : it's the worst phonics
Dave: Yes. I, I, you know, it's interesting 'cause I, I started, I started, uh, writing music, um, a few years ago. And what was really interesting is about like, with writing music, is that I found like, you don't have to be perfect. You know, I like to be able to rhyme, but sometimes it doesn't really matter to me.
. You know, I sometimes like [:'cause then you have all of this, and then you gotta start having to like structure the story. And then I. What am I gonna, do you see?
Jordan S. Keller : Um, my, my first book I wrote Wildfire. It's that superhero, um, book one and.
Dave: Is that on your, is that on your website? Uh,
Gravity book. It released in:Dave: yeah. Here it is. Okay.
Jordan S. Keller : Um, but when I wrote that, I was, it was inspired by a Dungeons and Dragons game. Um, the game ended, but I wasn't ready to let the character go. So I was putting her in all kinds of alternate universes.
Dave: Of course.
was doing the superhero one, [:And, and then I started rewriting that whole novel to, to make it a full fledge 50,000, 60,000. It ended at 83,000 words. So, um, going from 30 to 83 was real. I didn't think I'd be able to tackle that many words. Um, but just to see it grow and take shape and become a full book.
that are being made now that [:It's just like I'm sitting there and I'm just like, this is so unnecessary. You could have spent the last 10 minutes just developing the care, but it's too slow. We can't make enough money off of that. I'm like, but, but I, I barely even know who the character is and I've been watching this for an hour.
Jordan S. Keller : And it, it sucks that, like, like even writing books now, my first thought is always how am I gonna market this? How am I gonna make my agent and publisher want it?
Dave: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jordan S. Keller : the passion away from it. And so when I am doing that trash draft, I always have to remind myself like, we're just doing this for fun.
, um, just 'cause like that, [:And you mentioned, the, the lack of characterization and movies, I feel like that's the number one flaw these movies have. 'cause you can't get attached for anything. You can't root for anyone. the action fight scenes might be cool, but the what, what are they fighting for? What's the point?
Dave: The amount of CGI that goes in. I'm just,
Jordan S. Keller : Oh. Yeah.
Dave: I love computers, okay? I'm in the automotive industry and I love electronics and I, I love being that type of person that likes to do this stuff that everybody gets frustrated over. That's me. But one thing that I really do appreciate, especially with storytelling, right, is when you're, when you have a page and there's words and you have to be able to imagine all of the things in your head.
as The Real Life Encounters [:You have real people, you know, like, you know, we've kind of veered away from animation even though we've made a Lion King and called it live action, even though it's still animated. But Right. You, so you have, you have that dynamic where, okay, so you have live people, and again, this is kind of weird, even going back to the early 19 hundreds, how practical effects and all these things kind of develop.
Like how do you take something that's not real and then make it look real and then film it? And you could see that early adoptions for a very long time of our history until like the 21st century were, most of it was practical effects.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: you know, you ever watch King Kong, like, it looks like a man in a gorilla suit.
Jordan S. Keller : Because it
look like that at all. Like, [:People. It's not supposed to be real.
Jordan S. Keller : It, oh, some of the, I forget what couple movies it was, but it felt like there was like an uncanny valley effect for a bunch of 'em. Were like, this is real. Like it's, you look too much like a person. Um, and I much prefer, prefer animated films because of that. 'cause I'm super into kids stuff, so they're all like cutesy. But then they're able to do so much more with, with just the freedom of being animated and hand drawn and stuff and,
Dave: I, I, I kind of realized that recently because there was, they made a re uh, a Live of Action version of Lilo and Stitch.
Jordan S. Keller : yeah.
as a child. Now as an adult, [:'cause you have this dynamic now, especially when you start putting ink to paper, where in your mind you have, as a child watching something that clearly is animated, clearly is not real, clearly is made up and fictional. It's just a story. And then you move 20, you know, 20 odd years into the future to now where they make a quote unquote live action version.
And then you see why it was never made live action to begin with.
Jordan S. Keller : I like, oh, like I'll, I'll, I'll give Disney credit.
Dave: Yeah,
Jordan S. Keller : action stitch
Dave: it's,
Jordan S. Keller : cool.
Dave: it's good. Don't gimme. It's good. I mean, is it gold star? Good? No,
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: no, it's good.
Jordan S. Keller : But, but they didn't need to remake Lilo and Stitch. That movie was 10
and Stitch movies. We had TV [:Jordan S. Keller : Yeah,
Dave: like,
Jordan S. Keller : they,
Dave: you know,
Jordan S. Keller : just, they're just milking the machine instead of making new content and
Dave: it's the same thing that happened with Star Wars. I was talking with somebody about this a while ago too, where I think we both know this. 'cause, you know, especially when you're nerdy and geeky and stuff like that, like, you know, but most people don't focus on this shit. But we do. And we already had a lot of information when, you know, the Phantom Menace, um, you know, um.
Uh, revenge of the si. When these movies came out in the early, like early two thousands, we already had a lot of backbone of what was going on in Star Wars, and then we got Clone Wars, which was an animated series and kind of broke down a lot more of what we were missing. And then Disney comes along.
c novels and books and comic [:And then they give us all of these TV shows don't even correlate anywhere close to any of the Star Wars universe. It's like, I.
Jordan S. Keller : Disney release, like all the things that were now Canon for them, but like, excluded all the novels, excluded all the games and like it kinda a slap in the face 'cause so much history was there and, and, yeah.
Dave: I was talking to somebody about this also too, with, especially with the, so Katana is a great example of this too.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: I'm like, guys, there's literally TV shows and comic books and shit about the character. Like, why the hell are you making her this, like, quote unquote feminism of the era? Like it's freaking Star Wars.
Like she's supposed,
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah. Oh,
Dave: I'm telling [:These are the things that shape who we are as people. Like we spend time with people that love this stuff. You know, we create things that come from this inspiration. And then you, you have the big dogs that come around and it's like, yeah, we want a new ride in Disney World. Yeah, but I don't have money to go to Disney World.
Yeah, but we don't care.
Jordan S. Keller : does.
Dave: We need a new ride to Disney World. I'm like, okay. But then you need to make three TV shows. Yeah, because then it correlates with the rides in Disney. I'm not making this up. This is literally what Disney has done. They've made three TV shows literally just to make three rides in Disney World in Disneyland.
That's it.
the show and like, I have to [:Dave: It's again, you know, like we were saying, you were saying earlier, which is really true. It's like getting in your head that, okay, when I write the story, I can't use words like transvestite. I can't talk about feminist rights. Like I can't talk about gay things in my book because these are all things that are, you know, questionable and they, they get into gray ears.
I'm like. You. You don't really have to mention they're gay. You could just have where the character just is.
Jordan S. Keller : them.
Dave: Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Like very simple. You don't need to mention it, you know it
Jordan S. Keller : the, oh,
Dave: Go.
Jordan S. Keller : am, I am reading a book right now. I won't say it. And it, it's a very enjoyable book, but it is so heavy on the whole, like, I'm oppressed because I'm a woman and I'm not gonna let you forget that I'm oppressed because I'm a woman. Uh, but like, she's a total like, butt kicker.
ou're showing me that you're [:Dave: Do you know how many women I've had on this podcast that are artists and creators? I've done like over 200 episodes and a majority of them were females and they're all artists and creators and makers and doers. I sound like a Home Depot commercial, but, but I mean, that's the point. It's like, I understand that there's feminism, I understand there's a movement.
st century, you know, it's:Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
t live in that time anymore. [:Jordan S. Keller : We, I. I feel like, like, and of course it's 'cause like a bunch of old people are running everything, but it's such a fear of change and trying something different. 'cause like, oh, what if we include this in a book and, and we mass produce it, put it on the shelves and it doesn't sell. And, and we just can't take that risk.
And it's, but like the generation who, who is reading, they, they want those kind of books, they want those kinda materials, those stories. And it, I, I, my head is in the sand of this unfortunately, but I'm like, if we just give it another 10 years, let, let some people age out, get some new people in the, the, like the marketing agencies and the book promotion world and movie promotion world. Um, and because they'll know that the generation under them wants these stories. 'cause they probably wanted these stories growing up.
ot something that, you know, [:And you know, what, I think what made Star Wars and Star Trek and, you know, series like Battlestar Galactica and Dune, you know, and um, what do you call that, ma? Um, mad, mad Max.
Jordan S. Keller : Max.
Dave: Yeah. The way that what made these stories so cool was just the implication of how the stories portrayed. Even if there was politics involved, even though if there was an evil against good.
message like Coca-Cola, you [:Jordan S. Keller : Right, and the, the examples you just gave, I, they, I always feel like their character forward first and, and all the cool world building, all the cool politics that they show is in response to their characters' lives. And, and again, like a fight scene can be super cool, but if we don't know the character's motivations, then why should we care about what they're fighting for?
Dave: I think also something we as Americans tend to forget is the fact that a lot of other industries, especially when we're dealing with writing, you know, like graphic novels, comic book in that stream, a lot of other nations do a lot better job than we do, especially when you're dealing with Korea and Japan.
Because in their culture, they don't give a shit about any of these morals. It's like a hero gets beaten and gets his hand or legs chopped off. End of story. No regrown limbs. Now he's a crippled superhero. End of story.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: You know? And as Americans, you're like, you know, you gotta like, oh my God, this is not gonna sell.
ger, and I'm like, in Japan, [:Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: his legacy. And you're like, okay, all right. Calm down with the kaizen over there. All right, just calm down a little bit. But that's just the difference of just culture and society. They've been doing something we haven't been doing in 40 years.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah, like I feel like a lot of books, there's no consequences for a character's action or
Dave: Oh no.
Jordan S. Keller : Um, they'll come out of like a, a knife fight stabbed, and like, you should really let that rest. Like, oh no, it'll be fine. Let me go right back into the next knife fight, like,
Dave: Yeah, yeah. Fortnite fights later. You know? Um,
Jordan S. Keller : drink a magic potion. Heals it all up,
Dave: I think one of, I think one of the series that I really, really loved that came out of Japan, which I, I'm not not mistaken, was a graphic novel or a book, and then was made into the TV series, which was on Netflix, which was Allison Waterland.
Jordan S. Keller : Oh yeah.
Dave: You could, I, I'm sorry.
u could never, ever have any [:Right.
Jordan S. Keller : Like what were they struggling through?
interesting about it, is the [:Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: know?
I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, no, I'm going through all the patterns, but I mean, think about even somebody like Charles Kubrick.
Jordan S. Keller : That name's not familiar for me. Um,
de, um, the Shining, um, also:Jordan S. Keller : okay.
Dave: was it, um, I'm trying to remember.
Jordan S. Keller : I'm so bad with names. You'll have to forgive
Dave: No, I'm bad too. This is why like, I like to like throw out and I'm just like all over the place. I'm like, I know, I know. It's, there's a cube in there, Stanley Kubrick, that's the name, Stanley Kubrick.
And let's be very honest with ourself, like the man was freaking insane.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah,
garde films that we have. So [:Jordan S. Keller : I don't think, I hope you don't,
Dave: I hope.
Jordan S. Keller : not a requirement. Um, but it. Uh, for me, like there, there's a saying in writing, it's, it's write what you know. Um, but you can always find out more to write things you don't know. But to, to have lived through certain experiences allows you to per like, show those certain experiences in very real ways. Um, for like, like a loss of a parent, a loss of a child, um, like moving across the country, like those major elements. It, it's hard to, to write if you don't have a firsthand or secondhand experience. And, so I, I hope you don't have to be a psychopath to make a good story, but I think having suffered elements of life helps you connect with readers way they, they know they're not alone.
d of this shared collective, [:Dave: And by the way, to your point, it, it happens a lot of the times, even within music, you get a lot of songwriters where they make music that has nothing to do with their life at all. Um, and a gr like great example of like talking like within the realm of like hip hop and rap, you got the Beastie Boys, which they created amazing songs and crazy amazing albums, but they were a bunch of rich kids that grew up in cushion lives, never really had any trauma or hell to begin with, but yet they wrote songs about partying and doing drugs and growing up on the streets.
And it's like, but they didn't go through any of those things. So
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: point, you're right, like you don't necessarily need to be like crazy. You just need to be able to put yourself in there to be able to write it. Like you gotta, I guess almost act the part in order to play the part. Does that make sense?
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
eah, that makes sense. Okay. [:Jordan S. Keller : no, they, they never do. Um, and like I feel like I never know the importance of why I wrote a book until like six months after it's released or it's been picked up by the publisher. And, and I'm, I really get to sit with it, like, why did I tell this story? And, it it, it baffles me that like, I didn't realize why I was writing it during the writing, but looking back on it, I can be like, oh, yep, that does make sense.
'cause I was thinking about this and I was doing that, and it came through these pages hopefully without me, like with a big neon sign. Like the theme of the book is this.
Dave: [:Like, because when you start writing, it's very odd. It's almost like you feel like something's flying into your brain and you start getting these like visions and these like sentences and it feels as if like you're in that person's shoes even though they're made up. They're not, you, you made this up, it's not real.
And then all of a sudden you're like, you look at the, what you just wrote, and you're like, this doesn't make any sense. And then you rewrite it and then you're like. Oh, that's right, because it was supposed to be written like this.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
ritual in the sense of like, [:Jordan S. Keller : I, I, um, for the, my superhero novel, the main character is Abigail. And whenever I feel a little down or a little like, I can't do this, I always think like, what would Abigail do? She can do it. I can do it. So that makes me over the moon. That maybe in another parallel universe, I am Abigail.
Dave: You don't know. You don't know.
Jordan S. Keller : know.
Dave: You don't know. But I think that is, I think that's something that's really fascinating. Have you, have you ever read or watched The Man in the High Castle,
Jordan S. Keller : No, no,
Dave: do you know anything about the story?
Jordan S. Keller : I do not. I'm a
Dave: Okay.
Jordan S. Keller : reader.
Dave: No, no, it's okay. Um, I, I only watch the TV series, so you're Okay. Um, so the man in the high castle, I forgot the one who wrote the book, but it's a parallel universe as instead of us winning World War ii, we lose the war and the German, the axis power wins.
So [:Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: And, okay. Spoiler alert, 'cause I don't think anybody over here is gonna be watching this, but basically the premise of the story is, is we're the Nazis figure out a way of like crossing the barrier and going into different parallel universes,
Jordan S. Keller : Okay.
Dave: their ideas, basically to take over other earth's. And you know, like Nazi Terraform.
lly like, takes the time and [:You're like, woo, woof.
Jordan S. Keller : Wolf is right. I can't, oh my gosh. Like, even if like the end of the game is that the, cast of characters can like, overcome it and like undo it or whatever. Could you imagine just having to think about all the things that would've changed if they had won, like like the evilness and darkness in the world?
Dave: We would be smelling burning bodies every single time we'd drive on the highway.
Jordan S. Keller : Oh, yeah.
Dave: I know that's like a very surreal thing to think about, but Yeah, like you, you get diagnosed with cancer, they're cremating you alive.
Jordan S. Keller : Oh
Dave: Yeah. There's no, there's no, 'cause you're not pure. You're no longer pure. It's like, it it, that's what I'm saying.
And that again, that's like [:And then if you don't win the game, you die along with them and then you have no idea where you even go. And then you meet all of these wonderful people and then they all start dying in front of you. Like that is so far from reality.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah. people eat it up.
Dave: They love it. They love violence. They love playing it. They love reading it. They love experiencing, they love putting themselves in that situation all the freaking times. It's like, don't go down the basement, but I want to,
Jordan S. Keller : Oh,
Dave: don't, don't go down.
Jordan S. Keller : I can't watch horror movies 'cause I get freaked out for too long after 'em. But some of the older slasher ones I can handle with all the lights on of course. And are so dumb. Like, why would you go to the scary basement? Why would you go to the woods? Why would you walk into that barn? Um, just, just get in your car and leave.
's honestly why I personally [:But you know, it's, it's a comedy, it's a parody. Like, I don't remember what scary movie it was. Um, I think it was the second one or the third one, I'm paraphrasing. But there was a scene where they had security cameras in the house, and they were like scared shitless of like, going around. So they're like watching these security cameras and then the secure, the, the cleaning lady in the house, she, I don't know, thought there was like demons or something.
that's what I'm saying too, [:This is too, this is too much. Like, gimme just some fun, you know what?
Jordan S. Keller : A dumb cartoon.
Dave: Yeah,
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: yeah. Watching, you know, uh, while, you know, what's his name? Um, the coyote getting his head hit by an anvil.
Jordan S. Keller : um,
Dave: He was like, yeah, he's like pee. And he like stares up. And I was like, bang.
Jordan S. Keller : Oh, I love Livington.
Dave: I do too.
Jordan S. Keller : watched Scream for the first time, like two years ago, and it,
Dave: Really?
Jordan S. Keller : of my favorite movies. Just 'cause of, of how silly it is and how like,
Dave: It's not real at all. Like the blood is fake. The knives are all fake. Everything's fake.
Jordan S. Keller : So, uh,
Dave: We didn't do anything to make it real at all. You just like see a person like ah, you can see like, it kind of retracts and just goes in like, ah, you just fall on the ground and you're like, okay, alright. They cut like two seconds later and the guy walked off the stage.
But,
Jordan S. Keller : Wait a second.
Dave: but you know what though? Storytelling wise. Okay, somebody green lit that many years ago and I, you know, you get a bunch of executives today to try to greenlit that. They're like, this is stupid. Nobody's gonna wanna watch this. But somebody did green lit it and it was made.
Jordan S. Keller : of a phenomenon nowadays.
Dave: Nobody makes movies like that anymore.
Name one horror movie that's like that. I can't think of one that's come out recently.
Jordan S. Keller : I don't know if maybe just the, the mass production of movies we get every year, but it, like, I, I remember when Avengers and or the original Avengers came out and like, like that was an event and, and now like
Dave: Who cares?
Jordan S. Keller : movie every other month and like,
Dave: Who cares
Jordan S. Keller : it, there's sort of, I don't wanna say it lost its appeal.
I'm a big superhero fan, but I just can't like, drum up the excitement anymore. Like, but, so maybe it's like the. The, the amount of movies we get each year, everything just sort of gets a little forgotten.
t the amount of stuff that's [:Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: I mean, the internet has been around, believe it. Or actually the internet was invented in the early seventies.
Jordan S. Keller : Whoa.
Dave: yeah, which is crazy.
But. What that basically has done, where, you know, there was a time where you were kind of limited based on your community and your surroundings. You know, you had a record store, you had a recording center, you know, you had electronic store, you know, you had people that you would talk to. You know, Quentin Tarantino has talked about this a lot.
He said that rental video, rental stores used to be a, a place that people used to get their entertainment and find out what their entertainment was. 'cause you would go in there and you'd have your three kids and you're like, I, I don't know what to give these kids. And then the guy would be like, oh, what is your kids like?
an? We went from that to now [:We went from that 30 years ago to this, which is
Jordan S. Keller : it,
Dave: wild.
Jordan S. Keller : so easy to communicate nowadays, but I feel like we've lost a sense of community.
Dave: We've lost a sense of community and even like being able to understand of like how people have been able to experience entertainment. It's talking to people and exploring new things. Like there are things that you have watched that another person hasn't. You know, like we, we've been talking back and forth and there's things that I've seen that you haven't seen, you know, and just that in and itself allows people to be able to explore new things.
But the second you start throwing TikTok and Facebook and Instagram reels with all these
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: unquote movie and, and the TV reviewers and it gets really watered down. I.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah. Or like so many times I will hear the same opinion over and over again. And it it, it makes me have that opinion even without having ingested the, the, the product. And I hate that 'cause like, I should be able to inform my own opinion. I should want to go and see the, the movie, read the book. Um, but I've just heard two or three negative comments like, oh, well I'm not gonna like it then. And I've, I've, I feel like I've lost that, that need to acquire that, that opinion for myself nowadays. 'cause like, I don't think I'm gonna go see the Lilo and Stitch movie just 'cause of how they changed the ending. And, was really excited to see it. And
Dave: She didn't need to go to college.
Jordan S. Keller : she didn't need to go to college, or she could have went in state,
Dave: And um, the thing that pissed me off the most is the fact that they changed Johanna. So they literally changed the meaning of the, which I literally have freaking tattooed on my arm, which, yeah.
Jordan S. Keller : [:Dave: So the phrase was suppo. It's supposed to be, ohana means family. And family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten. They changed it to ohana means family and nobody gets left behind
so that they can, so they can have her go off to college. 'cause otherwise, if they have the full phrase, it wouldn't make sense for the story. And then the way that they corrected the fact that she goes to college is obviously, spoiler, you're not watching this thing to watch movies. Um, they had where he basically opens up a portal so she can go from her college dorm back into their house.
Jordan S. Keller : Okay.
Dave: that's how they solve the problem of her going to college.
Jordan S. Keller : So there's even not a consequence for her going to college.
Dave: No, it,
Jordan S. Keller : all nice, tight, and bowed up at the end.
ly a way of trying to force. [:Hawaiians are different than other states, very similar to how Puerto Rico operates, where communities take care of each other. So if somebody's struggling or if they lose loved ones, even though it's very high cost of living, people try to come together and try to help out, which was kind of the message that was the original Lilo and Stitch movie.
And then this movie they kind of made where, well, she can't take care of Lilo and you know, social services are involved and, and she must go to college in order to continue her profession. But that's not Hawaiian culture. They keep forcing Hawaiian culture throughout the movie. But like in Hawaiian culture, if somebody like that is struggling, the family comes together regardless of college, regardless of jobs.
Oh, that's, oh, that, that's [:Dave: It is
Jordan S. Keller : Oh,
Dave: keep throwing out Hawaiian words in Ohana and like great that you did your research on the Hawaiian language, but that still doesn't justify.
Jordan S. Keller : more. Yeah.
Dave: Yeah. And the other, the other thing we were talking about too, which I totally agree with you, where animation kind of plays a better role is I love CGI, but when you try to bring these characters to life with these CGI models, like even with the Lion King, I don't that, that Cannon Valley effect, it's just why does this eye look like a freak, like the, the new Lilo and Stitch, like the Alia, I forgot their names.
Jordan S. Keller : Oh, uh, uh. Oh my gosh. in jba?
Dave: They, they look creepy and weird and like.
Jordan S. Keller : Oh,
Dave: Ugh.
Jordan S. Keller : I saw some stills of 'em and it, it, they just looked like wet and sticky.
Dave: can, I can't, I can't get that in image. And the original series, like they, I don't know. They, they were kind of weird looking, but they were kind of squishy and kind of plumpy. Yeah. They were fun and, and they were not the villain. Okay. Like he was not the villain in the original ser I'm sorry, I'm going on this tangent.
Like I just,
Jordan S. Keller : good. Let
Dave: this is my, this is my childhood, man.
Jordan S. Keller : It's on your arm.
Dave: It's on my arm. Like this is gonna be on my arm when I'm 70. Man. Like, my grandchildren's gonna be like, why do you have a freaking alien on your arm?
Jordan S. Keller : You have to show him the original, like, no, no, no. It was from
Dave: No,
Jordan S. Keller : one.
Dave: the cool one. You know, it's like, not the original, not, not that this West side story, like the one that came out in 61.
Like what? There was another one. That's the thing too, by the way. Like there's so many stories that they keep on just rewriting and rewriting and then
Jordan S. Keller : Reviving poorly.
Dave: you know how many stars as born. We've had like seven.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: Can you imagine if like you wrote your book? Because I know you've written like a bunch of different series.
Like can you imagine if you wrote your character the same story but seven different ways?
Jordan S. Keller : I would, I'd walk off a bridge. I would get so sick of it. Ugh. Like if, like, mean, my, my first book was my first book, so there are some issues with it, with like plot points and like a few things I could have explained better. So like, if I had to rewrite it one time, that would be fine 'cause I could clean up and make things make more sense, shine some light on some things I had forgotten at the time, but 2, 3, 4, like, I, I would feel ashamed as a writer.
Like I would need that many rewrites to make that story, tell what I needed to say it.
with the times because in the:So Star Trek, of course, needs to have more female representation. Of course, star Wars, you know, needs to be more theoretical and more broken down and have waterless stories that have no bias or basis. Of course, we need to have sci-fi written so that we should understand of the complexity. I
Jordan S. Keller : no, no.
Dave: this just.
Jordan S. Keller : big word sci-fi. 'cause like I don't need to understand it. I just need to like,
Dave: capacitor. What the hell does that mean? I don't care. It's just flux capacitor. Right? It's, you know, that, that's a, that's the beauty of sci-fi writing is it's fantasy. It's, you know, imagination. It's going beyond our understanding of reality.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm. [:Dave: Esp, you, do, you know, how many, do you know how many nerds on YouTube have the conversation about how the Millennium Falcon actually goes fast?
Jordan S. Keller : no.
Dave: It's a movie. Okay. It's a movie. All right. They, I don't know. George Lucas figured out that it's cool to maybe have some lights, you know, that they go hyper speed.
I don't care. They, they just zip through space and voila. They're, they're, they're at tattooing. Cool. That's all I need to know.
Jordan S. Keller : you're, you're losing the enjoyment if you dive that far in, um, uh, my, my newest book, family Gravity, there's a scene where like. But there's these anti-gravity beams that keep a city floating and, and one of the beams is like, shorting out. And, and brought that chapter to my writing group and we were just cleaning it up and, and it's, we had like a 30 minute conversation on how much, how much power the gravity needed.
[:Dave: Does anybody explain on how you had a, the floating city in star, in Star Wars on a planet?
Jordan S. Keller : did.
Dave: No, because we don't even know and how it works. We just know it's a flying city on a planet. That's it. You know, I think, I think that's something that I really also like. It's, I'll be honest, it's hard to watch through these, okay.
Like, I'm not gonna lie, the: Like there's some lines, but [:Jordan S. Keller : Maybe sixties.
Dave: maybe sixties. They had a little too much LSD and and psilocybin in their system back then.
'cause Wow. Think about it though. Look at the sixties and all the shit that came out of that era. I'm like, I don't know what you're smoking, but I wanna share some of that 'cause.
Jordan S. Keller : Let, let me see what you're seeing.
Dave: I mean, the amount of, think about also, like I know you love superheroes. Think of all the superheroes we got out of the sixties,
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: like the Silver Surfer.
Jordan S. Keller : We got out of the sixties and
Dave: I think Silver Surfer was this, oh my God. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get this wrong. I'm gonna get this wrong. I guarantee you it's from
Jordan S. Keller : I
Dave: what
Jordan S. Keller : such a fake fan. 'cause I got, I read comics all the time, but I, I know next to nothing about the, the, the overworld of it and all the history. And
Dave: year? Okay. What year was the Silver Surfer?
Jordan S. Keller : I would've
Dave: Uh,
Jordan S. Keller : Four.
Dave: I think that was the eighties, if I'm not mistaken. Oh my God. But that's what I'm saying too though, is like, there's so much history with all of this, right? Like if you tried to put on a piece of paper right now, all of DC and Marvel's comic, like they're, they're superheroes and their villains and I, I, I think you'd have.
Enough pages. Just like your new book, like you probably have like 300 pages.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave::Jordan S. Keller : Nice.
Dave: Yes. I got that right. I knew it. I knew it. Phew.
It's hard to remember dates, you know, like, it's so hard. It's like, damn. Like I don't,
ing older than the nineties, [:Dave: it's hard because you know, you, like I was talking about this before, you take characters even like Deadpool.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: Deadpool in the nineties was, was a little ahead of its time. Like I think if most parents knew what Deadpool was in the nineties, I don't even think they would be giving it to their kids. So that's why like when it came out in the, like recently, a couple of years ago, you know, people are like, oh my God, this is amazing.
Like this feels modern and fresh. It's because it was written very much ahead of its time to begin with anyway. You know what I mean? So it's like, yeah.
he original hero. They had a [:Dave: It
Jordan S. Keller : And,
Dave: was amazing.
Jordan S. Keller : yeah. And people who don't read comics Dunno.
Heroes. They loved
Dave: They loved it.
Jordan S. Keller : it can be done.
, like from the series in the:And then you have something like Quinn Tarantino, which obviously grew up on the Caesar Romero Joker character, and then eventually experienced, you know, like the Tim Burton version of The Joker, which was Jack Nicholson. And then fast forward, you know, he comes out with the Joker, which, you know, stars Joaquin Phoenix.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: this is the [:The psychos, the campiness, the, the cringiness, all of that's tied into one because you're taking somebody, right. We were just saying that is an artist and a creator, and is a nerd and is geeked out and has loved this shit for many, many, many years, and is able to bring that into film
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: that lens.
Not a marketing lens, not MCU, not numbers, not any of the, it's just an artist taking what he remembered as a child, what he experienced, and then making a movie out of that.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: It was amazing.
Jordan S. Keller : to think about.
d The Jokers by far the best [:Jordan S. Keller : My, my favorite thing when like my family and people were like seeing the joke, they're like, oh, it just feel really uncomfortable. Like,
Dave: Yeah, it's supposed to.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: to make you feel uncomfortable. Like people don't remember, like Caesar Romero was very scary to kids. Very scary. Like, I even remember my uncle telling me that, you know, he remembers us as a kid growing up in the sixties, that the second Batman would come on and the Joker was up.
Like we just turn it off. He couldn't handle it. It was just too freaky.
Jordan S. Keller : Oh, wow.
Dave: Think about it, like try to watch one of the episodes from the original Batman series with the Joker, and you're just gonna sit there and just like.
'cause he's weird. He's,
Jordan S. Keller : weird.
on television, you're like, [:But it's a kid's show, but it's the sixties. Yeah. It's gotta be okay. But you, you don't have people doing that stuff anymore because again, it's not, it's not pg, it's not part of the times, it's not socially acceptable. It's not,
it's not true to the character.
Jordan S. Keller : No. Nowadays people are so scared to upset anyone. They, they can't, I feel like ev like in such a tight little box 'cause like, oh, well what if I say this? What if I do that? And what if I wear that? And it, I, I hope as a society we can branch outta that and get away from this fear of upsetting people.
'cause, I mean, no matter what you do, someone will always be upset about it and you can't please everyone. And so like, you just gotta be okay with that. And as long as you're not hurting nobody, you should, should be able to do whatever you need.
know what though? I, I think [:Don't get me wrong, I think some marketers, some editors, some publishers, they're some of the most amazing people. They are creative in their own sense, even if it's numbers or analytical thinking, but it's being able to bridge those gaps together. It's being able to sit in front of a publisher and say, Hey.
You know, this is my story and I need you to understand that I can't rewrite it because then it's not true to the story. And then them being able to understand, okay, I got you. So what we have to do is then shift the way that we're gonna be marketing this. Maybe we gotta shift this into more of a niche market.
l stores in a specific area. [:Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: entertainment industry will die, and it'll be replaced by a very digital, very, very much what we're doing right now.
You know what, I'm not, I'm not a corporate lover in any shape or sense. I feel it's important to have some physical structure, even if it's large based because they have given us some amazing stuff. Let's, no, no, that's not gonna lie. Like 21st. Century's given us a lot of amazing stuff. Universal's given us a lot of amazing stuff.
So has Disney. You know, it's just, they've kind of forgotten why they were successful to begin with.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah. The, oh, I, I'm very fortunate. The, the, my agent, my publishers, they're very, like, they see the vision I want and they help me get to where I need to be to nail in order to show it, in order to say it.
Dave: Right.
Jordan S. Keller : I'm very [:Dave: And you know what though? That just showcases a way of being able to, like I said, being able to bridge the gap.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: they're not writers, okay? They're not, they're not writers. IG guarantee you try to get them to write a freaking letter that's gonna be more mistakes on there than you can ever make mistakes.
But they're able to see the other side of what you can't see as a writer. And you know what though? I, I, being serious, I think this is a reason why we get ourselves into a lot of trouble is because instead of being able to try to work through conflict and having conversations and talking about things, we point fingers.
We start wars. We threaten writers, we threaten actors, we threaten creators. It's not a way, it's not a way. This is not, this is not how we, we've grown and thrive as artists, as a community. It's just not how it works. I.
breath. People are so afraid [:Like, no, it, it's not. If there's a problem, you need to let us know so that we can help you handle it and, and get it taken care of. And, and like just to find their voice again and find that they're able to stand on their own and, yeah.
Dave: Really being able to do that, like on, on a completely different side note, um, I have, I have a 14-year-old car, and you know, as somebody that's trained to be an automotive technician, I have experience with cars. You know, you tend to forget, like this is, this is also in the artist industry where you get this type of abuse where you have somebody that quote unquote, is the expert and they think of you as, you know, you don't, you don't know shit.
I could pull the wool over you like,
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: but of course [:Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: when you point out their blunders and mistakes, they start blaming you and say, well, you know, if you take your car, you, you know, their warranty's gonna deny this and they're not gonna take care of this. And then you're gonna have all these problems, yada. And then again, even though this has to do with cars, you can kind of tie this back even with, even with writing.
You sit there and you say to yourself, but I know this, this is what I do. Okay? I may not be an expert, okay? I may not be Stephen King, okay? Most of us are not freaking Stephen King,
Jordan S. Keller : no.
es, you are pulling the wall [:It's like, don't be afraid to stand up even if somebody's telling you that you're wrong. Okay? You have that conversation and you try to, and, and if you are genuinely wrong, okay, tell the other person, tell me why I'm wrong.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: Gimme the reason why.
Jordan S. Keller : with being wrong. Like there will
Dave: No,
Jordan S. Keller : you, you don't know enough to be right. But yeah, it's okay to be wrong, but not okay to have the wool pulled over you and taken advantage of.
But if you cannot stand your [:Like it's not about creating numbers, it's about being a huge superstar. It's you personally. You will never, ever be able to grow as an artist. You will always be stuck as you know. I'm sorry to be that man, but you're gonna be that guy that's on that bass guitar alright, in that bar for 29 years. And that's all you do.
I'd be, it's a great career, but you could do better than that. Oh, come on.
Jordan S. Keller : well, the, being comfortable with conflict is such a great, And, and to, yeah, and to, I, I know like growing up, if they were ever like, not like massive problems, but like my, my parents allowed me to fail and, and if I had to figure out something, they wouldn't swoop in and take care of it. They, they allowed me to figure it out on my own.
on their own versus someone [:Dave: Especially people like, especially people my age, like I'm not trying to give any form of judgment or anything of that, but you see a lot of not being able to stand on your own two feet. You know, this I, this idea of notion, and again, I'm not trying to be criticizing of YouTube and social media influencers, like kudos to them, but my God, you, you gotta be able to get out of your head, out of the ass.
e able to balance this shit, [:You can't just be like, well, I'm gonna be the next John Lennon. Um, not happening.
Jordan S. Keller : no.
Dave: It's just
Jordan S. Keller : hope you do, but I just, no,
Dave: No, no, it's.
Jordan S. Keller : there are so many times, and like, like I, I even fell for this when I was little or little when I was like graduating college. Um, if like, to be a, a rock and roll journalist and I applied to one music magazine and I got denied. I'm like, well, that's it. I I'm never gonna be a rock and roll journalist then.
You can't just take that CEO [:You
Dave: It is. And even, you know, for example, in my avenue, right, where I'm in vocational school training to be a technician and I literally had to put myself through 12 months of this crap just so I can be put into a 12 month, like 12 week program with a manufacturer and I. What that allows me to do is to basically start off as level three at, you know, when I enter like, you know, a dealership bay, like into the service bay.
And that is not something that is easy that happens. You know, they're trying to cram in three years of information in 12 weeks. You know what I'm saying? You know, we would like to take the short road for a lot of different things, but what we forget is what are the costs to be able to do that? It's your sanity, it's your mental health, it's your physical wellbeing, it's your social life.
combined. And I don't think [:Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: if I told you the amount of times I've had six or seven problems just pop up in a matter of four days,
Jordan S. Keller : Oh,
Dave: I'm like.
You hear me? Right? Can you fucking slow down please?
Jordan S. Keller : let me catch my breath for
Dave: Yeah. Like gimme a week, you know, like you ever heard of like the Sabbath or like Sunday, you know, like a break.
Jordan S. Keller : Just one day. That's all
Dave: Just one day. One day.
Jordan S. Keller : or, yeah, or like. There is, yeah, like, uh, same breath, like, uh, I, I, I work property management, so like the company I work for, we, we manage properties
Dave: Oh my God, you are all over the place. Jesus.
Jordan S. Keller : But there'll be like three weeks where nothing, like all the buildings are good, all the tenants are happy.
And then one week
Dave: Bam.
calls every day. Yeah. Bam, [:Dave: No.
Jordan S. Keller : you can't control maintenance or you can't control when a toilet gets clogged or when a, when a storm comes in and blows part of a roof off.
And, but
Dave: That, that's honestly, like I, I know we've been talking about superheroes a lot, and one, one thing recently I really, really enjoyed was, um, and have you watched Invincible at all?
Jordan S. Keller : yeah. I love invincible.
Dave: Oh my God. First of, by the way, like, I love the fact that every single episode is either him getting his ass kicked, his ass ripped off his ass, reattached or reattached, and then him being in a coma and it's just, it's pure gold.
t. And then you could do it, [:And. I think that is genius because I know, I don't know who the people that are writing this, but I know that where they're stemming this writing is from is, they're like screaming on the high heavens. It's like, yo,
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: is a Japanese anime. I think it's Japanese. It's Japanese, or I think it's Japanese.
It's a Japanese anime, anime series. And like we, we gotta stay true to the story. And then the execs are like, okay, okay, okay.
Jordan S. Keller : The writers of the comic books are the same writers. It's a walking Dead. And so like, I'll see a lot of similarities, like, oh my God, so gory, how can you get away with that? Well, 'cause they've already gotten away with it and, and live action. So getting away with it on the pages and, and on the animated screen, but ugh, ugh.
ed getting Star Trek off the [:Yeah. That lady was the one that helped promote Star Trek. And it's, it's crazy to think that, like, we've seen these patterns happen so many times. Like there was another series kind of also in the realm of Star Trek, which was the expands, which was very also based on science and actual, like realistic understanding of how IC and things work series got canceled and then Amazon came along and they were like, okay, we got you.
Jordan S. Keller : We'll give it a shot.
is gonna want it. You know, [:You just gotta be able to trust. I know, I know. You can't always, but you gotta sometimes trust the universe. Just, just a little. Just a little. Okay. And,
Jordan S. Keller : in the work. faith in yourself.
Dave: yeah, and understand that sometimes, like if you get into a rut and it's not going the way that you want to, it's okay. Sometimes it's taken writers 20 years to write a book.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: It's just, that's just how it is. You know? I don't think it's taking you, I, I don't think it's taking you 20 years to writing now.
Jordan S. Keller : I, uh, I, the, the, the joke, um, my husband works second shift, so we don't see each other in the evenings. And so like, I have all this free time at night and, and so that's where I get a lot of my writing done is while he's at work. And we don't have any kids right now. We just got a cat and a dog and once the dog gets walked, he's pretty content with
Dave: Isn't that, isn't that though technically having kids? 'cause you know.
m, I, he goes to the dog, he [:Like he's my whole wide world. I
Dave: Oh my God.
Jordan S. Keller : ugh,
Dave: I
Jordan S. Keller : little baby angel.
Dave: They are, there are little fur babies. I have, I have mine. She's turning seven this year. She,
Jordan S. Keller : Oh,
Dave: she is a calico, tuxedo cat hat, and she acts like a dog. I don't, I I think we, we should have had an intervention with her years ago about this. Like she rolls over, she likes belly scratches. She meow, barks.
If anybody's not curious, what meow barking is, is like when they do the y. Yeah, that's me out barking.
Jordan S. Keller : Ooh,
Dave: And I just like, I think to myself, I'm like, oh my God, am I this crazy as an artist that I literally have a cat that is also messed up in the brain that thinks it's not a cat.
Jordan S. Keller : no, no. [:It's like. were raised by this cat and so it,
Dave: Now you're a cat, you're not a dog, you're a cat. Oh my God. That is a great series. I cannot believe we were cat dog. Damn.
Jordan S. Keller : Gosh. The era of those cartoons,
Dave: insane. Or you know, uh, cards of the Cowardly Dog,
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: ed Annette.
Jordan S. Keller : And, and so many things on those shows you could not do today. And like the, the, the topics, the, the jokes and, and I don't know if that's why they are so great, is 'cause they pushed those envelopes. They weren't afraid to upset anyone, and
It's hilarious 'cause uh, we [:Jordan S. Keller : the just ran skimpy as a whole
Dave: I know
Jordan S. Keller : and we all turned out fine.
Dave: you all turned out fun. I mean, you know, we're, we're okay. You know, we could be better than you. Be better.
Jordan S. Keller : there are a few moments, I'm sure
Dave: But it's, it's so weird because. The nineties had a lot of problems. Okay. And you know, we can kind of, you've got a lot of baby boomers that go, oh, back in the day, the good old days. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Relax. Just calm down. The nineties though is different. 'cause they feel like the nineties was like the, the final frontier until like we entered the 21st century where like it's just, hell just broke loose.
yeah. Make porn films. Yeah. [:You know, just having just a bunch of, you know, band members walking up on stage completely naked with no Braun. It's fine. There's kids in the cro, it's fine. The parents said it's okay for them. That was the nineties. That was the nineties. It was just a free for all. It's just like, yeah,
Jordan S. Keller : It's all good.
Dave: good, you know.
Jordan S. Keller : we could go back.
s, and then all of a sudden, [:Jordan S. Keller : Yeah. And it's, I, it's such a weird example, but like, if, if, if you're gonna drink, I'd rather you drink at home. Like, I feel like we were exposed to all of that as small adults and, and it, and we were fine with it. Like, we didn't need to, like, there wasn't a taboo to it. There wasn't like a, a, an evil thing for it.
Like, it was like, oh, that's just normal. Okay.
Dave: Yeah. Yeah. An animated character with a big ass like, okay. It's fine, it's fine. Like I, to be honest, to be honest, like I grew up also with the Powerpuff girls and I never like noticed any of the sexual or subliminal messages because there were a lot, I mean, especially like watching some of the episodes now, I'm like, damn, buttercup, can you relax please?
Like God?
Jordan S. Keller : how'd you get away with this?
Dave: Yeah, like how many more wedgies do you need to give? Like Jesus, you know? But
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: [:Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: You are not thinking about that stuff. You're just like, ha ha, that's, that's funny.
And then you make like that sexual joke in school and then your teacher like, you know, gives you detention. 'cause you know, you're Yeah,
Jordan S. Keller : You, you're like, okay, I won't say that in public anymore
Dave: yeah.
Jordan S. Keller : around adults.
Dave: around teachers. 'cause they got me in trouble. But I don't know. I, I think at the same time, like kids today are way more aware than they ever have before. Like, I've been around enough five and seven year olds where they start asking questions about like, sexuality and life and importance.
And I'm like, you're five. You're five.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah. Chill out. We'll, we'll talk about it
Dave: We'll talk about it later.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
ke even the old stuff. You'd [:Jordan S. Keller : Mm. Mm-hmm.
Dave: Because there were a lot of people that were watching the old series and they were like, wait, what? People were,
Jordan S. Keller : can redo this and
Dave: yeah.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: Yeah. I mean, it's not as good as the original, but
Jordan S. Keller : No,
Dave: No, and I remember clearly that we used, I used to have to wait up late, like really late to watch the Pride Family and Kim Possible, like it was like 11 or 12 o'clock at night, and you're just forcing yourself to stay o like awake and you're just,
Jordan S. Keller : cheek laughs
Dave: you're just like, I kind of know what happens.
hey're not, there's no more, [:You know, you're just having fun. And I, I feel like that gets lost. The, the second you start throwing categories and labels and bandages, it's like, you gotta let kids be kids. You gotta let adults be adults. You gotta just let the art speak for itself, you know? And I think that's very true with your own books.
Like, would you ever want somebody to take your story and then say, well, we need to make this more appropriate for our audiences.
Jordan S. Keller : I'd be like, but it's fine for its audiences that that's you trying to force it to a different group, to a younger group, like, um, in, in the superhero books like they're. I, I like to tell, like, if parents come with kids, I like to tell 'em, like, I, I, I think like 15 and above is fine, that there's some curse words in it.
, you don't see it, but like [:Dave: Yeah, it's on the side. It's on this online.
Jordan S. Keller : the side. Yeah. But it's like if, if you want me to rewrite it to be kid friendly, then you're losing a lot of elements that made the book what it is and
Dave: You, you
Jordan S. Keller : fine to wait.
It's fine to wait
Dave: not everything is made for everyone, you know? That's the thing that we kind of get lost to. It's where when you're making a story, it's like, yes, it is important to obviously, like, you know, if you have this business, you know, the revenue and market share and how it will like gross, well, in movie theaters and on streaming platforms and all of this stuff, especially even when you're writing of like, you know how well you're doing on Amazon.
Oh, it's got picked up by Barnes and Nobles, yada, yada. Like, oh, it's in the stores. But I think what gets forgotten the most is, and I think this is also why Invincible was really successful, is it's a niche market.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
he India and the underground [:They're like,
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: what's new and weird? What, what's something that's kind of like local and gritty?
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah. Yeah.
Dave: then voila, we got, we got you, Jordan,
Jordan S. Keller : I'm local and gritty.
Dave: local and gritty. But that's something that you, you only get if you're true to yourself.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: That's only something that you get if you're not trying to force a narrative or you're trying to fake a character or a persona or a personality.
Jordan S. Keller : yeah. There, there were times when, like, after my, my superhero trilogy was out, I was struggling, like, what do I write next? And, and I tried writing what was popular, like, um, like, oh, okay, uh, dragons are really big. Lemme write a dragon book. And it wasn't, it wasn't true to who I was and it wasn't true to my writing.
d, and a story that I felt I [:Dave: No, you could.
Jordan S. Keller : it's my blood sugar at Lauren. Um, it wasn't until I fell into this, the science fiction world with failing gravity, that, that the story came out and felt true to who I was and felt true to what I needed to tell.
And that
Dave: Is it?
Jordan S. Keller : feeling at the moment. Came true to those words, and like you said, I wasn't, I wasn't faking it.
Dave: Is it blaring at you? I have a friend of mine that
Jordan S. Keller : to
Dave: I have a friend of mine that has one of them, and she, she gets like the notifications constantly, and I'm like, what? And she's like, just gimme one second. I'm like,
Jordan S. Keller : gotta eat these jelly beans real fast. I'll be good. Um, but yeah, like, uh, my blood sugar was high this morning, and of course, I, I overcorrected with breakfast and it's finally catching up and,
know, like we have our whole [:Um, when you, I was thinking about this earlier on, right? Um, one of my favorite series, like book series growing up was Suzanne Collins, the Hunger Games.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: And, you know, if you read the books, I'm going to, no offense to Suzanne, like, she's not the greatest writer. She's okay. But the way that she writes her story, you can feel that almost like she's talking about her own life, her own struggles, her own things that she's going through.
art to feel the pain of what [:Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: kind of feel squeamish and kind of angry like they are with the, like the games that they're playing on these people. But I think why it works so well is because she's able to take her life and put that through Kaus Everdeen. 'cause Kaus is Suzanne Collins.
Jordan S. Keller : it is very real. Like, like the, the kanu. It is very real and you can believe the world that Suzanne is telling because you believe kanu and yeah, you're absolutely right. Like there are parts in those books where like, all that can be way better. It doesn't need to be way better. 'cause you, you're, believing it through the character who you believe and
Dave: You're seeing it through, which is that, by the way, um, we should have talked about this earlier, but it's fine. We could talk about this. Now. There's something about first narrative, which is, I have found is actually the hardest way of writing is first, first person.
Jordan S. Keller : I can't do first person.
Dave: I'm, I'm,
Jordan S. Keller : I've tried so many
ve: I'm trying to do it, and [:Like I'm already into chapter four and I'm like,
Jordan S. Keller : hmm.
Dave: it's hard because what happens is when you try to have the characters bouncing off of each other, you try reading it back, and then you start fumbling and you're like, wait, who's talking to who?
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: So. The fact that Suzanne Collins was able to write a series, book after book, where it's very much first person narrative and it's being through the eyes and lens of kaus,
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: even if the writing is not perfect.
That is, that is some serious skill right there. 'cause you are, you're really walking through her steps,
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: from the very beginning of the book. Towards the end. Like when she falls and gets sick in the the dome, you're like, I'm literally sitting there like a kanu. Are you? And I'm thinking like, Kanu, are you okay?
Are you gonna be alright? Like, are you gonna have like,
Jordan S. Keller : Like, can I get you a cold compress?
Dave: that's what,
Jordan S. Keller : girl?
does. And I think that's why [:You know, and you're just. You're going through this lens, you're going through those eyes. So the whole story is only through one person's eyes. So the way that they perceive the world and how they view other people, their traumas,
it's so hard. It's Jesus Christ. I thought this was freaking easy. It's nuts.
Jordan S. Keller : and there's definitely a, a nuance, the first person writing, 'cause like when I write third person, I'm still focused in on one character. You only see and feel what they're feeling. But just like being able to separate myself from the character I'm writing, like I fear that if I wrote first person, I wouldn't be able to make that separation between me and the character.
tumble into each other. Like [:Dave: On the next person.
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah.
Dave: Yeah. And I is, I.
s very much around Kaus, the [:So I think there's now two other, I haven't read the new books. Um, but what happens in your perspective is where, you know, you can be able to shut the door and then move on to chap the next chapter and then, you know, focus onto different elements of being able to build the story. You know, everything comes with its pros and cons.
You know, even we're talking about with writing, it comes with even film, or even with music, or even with art. When you have that lens perspective of it being told by, you know, one character. You lose a lot of elements. That's the con. 'cause then, you know, you can't, you can't really describe characters too often.
'cause then it's kind of, can you imagine that? Like,
Jordan S. Keller : Yeah. It
Dave: gets weird. It's like, and I bumped into Marshall and Marshall is five feet tall, has black hair and weighs about 185 pound.
Jordan S. Keller : It's like, how do I know that?
while you're talking to him, [:So you, you can't,
Jordan S. Keller : yeah.
Dave: add all those elements in there. You can maybe like throw in like, oh this person's like sophisticated and like ahead of its time. So you can kind of, but basically causing your writers to go through this whole fixation of where they have to figure out what the characters look like.
They gotta understand the scenarios that are being played. They kind of, some, I've had this happen with first person, especially with psychological thrillers. You finish a chapter. What, just, what just happened? Why did she get off the train if the chapter before said that she went off the train two months ago?
Wait, so is this chapter happening two months prior? Is this talking about that?
Jordan S. Keller : a messy narrative.
that's sometimes where they [:Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: why they brought this up is because they're having a psychological break and they're reliving the same events over and over again.
But you have to be able to trust yourself that.
Jordan S. Keller : just the author and, yeah,
Dave: I think what we've learned, especially in this past hour, is it's not easy to be creative in any form of the sense. Like you, you could throw as many pieces of paper into a typewriter, but I promise you right now, you're, you're going to struggle
pare that to character B who [:And, um, if that makes any sense.
Dave: No, it does. And sometimes it's nice to be able to have where, you know, you can have, where people can develop their own interpretation of the, of the characters, by the way, like. One thing that really hits hard, especially when you start describing characters, is you run into blocks. Great example is like we've talking about tons of different series, like Harry Potter's a great example of it.
JK Rowling is a great writer, but one of her biggest issues is she's so detailed with her characters
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
s and now they're making the [:it's really hard because we clearly know what sever Snape looks like from the books. We know what Haggard looks like, you know? That's why when we got the new Dumbledore in the order of the Phoenix, we were kind of like, what? 'cause he doesn't, he doesn't look, he's not described like that in the book. Like Chris, Chris Columbus actually got the real portrayal of Dumbledore in the very first two,
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: two movies.
So. That's the thing about the double-edged sword. It's like where you can be like JK Rowling and you make these incredible like seven book series and you're so detailed with your characters. The second that you go to film portrayal or television portrayal, you're fucked.
y're always picture them for [:And, so I try to hit like major, like, okay eye color, hair color build. If, if there's a feature like a scar or a blemish, that's really important to them, but the rest like kinda leave up to the reader's interpretation 'cause they're gonna do that anyway.
Dave: Yeah. And the truth though, it again makes it very hard for it to be adaptable. You know, like we were saying, it's weird again, you know what? There are a lot of artists that don't like collaborating. That's fine.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: But you know, if you constantly have this thing in the back of your head where, you know what?
I'm doing my own thing. I don't wanna collaborate, I don't wanna share, this is my thing. Like, fuck you. Like I'm gonna do what I wanna, don't get me wrong, j Rowling is very successful and I think she's a fantastic writer, but this is what you run into. And she's not the only writer that suffers from this.
[:Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: But the second you start limiting that, especially with our own running, and I kind of wanna wrap this up with this, you.
You lose the message, like you said, you know, allowing the audience to be able to create their own version of the character, allowing other creators to be able to make film adaptions or TV adaptions or maybe a graphic novel. I don't know, just throwing ideas out there.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: Why limit yourself? Why not allow other people to be able to share the work that you love and you're passionate about too?
Jordan S. Keller : I would be so honored if an artist like, this is how I picture your characters. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like I, if they're not like a hundred percent how I picture, I'm like, that's totally fine. I would be so honored.
t it. Like it's a long, it's [:And then. I don't see any fun with that. I think some of the most incredible art projects are the ones where you have different people's collaborating together and making those realities,
Jordan S. Keller : And, and like the idea you might have might be incredible to you at that moment, but being able to share that with other people and hearing the feedback on, like, that's, like I mentioned, that writing group I'm in, I'm so fortunate to have them just to be able to spitball ideas and create together and,
, it's be able to experience [:Kudos to you. You know, you, I think you've been able to really do that well with your writing. You've been able to create a series that represents you and. You know what? The more people that you can collaborate with, the more podcasts, the more artists, the more creators. This is how we survive, especially in this generation.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm. Hopeful we gotta rebuild those communities that were kind of lost in those early internet days.
Dave: We have to, and you know what, like I'm doing it virtually, but we still can do this in all forms of different ways.
Jordan S. Keller : Mm-hmm.
Dave: Um, I wanted to ask you be before we, uh, finish up, 'cause I know you've got all of your books detailed on your website.
Jordan S. Keller : Yep.
Dave: Um, where can these wonderful people find your social media, uh, your website, you know, maybe, maybe some new things that are coming
Jordan S. Keller : yes,
Dave: out.
Jordan S. Keller : some goodies.
Dave: Yeah.
thor.com. You can find me on [:All of our episodes are little short information bits that me and my co-host, crystal McQueen, she's also an author, have used to, um, get our books ready for publishing. Uh, my newest book, failing Gravity came out in May. It
Dave: Ooh.
Jordan S. Keller : love avatar to the band, bad Oman's album, the Death of Peace of Mind.
Dave: Nice.
Jordan S. Keller : on Amazon. You can request them at your local bookstore, and you can also request them at your local library.
Dave: There you go. I think that's awesome. You know what, like you, you know, you get those people like, I don't know where to find this stuff. Hey, Jordan just told you where you can find it. I'm sure you have plenty of options. Very simple. And seriously, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. And seriously.
Jordan S. Keller : you so
Dave: N
Jordan S. Keller : having me.
Dave: my pleasure. And come [:Jordan S. Keller : And just to have like, like common, like common ideas and, and and non-com ideas and you can Yeah.
Dave: Put 'em together, you know?
Jordan S. Keller : be a person and not fear that you're gonna upset anybody.
Dave: Yeah. Like bring the BLT and the roast beef sandwich together. I promise you. It might be delicious.
Jordan S. Keller : It's gonna be delicious.
Dave: gonna be great.
Jordan S. Keller : perfect.
Dave: Oh yeah, a hundred percent. You throw bacon and sausage and eggs and cheese. Oh my.
Jordan S. Keller : Ooh, yum.
Dave: Oh my God. Now I'm getting hungry.
Jordan S. Keller : Me
Dave: Yeah. Seriously though. Thank you so much. Um, to anybody out there, if you wanna check out more of the podcast, you can find us at Lost in the Group pod everywhere and anywhere you can find us.
Click, click. So with that, [:Peace out. Yeah. Okay.
