Bookpleasures.com welcomes as our guest Dianne Ebertt Beeaff. Dianne worked for many years as a magazine journalist, writing for Arizona Highways, Horse and Horseman, Tucson Magazine, Vegetarian Times and many others.

At the turn of the century she began writing books, self-publishing the first two, A Grand Madness, Ten Years on the Road with U2, a best-selling memoir, and Homecoming, a book of poetry illustrated with eleven of her graphite drawings.

She has also published two further books, Power’s Garden, an award-winning historical fiction novel, and Spirit Stones, Unraveling the Megalithic Mysteries of Western Europe’s Prehistoric Monuments.

Recently she has dipped her writing talents into the area of short fiction.

Dianne is a member of The Society of Southwestern Authors, Arizona Professional Writers, The Author’s Guild, The American Society of Journalists and Authors, The National Writer’s Union, Women Fiction Writer’s Association, and The National Association of Professional Writers.

Norm: Good day Dianne and thanks for participating in our interview.

Dianne: Hi Norm. I’m pleased and honored to participate in this interview.  Thank you for the opportunity.

Norm: When did you start writing? Why do you write? Do you have a theme, message, or goal for your books?

Dianne: I have written all of my life, beginning with stories pencilled on greeting cards when I was about seven years old.

My first paid publication was a poem for the Canadian magazine, Chatlaine, at the age of eighteen, and several years later my first non-fiction article was published in Great Britain’s History Today.

It’s rather a cliché, but I write because I have to. Or as Annie Lamott says of writers, you have to write because you need to write. It validates who you are in some sense. I think people who write and need to write, whether or not they become published are, and always will be, true and real writers. But beyond that, I believe that everything has a story.

People have stories, things have stories, faces have stories. I’ve always wanted to tell some of those stories, in whatever way I feel they can or should be told.

I don’t like messages in books. It’s that show don’t tell thing. My themes and goals vary from one project to another.

Norm: What has been your greatest challenge (professionally) that you’ve overcome in getting to where you’re at today?

Dianne: I think it takes courage to write just about anything and that in itself is a challenge. Other challenges have depended on the specific time in my writing career.

When I first started out, I worked full time, was taking various college classes, and had two children under the age of five. It was a challenge just to find any free time to write. I started writing well before the heady times of the internet, and I still find it quite a challenge to negotiate and sustain a writing career focused on electronic media. In the end though, I think my greatest challenge has always been living up to my own sense of achievement in the stories I want to tell, striving to be the best writer I can be at any given time, with any given project.

Norm: Could you tell us about people or books you have read that have inspired you to embark on your own career?

Dianne: There were various English teachers in my high-school years who encouraged my writing, though looking back, I think much of their emphasis was on what I would call ‘purple prose.’

Nevertheless, they inspired me to keep going. The single book that brought me to begin writing and take on non-fiction was a book about Marion Anderson called Deep River Girl, Marion’s life story.

I found that book in third grade at the bookmobile that stopped one street over from my home in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, once a week. I loved that book; the challenges that woman faced. That book showed me that everything has a story and that, perhaps, I could tell some of them.

Norm: In your opinion, what is the most difficult part of the writing process?

Dianne: The most difficult part, by far, for me, is a first draft. What to put in; what to leave out. Whatever I’m working on, that first draft is like a span of chain mail thrown across my shoulders. What I loved about my most recent book, A Grand Madness, U2 Twenty Years After is that the book is taken from my personal journals and therefore the first draft was already written!

Norm: What advice can you give aspiring writers that you wished you had received, or that you wished you would have listened to?

Dianne: Frankly, I’ve never paid too much attention to writing advice; even from the pros. Writing is such a personal thing. I don’t believe there’s any one way to do any of it, though there are lots of pithy aphorisms and quotes to rekindle interest, or inspire both new and old writers.

The best advice I would give any writer, and I can’t say that I’ve always followed it myself, is the optimum importance of what I call The Three Ps in writing: Patience. Practice. And Persistence.  In equal measure.

Norm: What trends in the book world do you see and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading? 

Dianne: I hope and believe that there will always be writers, books and readers.

I think genre fiction is probably the fastest growing area at present and that will continue, with perhaps shifting emphasis to and from fantasy, science fiction, graphic novels, and other imaginative escapist literature.

The unfortunate trend in the industry, I feel, is that the big guys will continue to contract, to be a very small part of a huge conglomerate, and that narrows the field of available books, by denied access to distribution and so forth.

Norm: Many people have the skills and drive to write a book, but failure to market and sell the book the right way is probably what keeps a lot of people from finding success. Can you give us 2-3 strategies that have been effective for you in promoting your books?

Dianne: It’s becoming harder and harder to gain access to book markets and in the past I have found that publicists can be helpful in finding inroads. I’ve become more adept at finding on-line venues for reviews, boosting Facebook posts, and have worked to promote my website and author pages with minimal success. I’ve also done various book signings, also with mixed results.

Norm: What would you like to accomplish as an author that you have not?

Dianne: I am quite satisfied with my writing career, though there are still stories I hope to tell.

Norm: How much editing do you do before turning in a story?

Dianne: I can edit until the cows come home. I read somewhere of a well-known author who was still editing printer proofs. I’m very close to that level of editing. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that I didn’t do six to eight full edits on.

Norm: Do you write more by logic or intuition, or some combination of the two? Please summarize your writing process.

Dianne: I write with a combination of logic and intuition. With a first draft, I try to just throw down all the information I want in that section or chapter. Sometimes this is hard to do as I tend to have a creator sitting on one shoulder and a critic on the other. They are always sparring.

I try to keep the critic quiet at least until I can get the first draft down. My process often depends on what the project is. With fiction, there are times when you get to ‘ride the golden horse’. Those times are few and far between, but they’re pure gold when they come.

You just sit back and sort of take dictation. More often though, it’s hard work, no matter what you’re working on. As I’ve said, I can edit until the cows come home, so for me I have to reach a point in a chapter, a section, a paragraph, a sentence, when I can let it go and move on. That point definitely relies on intuition.

Norm: What would you like to tell us about your most recent book A Grand Madness, U2 Twenty Years After?  How did you become involved with the subject or theme of your book?  What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?  

Dianne: A Grand Madness, U2 Twenty Years After is a sequel to a best-selling memoir published in 2000, A Grand Madness, Ten Years on the Road with U2 which covered U2’s Joshua Tree, Zoo, and Popmart tours.

I have been an avid U2 fan for over thirty years, and have seen them live in concert dozens of times, travelling widely and often to do so.

This new book covers not only their follow-up tours—Elevation, Vertigo, 360, Innocence, Experience, and The Joshua Tree2017—but the albums that spawned them and the many adventures along the way that often shaped the messages in the music.

With both books I wanted to honor this band and their music in some way, as they have been and are an inspiration to many people on many levels, and will continue in that role for years to come. I wanted to record, using my journals, how the impact of music known inside and out has affected me personally.

Admiration and enthusiasm make most people fans of something or someone. Music is a powerful force that often draws kindred spirits together. I hope I’ve succeeded in sparking the interest of fellow fans, as well as travelogue lovers.

Norm: What do your plans for future projects include?   
 
Dianne: A book of my short stories, On Traigh Lar Beach, will be published by She Writes Press in the fall of 2020, appended with a novella, Fan Girls.

I am also working on another memoir, a book of narrative non-fiction called Infinite Paradise, about our cottage on the Conestoga River in Southern Ontario.

The book will be structured around the seasons and will include physical, historical and spiritual perspectives, along with a few pencil drawings and photographs as illustrations.

I have also done research for a follow-up to my historical fiction novel, Power’s Garden, with the working title Naboth’s Field.

I am also gradually putting together a second book of poetry called The Blue Hour and a second book of short stories focused on the desert Southwest.  

Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and your work?

Dianne: I am on Facebook at Dianne Beeaff and have a Facebook Author Page at Dianne Ebertt Beeaff. I also have a WEBSITE and BLOG

Norm: As this interview comes to an end, what question do you wish that someone would ask about your book, but nobody has? 

Dianne: That’s a difficult one and I can’t really think of anything specific. I love doing author interviews and find that with each one there are new, intriguing and thoughtful questions that I’m always excited to discuss and delve into. It’s not often a writer gets to talk about writing in such a forum.

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors.

Dianne: Thanks, Norm. It was my pleasure.