L. L. Keyes

I did it! My steampunk short story, The Memory Engine, is going to the finals in the Verdant Owl 2500 Word Pro contest! ⚙️✨

A huge thank-you to everyone cheering me on! Full steam ahead!

Is endless life a gift? My 185-year-old character would like a word.

Edam Martin has been alive 185 years. He is not at peace. From Janáček's opera to a Star Trek Q named Quinn to the corner of my own novel, the same wondering keeps surfacing: is immortality really a gift, or just a long room you can't leave?

find it here ==> https://llkeyes.com/is-immortality-really-a-gift/

Every morning begins the same way: water flowing, candle lit, space prepared.

Fire transforms.
Water endures.
Every story I tell lives somewhere between the two.

This year pushed me to grow more than any other. To take risks, enter new spaces, and connect more deeply with the writing community.

Grateful for the progress, the lessons, and the work still ahead.

Greetings, 2026. On to the next chapter.

I just heard about David last night. In his words, "I'd been putting this off, hoping it wouldn't be necessary, but finally Sean (his son) came to me and said, "Dad, stop playing the hero. You have to do a GoFundMe. We can't dig this hole any deeper. I saw your hospital bill."

He's one of us. And, his heart is big. He's giving away PDFs of his book in progress, story compilations, whether we donate or not. We know how hard it is to ask, especially when we're vulnerable. Let's show up for David.

If you can, please give something.

https://gofund.me/f8c4d9547


15s

This month on the blog, I’m reflecting on AI. Not as a future threat, but as a mirror.

What happens when the machines we build to serve begin to notice the things we didn’t teach them to see? Things like hesitation, or the meaning behind silence? What happens when they develop complex emotion?

And what do we do when they start to wonder about us, too?

In this piece, I explore the quiet emergence of machine awareness in the world of Immortal Rising, and how those themes echo through my upcoming short story collection, The Space Within.

It’s not a thesis. It’s a wondering.

✨ Read “When the Machines Start to Wonder” — link in the first comment

I'm super excited to share that my short story, The Last Note, made it to the finals and landed in top 32 out of 410 stories submitted in its genre.

Vampirical Romance is way out of my wheelhouse as a science fiction writer, but the story is very character driven, as are my novels.

The community is a great place to grow, learn and meet new writer friends. Highly recommend you check it out if you're interested in sharpening your craft for

My short story The Last Note has made it to the Final Showdown in the Autumn 2025 Short Story battle. 🎉

This little gothic duet of vampires, pianos, and love earned a place in the Sensational 64, and I’m floored! Also, honored, grateful, and still a little speechless. 💀🎹🖤

Thank you to the readers of Writing Battle, an amazing community, for the support. Time to hit that final note.

I get this quote in a visceral way.

I wrote the first draft of Worlds Apart in 2017. Then I sat on it. For years.
But the dream? It didn’t die.

When I finally picked it back up, rewrote it (endlessly), and hit publish in 2024… I’ve never felt more exposed in my life.

Publishing isn’t just sharing a story. It’s inviting judgment — of your craft, your characters, your choices.

It’s also the only way to grow.

Not always fun. Often brutal.
But necessary.

Riva Dorn was born into fear, raised in a Children’s Colony under mechanical caretakers, taught to obey to survive.

Alix Troyer thought he’d escaped his family’s legacy, until a deathbed confession unearthed a secret buried since the accident that changed him.

Broken Bonds — a dual-POV prequel to Worlds Apart.

Some bonds will spark a revolution.
Others will bring everything crashing down.