Dianne Pearce's Blog, page 5

DON’T MISS THE FREE LIVE READING SUNDAY!

Come to the free live event on Sunday! Hear some amazing people perform in your living room! (Or kitchen! Or back yard!)

INSTANT NOODLES: Live performance of Volume 4 Issue 2: Devil’s Party!

Happy Halloween!

Story of an Adoptive Mom… pt. 2: Treatments and Other Terrors

Follow along with the story on Medium: Story of an Adoptive Mom… pt. 2: Treatments and Other Terrors

Story of an Adoptive Mom

I’m an adoptive mom, dontcha know. And I’ve started writing about it on my Medium page.

Interested? Take a look.

Givin’ Away Stuff @ Old Scratch Press

Don’t you wanna play our writing game? Join us!

WHAT HAPPENS TO SNOWFLAKES IN THE SOUTH?

SIMPLY WRITE WITH POLLY CAMPBELL

Very excited to let you know that I had the opportunity to interview with the amazing Polly Campbell on her podcast, Simply Write. Polly is a fantastic human, kind, funny, and I had a lovely time talking with her.

Check out my interview here:

And check out everything Polly Campbell here!

IN TODAY’S INCREDIBLY EXCITING REEL

I discuss book reviews and get interrupted by a dog, a mailman, and a low battery warning. You don’t want to miss it!

New Post Up!

Check it out at the wonderful Authors Electric!

I’M IN CANVAS REBEL

Check out the interview.

READING BEN, AGAIN AND AGAIN

I met Ben Talbot when he somehow found me online, and asked me to edit a short story he had written. I read the short story, and it was, well, you know, my kinda fiction. It was funny, sly, and odd in the best possible way. It took me by surprise, and, as a person who has read thousands of books and probably hundreds of manuscripts, it is hard to write something that presents to me as fresh. Ben’s story did all of that.

Ben writes a blog.

When an author works with me I give advice on the whole “I’m an author” thing, and my advice is always that each author needs a website (the author’s personal shelf in the bookstore that is the WWW, where readers can find him/her/they), and then to communicate, even if it feels like whispering into the void, so people know about you, have a chance to get to know you, as an author and a human. Most folks don’t take my advice, and even I have trouble with my own advice, as I just don’t get the time I need to attend to my own blog, but Ben took my advice and is blogging… daily. 

Ben already had a website with a blog, but he has started making blogging a very regular part of his life, and that takes some stamina and commitment to one’s writing career. Ben has both.

Ben is also a person with a unique way of seeing the world in general, and I think that is his literary “blessing,” if you will, that makes his fiction so compelling when you read it. You can get a taste for it in his blog. If you wonder what the elusive thing called “talent” is, I guess I would say, loosely, it is the ability to do what other people can do (right? Like even I can play a little piano…) but to do it in an either especially skilled way, or with a unique interpretation, or a different way of “playing the instrument” that results in surprising and new ways of…. seeing, hearing, etc. 

Ben is releasing his first book in 2025, a collection of short stories that function as a novel, much like the classic, WINESBURG, OHIO, by Sherwood Anderson, that is actually labeled as a short story cycle. Ben’s collection is called Periscope City: Where the Lonely Go to Live Alone. Reading Ben’s blog will give you an idea of his style, and keep you up to date on when his book releases. It’s under construction with us now, and I’ll be certain to post when the pre-order is available.

I especially like today’s post by Ben. I left a comment on it that it’s like poetry, of a sort. It’s not so much what Ben has to say, as it is the way in which he says it.

Over two million books get released each year. The first step to being read, which the blogging has an opportunity to help with, is having people know that your book even exists. The second step is, once you get them reading, keep them hooked. And that’s where Ben’s writing shines, at least is does for me, a reader who has been bored way more often than hooked, by books sent my way to edit.

So take a look at today’s blog entry from Ben, and see if you see what I see in his style that I find so intriguing.

And if you’re working on your own book, ask yourself if you are willing to out yourself out there, over and over, whispering into the void, to try to find your readers.