About Diana Howell:
I still have the copy of MADELINE awarded to me in the second grade. Reading Period was always my favorite part of the school day, and spelling bees, which I usually won unless Frankie Doetsch was present that day. Then we were the last two standing, and if I didn't choke, I won!
Wishes Are Free has received unanimous praise as a book of heart and wisdom. I always wanted to connect with people in a feel-good way. Mission accomplished.
I was a quiet child. It’s good to be a quiet child. We’re thinkers and imaginers. Imagination is a wonderful thing. Even Einstein, you know, the relativity guy, said imagination is more important than knowledge. That gives all of us, talkers or not, the green light to let our imaginations run wild.
My mother used to tease me, “Your imagination is running wild.” I couldn’t help it. My imagination still runs away with me. Only now, I write the stories down and share them with children (And adults) who are readers.
My mother instilled a love of reading in all of her children. I am the youngest of three. We were all readers and still are. We grew up in Santa Clara Valley, California. It was called The Valley of Heart’s Delight because of all the fruit trees; apricot and pear and peach and cherry. In spring, white and pink blossoms carpeted the valley, and their pleasant scent was like a natural perfume.
Life wasn’t in such a hurry then. A summer day was a lifetime, and the sun set slowly, sad that it had to leave the sky.
I loved the outdoors more than the indoors. I could explore the neighborhood, walk up to the creek and watch the polliwogs swim and the dragonflies fly, and listen to the water that sounded like music as it flowed by.
I attended college right after high school. But it didn’t take. I left in my junior year. Years later, at 38, I enrolled at San Francisco State University and completed my degree. That felt really good.
When my father died, my mother was in her late 80s and not able to care for herself. I became her caregiver. It was difficult but also rewarding. Difficult challenges that you decide you’re going to tackle anyway always pay off as something you can look back on and say, “I did that!”
I didn’t start writing seriously until I was fifty-three. Even so, I believed in myself because when I sat at the computer, I felt happy. I knew this was what I was meant to do. The more I practiced writing, the better I got.
But I still have trouble with my commas.
I wrote poetry and personal essays that were published locally and in online journals. When I started writing fiction, I discovered I enjoyed writing children's short stories. I read them aloud to my next-door neighbor, April, who is developmentally disabled, and also my BFF. She loved them, and I thought, I have something here.
I strung those stories together, added more, and Wishes Are Free came together.
I hope you enjoy reading Wishes Are Free. Readers of all ages do! It takes place in 1959 in California.
Lacking the perseverance of Kate DiCamillo (473 rejections before Candlewick Press finally said yes to "Because of Winn Dixie"), after 35 rejections, Diana decided to self-publish. Now she has. Never give up on your dream.
What inspires you to write?
I didn’t start writing seriously until I was fifty-three. Even so, I believed in myself because when I sat at the computer, I felt happy. I knew this was what I was meant to do. The more I practiced writing, the better I got.
But I still have trouble with my commas.
I wrote poetry and personal essays that were published locally and in online journals. When I started writing fiction, I discovered I enjoyed writing children's short stories. I read them aloud to my next-door neighbor, April, who is developmentally disabled, and also my BFF. She loved them, and I thought, I have something here.
I strung those stories together, added more, and Wishes Are Free came together.
I hope you enjoy reading Wishes Are Free. Readers of all ages do! It takes place in 1959 in California.
Lacking the perseverance of Kate DiCamillo (473 rejections before Candlewick Press finally said yes to "Because of Winn Dixie"), after 35 rejections, I decided to self-publish. Now she has. Never give up on your dream.
What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
Kate DiCamillo and Barbara O'Connor for children's contemporary writers. E B White, Beatrix Potter for classic children's and The Wind in the Willows.
For adult fiction: Truman Capote, Salinger, Fitzgerald, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Amor Towles, and Steinbeck. I love real life every day quirky characters and stories.
Tell us about your writing process.
I respond to urges to express myself. I can't not write. In the beginning, I wrote poems and short personal essays because I loved doing that.
There are experiences do not translate well to conversation. That is why we have so much literature. I like to go beneath the surface of things.
I don't discipline myself to write every day or set a goal of a thousand words or a chapter a day. I write just about every day, though, and it works for me to sit down when I have some stored up thoughts or the next idea for a novel in progress pops into my head.
I edit as I go. It works for me. I will write a chapter and before I go the next chapter begin editing, adding details, character thoughts/observations.
Although, with my current novel, Be Careful What You Wish, the ideas are coming so fast, the chapters are spitting out like a slot machine payoff.
When the last chapter is done, I go back and edit relentlessly until every unnecessary word has been deleted, the sentences bounce along, the scenes are lively and fun, or moving, and chills-inducing.
I don't sketch characters. I wrote Wishes Are Free from my own memory of what it was to be ten years old. So, Rose is me. Grandpa came out of the blue. He is a blend of kind adults and relatives I had as a child.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I listen to my characters. They drive the story. I don't plot, I don't story board. I have themes or events I would like to see happen. A trip to the beach on spring break, for example, but the characters lead the way, the dynamics between them.
Grandpa and Rose relate to each other kindly. Rose and her older brother Jeremy are always in conflict.
They live inside me. The lesser characters too, live inside me. They come to me from my experiences. I have known characters like Mary Alice Rubio, Raymond Ruckner, who comes to school with unexplained bruises. I have know people like Anthony who has cerebral palsy, and Billy Drummond, the overweight neighborhood bully.
What advice would you give other writers?
Learn how words work. Their nuance their cadence how they fit to together in a rhythm.
When I decided to write seriously, I started with poetry and haiku. You have a limited number of words to work with. You have to find the precise word that expresses your thought but also fits rhythmically into a line and must, many times, rhyme.
It's a good exercise in word choice. And really, what else is writing about if not word choices?
How did you decide how to publish your books?
The querying process is so dreary, I gave up after 35 and decided to self-publish.
It's tough, but traditionally published authors have it tough too.
If you want a career (I am 76 and not too concerned if I can make a living writing) there are two ways to succeed.
If you decided to self-publish, you must be ferociously motivated, disciplined and focused. You have to do all of the work yourself. Get interviewed in print and podcasts, get reviews, paid or hiring review services, post on SM relentlessly, line up book signings, get your book into libraries, learn the tricks to get a higher ranking on Amazon. I am sure I am leaving some thing out, but it is daunting. You may go weeks and not feel like you are making progress.
So, you have to believe!!!
If you are published traditionally, you will have editors, publishers, marketers dictating what to do. They may not even spend a lot of time on you because you are unproven. That was a big question mark for me and one reason I decided not to continue querying.
Just completing a novel is a major accomplishment. I will always have that. And Wishes Are Free has received universal praise, so, there's a market for excellent children's books. I have faith I will find my audience. So, I am writing the follow up novel now, Be Careful What You Wish.
Good advice for authors too. You wished you could write a book. You did. But that is just the begininning. Oy!
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
There are way too many books. Everyone is writing and self-publishing. At Amazon, in my category, there are 60,000 middle grade novels alone.
With no filters, ie., anyone can publish a book, the market is inundated. It creates a sea of many unreadable books that make it difficult for the well-written books to get noticed.
What genres do you write?: Middle Grade Fiction
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Diana Howell Home Page Link
Your Social Media Links
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
