My Writing Journey - Diane Craver

Diane Craver is today's guest blogger. I've had the privilege of corresponding with Diane a bit over the past few weeks, and I'd like to say that she's not only a wonderful author, but she's also an extremely nice person, who has been very quick to give me some guidance concerning the promotional side of publication. You guys will find her story inspirational for a number of reasons. Read on, you'll see. Welcome Diane, and thanks for sharing.

Even though I am published now, it's been a long road to publication for my books. Getting published has never been easy. But I made it with self-discipline, faith in my writing, family support, and determination. If you are an aspiring writer wanting to get published, hang in there. You have to continue to write and to believe in yourself. Writing is not a career for the weak. I'll share my baby steps that were the start of my journey to getting published.

When our oldest daughter Sara was a toddler, I started writing nonfiction. I wrote a partial book, Born To Love about her. I never finished it because no book publisher was interested in the story, but I did get a few magazine articles out of it. One was in Virtue magazine, one in Down Syndrome Today, and a few other publications. My sweet mother bragged about the Virtue article to her friends and relatives. She told me that my article was better than Debby Boone's in the same magazine. lol In 2001, I decided to write a creative nonfiction book, The Christmas of 1957. Some of it is true and some isn’t. Hey, I didn't think my siblings would appreciate me telling their secrets. It received 5 stars from The Midwest Book Review. Then I published a preschool e-book about what I did when I had a class in my own home. My last nonfiction book was Celebrating and Caring For Your Baby With Special Needs. In it I share what helped me to cope after I gave birth to a second daughter born with Down syndrome. A short anecdote was published in Woman's World, and that was very exciting to be published in a well-known magazine.

Although I had several articles published by the time I attended a romance writing conference in Cincinnati (I think it was in 1995), I was interested in learning how to write romance. I met many great published authors at the Ohio Valley Romance Writers conference, and their enthusiasm was contagious. I decided to start writing fiction. I loved it but I got off to a slow start with six children at home. I didn’t have a computer and wrote first drafts in longhand. Three years ago, Dianne Castell, told me to submit to Samhain. I’ll always be grateful to her for giving me the push to do this and to stay focused on my dream

I love reading about the reactions from first time authors when they got “the call” from an agent or editor with the fantastic offer of a contract. Here’s my story…I almost deleted “my call” before realizing what it was. I didn’t get a phone call but an email from an editor at Samhain Publishing. It was unbelievable because I didn’t see the email the day it arrived in my inbox. I don’t know how I missed it. It came on March 2nd, 2006, and a couple of days later I was busy deleting emails and almost hit the delete button when I glanced at it. Total shock hit me when I read, “I am pleased to offer you a contract for No Greater Loss. Attached is the contract.”

You can imagine how I felt - sheer joy and excitement surged through my body. I moved quickly through the quiet house wanting to grab someone and shout the good news. After waiting so long to get this special news from an editor, I thought how it could only happen to me that I missed the email the first time. I now have another publisher for my fiction - Desert Breeze Publishing. I'm excited to be with Desert Breeze because it's a great fit for my sweet romances. This house doesn't publish erotic romances, so none of my readers have to search through the erotica and erotic romances to find my titles.

If you have any questions about writing or publishing, ask me in the comments. I'll be happy to answer them. And be sure to visit my website (http://www.dianecraver.com) and blog (http://www.dianecraver.com/blog). I'll be posting new contests soon.
Diane's Newest Release, Whitney in Charge is available at http://stores.desertbreezepublishing.com/-strse-32/Whitney-In-Charge/Detail.bok and in Kindle format at Amazon.com


I've read Whitney in Charge, and liked it a lot. Here's my review.

After losing her husband in a terrible accident in Iraq, Whitney Benson left her job as a tv producer in New York, and came home to care for her dying mother. Now that her mother has passed, Whitney's two older sisters are worried about her. Their answer to jumpstarting Whitney's life is to find her a man. And they're so successful that Whitney ends up with two.

In response to her sister's efforts, Whitney convinces them to start a business together. The sisters discuss everything from a lakeside resort, to an online magazine, and even a cable talk show.

Which man? Which business venture? Decisions...decisions...decisions....

I really enjoyed this book. Diane Craver's casual and engaging style brought the characters to life. She did a wonderful job of capturing the beautiful, and sometimes touchy, relationship between sisters. The romance was heartfelt, and I was especially happy in the end when Whitney chose the guy I'd hoped she would.

Great job Diane!

I definitely recommend, Whitney in Charge. It's an entertaining read that will leave you in a good mood.