REVIEWS FOR EVA:
In a beautiful review for “Eva” the reviewer stated that my writing was “elegantly uncomplicated.” I was thrilled. That is a high compliment, in my view.
I took an oath, to myself, after college creative writing classes. I vowed: Simple. Just say it. Go for Hemingway-esque with passion and suspense. Don’t use two words when one will do. Get out of yourself, Diane and just tell the story.
Years later, when I edited the thesis for my homeopathic degree, I realized I had been showing off my Writing, with a big ole’ capital W… So I edited to rub off its intellectual rough edges. To make it easily comprehensible.
DON’T BE CAUGHT WRITING!
And with fiction, I don’t want anyone yanked out of the story because they’ve noticed my writing. I want them lost in it, for them to forget they are reading a book. To me, that is the ultimate goal. I don’t read ( and certainly don’t write) literary fiction. It is too often self-involved. Self aware. It feels as if the author was sunk into her writing experience, forgetting the reading experience. (Perhaps we are looking at the difference between art and performance, but I think that’s another blog!)
I am a storyteller, a performer, and a communicator, and that can’t be filled up with obtuse, often unintelligible words or sentences. If someone reads a long sentence and has to go back and read it again to understand the message, in my view the author has failed. I need no one to think I am erudite and intellectual. I want them to be moved by the story.
AI hasn’t learned it yet. It is clever, too clever, with every adjective and enthusiastic turn of phrase. And it’s repetitive. Everything I read from AI needs a good editor. When AI gets more astute and evolved, watch out. But I bet it will never move you like a human author can. An author who shares a story with the river of emotion running through her blood. That you can feel when you read her words. There’s nothing like that for me.
With all the promotion for my new novel, “Eva; a riveting romantic suspense with a supernatural twist,” I have had a chance to answer some fascinating questions posed to me by book bloggers.
It seems like I and everyone I know knows someone struggling with depression. Or anxiety. Or cycling between the two. These conditions are pervasive across our society. They are much worse than temporary sadness, grief from a tragedy or a trauma, or temporary worry. Depression is an all pervasive fatigue and loss of interest in life that could be dangerous. And it often comes coupled with debilitating anxiety.