Rachel Ellyn
She finally figures out life & love!
At first glance, no one would suspect that Rachel Ellyn’s alter ego is a horror movie watching, popcorn popping, Perrier swilling, couch potato. But after years of foraging a path of self-awareness and determination to avoid repeating patterns—like marrying the wrong men and moving every two years in search of greener pastures—she found the key to bliss. The phrase “grow where you’re planted” takes on deep meaning when you finally figure out what you’re growing!
Now, combining her passion for humor and storytelling with her high-heeled drive, Rachel shares her humorous offbeat take on the world and her experiences in life, love, divorce, and raising kids in a whimsical style that wins her fans internationally.
Rachel started her publishing journey with children’s fiction and flash fiction, but found her true love writing romance, romantic comedies and suspense/thrillers (and a combo of all three).
Rachel currently resides in Kansas City, MO, happily married to husband number four who is the love of the rest of her life (for reals this time).
writ・er / ‘raitǝr
– noun
1. a peculiar organism capable of transforming caffeine into books.
So where did all this start?
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 late aunt’s voice now asking my mother, “What the hell’s Rach doing now?”)
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 (the Dust Bunny) 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 a ton 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 every story as it bounced into my head. 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.
I had already written and animated Basic Money Management 101 as a business endeavor. 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. A first for this little girl!
So why do I write?
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
My first Disfunctional Diva story . . . How Did I Get Here?
May 4th, 2009
So how did we get to this point in our lives that we wonder why we are still half sane?
I’m 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 #1 ex husband, and two are from #2 ex husband. My third soon-to-be ex is, I guess, maybe my cougar experiment.
I’m 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 green 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 disfunction 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!
