Dianne Pearce's Blog, page 10
June 25, 2023
CHECK OUT THE NEW ISSUE
Did you know that I also run an online literary magazine? I do. 
It’s our third year!
Great new issue up, full of wonderful writing and art!
ALWAYS free to read, free to submit too!
I created IN as another space for creatives 40+ to get to creating! And for them to get some exposure. Show some love to a late-bloomer today: read their work!
June 21, 2023
PRIDE SHIRT
My friend AMY is selling great PRIDE gear ! You can support an indie author and show your pride at the same time!
I got this one:
June 20, 2023
SOMETIMES, IN A MARRIAGE, ONE PERSON IS A BRAT
Today that person was me.
That photo is from 2020, when I’d just started to run, but today I went running with Dave, after work, which made me feel like I was heavier, less adroit at running, sweaty-as-hell (as I was in that photo), as well as gross, obvious, tired, cranky: you name it. Yes, I felt like I look in that photo. Even the smugness. I look smug there I think. Even the smugness, because it’s my turn to be the marriage brat, because after-work-running is fundamentally incorrect.
I like to run before I get a shower in the morning, before most of the world is awake, and certainly before I’m cleaned and dressed.
Dave has tried to run with me, so I don’t get eaten by coyotes or tossed in some psycho’s van. (Tossed? Do I imagine that I am light enough to be tossed?)
But he doesn’t enjoy running in the morning. He enjoys still being asleep in the morning.
So today we did running after work, which is when he likes to do it. And it is the totally wrong time to do it.
I have soooo many failings as a human, and not understanding the other person’s POV is sometimes one of them.
When a person runs in the morning, it is cool; it is quiet; it is mostly unobserved by the world because people are still locked away inside, or in sleep. There are few cars. There is no one getting high or wearing too much cologne. And, when a person is done running, that person takes a nice morning shower, as God intended, and goes on with the day, and, hopefully, forgets even doing the dreaded exercise.
When a person runs after work, that person has to interrupt work to do so, because when is work ever really done, am I right? I mean, there is still stuff today, right up until dinner, but now the person must stop. AND the person, who is probably nicely dressed, must get undressed, and then redressed, in the grungy running clothes. AND then sneak outside, past the child and the pets, none of which want to be left home alone, and then, somehow, avoid talking to the neighbors, avoid all the after-work traffic, avoid all the pedestrians, and run: in the heat, and in the after-work car exhaust, with people watching, and trying to say hello. Oh, no, no, fucking no. A runner will never feel sweatier or more fat and discombobulated as a human as when said runner has to run past people on the street who want to talk. NO!
And then that poor beleaguered runner must return home, and shower and dress yet again, the hell? or spend the night sweaty and gross, and the whole system is just screwed up.
Dave likes to run at night, which is weird, and we all agree on that.
And I don’t, which is not at all bratty, and makes perfect, logical, reasoned sense, right?
Or maybe I’m wrong.
And I am the brat.
But, I guess I’m Dave’s brat, and I love him, and he’ stuck with me and all my opinions.
June 13, 2023
NOVELS ALIVE
As you consider places to promote yourself and your work as an author, consider NOVELS ALIVE.
Check out their author guidelines here, and see if they’d take a look at your book!
June 11, 2023
DAILY WRITING PROMPT FOR WORDPRESS: WHAT DO YOU NEED TO LIVE A GOOD LIFE?
View all responsesI count myself lucky, because of three.
Short and sweet:
We have three in the family. When one of us is annoying the other two can hang out; when one of us wants alone-time, the other two don’t have to be lonely, and board games are better with three. People in your house are worth more than money in your bank.
Three is a magic number.
And this is an ooooold photo. LOL.What do you think author? Go to thy blog and expound!
June 6, 2023
REST IN PEACE LOVELY ASTRUD
Astrud Gilberto has left the world at age 83.
Her voice was just so beautiful.
I don’t know how she came to be 83, but it happens to us all in time. And she was living in Philadelphia! I missed my chance to stalk her.
Well, she had one of the most beautiful voices ever.
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/06/1180416189/astrud-gilberto-the-girl-from-ipanema-singer-dies-at-83
FOLLOW ME DON’T FOLLOW ME
I have one follower.
I bet you a Coke Slurpee I can get at least one more by the end of the week!
Who likes those odds?
C’mon, follow me. Then come to Los Angeles, and let’s have that Coke Slurpee. I’m totally buying!
Right now my life is like that great line form the classic film, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE: “Sad to be all alone in the world.”
*sigh*
Just me: all by my lonesome.
June 2, 2023
MY DAD WAS AN ENTREPRENEUR
There’s my dad, looking pretty much like I remember him.
First he was a machinist, then a gunsmith.
Sure, he worked for people, Boeing, H&H, Westinghouse, but he always had side work on his own, and twice in our lives he had his own shop, and was his own boss.
My dad and I were simpatico, a lot of my life, in ways we were not with our other family members. We sometimes went to the movies together when I was a kid: BLAZING SADDLES, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, ROCKY (1 & 2). We watched boxing together on TV. We ate kippers from a can and raw potato slices with salt.
My dad could also be really selfish. He always had his own friends, and his own hobbies, and he went off on most weekends without us. I always missed him.
He was shy, and I think he drank, when he drank, in order to socialize better than he felt he was able to. When he drank, he womanized, and that also made things tough for all of us at home.
He believed men were men, and he would’ve loved Donald Trump, for the name in huge letters and the gold toilets and stuff. My dad loved gold, veneer; he’d have dug the Kardashians. And he loved Jimmy Carter for his humbleness, his sweaters and his peanuts, his drunk-ass brother, and his belief in God.
My dad loved work. He defined himself by what he could do with his hands. He was creative, and artistic, and articulate, and a problem-solver, with his hands.
Dad liked to get up early, before anyone else, and have some coffee and alone time, and get to work.
So do I.
He liked to work straight through the day, sometimes skipping meals, ’till around 9 p.m., when he would fall asleep wherever he was. He could sleep in a goddamn kitchen chair. And, if you managed to keep him awake after 10pm, he rapidly became grumpy and useless.
Ditto.
When I am going on DPP stuff, I have to remind myself I am a mother, have pets and a spouse, need to cook dinner for, or at least discuss the possibility of dinner with, my family.
And yeah, I’m shy, and have trouble talking, and end up rambling on all stupid. I’d be more comfortable alone. And quiet.
To work or not was never a question for my dad. Work needs to be done, you do it: you do it well, and right away, and until it is done. It gives you a reason to be. Push yourself if you need to. Do an excellent job, and be humble and cheap.
Ha! Humble and cheap, not the best qualities in a entrepreneur.
Ditto.
Look after your customers. Consider them friends, and paramount.
Ditto.
Be responsible to the customers, and, most of all, to the work itself. Make it good work.
I mean… ditto.
In some ways he was happiest when he was working. And he needed no one to be with him. He could be alone for days if he was working.
In some ways I am the same. I score 100% on those introvert tests, and I could easily work and hermit for-almost-ever.
My father never achieved what anyone would call business success. He didn’t care. He wanted to be a place where a man could come and get his gun fixed, or improved, for a more than fair price. He felt the need to be the honest business, with a lot of effort and better-than-average work. He wanted to give others the gun of their dreams, because he had those same dreams, of the perfect gun, the perfect Trap-shoot championship performance. And he was a damn good shot.
I would brag and say that I am a damn good writer. And feel the need to be the honest business, with a lot of effort and better-than-average work, and I want to give others the book of their dreams, because I have those same dreams, of the perfect novel, and the fantastic reviews.
Today, I got up at 5:30. Worked my dinky tutor job, took a class on book-marketing, cleaned the house to show for an open house, spent two hours in the car with the family to be out of the house, came home and started working on an author’s Kindle Vella, answered a bunch of authors’ emails, and am sitting here now, desperately trying to stay awake at 10 p.m., writing a damn blog entry, and planning which book I’m going to work on first in the morning.
Apple…. meet tree. You cannot seem to fall far from it.
What am I teaching my kid?
Well, I don’t womanize, and I did quit smoking, so there’s that.
I am exactly the kind of entrepreneur my dad would’ve felt proud of. And he would have been very impressed by the books we make, even though he never ever read any book as long as I knew him. I do not think he could read. He only went to 8th grade. I went to 12th, and then 8 or so more years after that.
He was a Leo; I am a Sag.
And I wonder, as I work so hard at running DPP, and making it work, as I find little ways to improve the company, and my performance, if being a publisher is a game I can win. And if I can’t, I wonder if I will know when to call it. Dad never knew. He never raised his prices over decades; he often didn’t even ask to be paid, and he didn’t stop until he couldn’t do it anymore, and when he did finally stop he was miserable. He missed it ’till the day he died.
Business or no business, an entrepreneur just is one, and can’t stop.
I am my father’s daughter. My company is my great entrepreneurial experiment. I have a lot of skills, and I can improve any book by quite a lot. I want the company to succeed for the people I publish way more that I want anything for myself from it. And I have no fucking idea if I’m gonna get there. I don’t know if I’ll lift people up, or let them down. I do know they’re aren’t enough hours in the day, and I go to bed because I can’t stay awake anymore, and I go to bed because after bed comes the promise of coffee, and a private productive morning, and I’ll feel better about whether or not I’ve done enough, or tried hard enough. And I guess, if you’re curious, you can watch me here, the gunsmith’s daughter turned publisher, and see if I make it.
May 27, 2023
WANNA CATCH ME LIVE? (LINK FIXED!)
You can!
I’m a featured speaker at the AND WE THOUGHT LADIES writing seminar.
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CATCH DIANNE LIVE!
