Today we welcome Diane Barnes to the podcast. Diane lives in Massachusetts and spends a large part of the summer in the White Mountains in Maine in a camp without an internet connection or a stable cell signal. It’s where she gets her best writing done because there are no distractions.

Diane writes Women’s Fiction, and her books often focus on friendships between women and how female friendships have the power to help women overcome obstacles in their lives.

Diane fell in love with writing in second grade when she returned from recess one day to find large paper footprints leaving a trail through the classroom. Her teacher asked the class to write a story, and Diane had been writing ever since. She studied journalism in college and worked at a newspaper and magazine before settling into a career as a marketing and corporate communication writer.

Diane’s fourth novel, ALL WE COULD STILL HAVE, released November 7 by Lake Union. The book is about a couple that desperately wants children but struggles with infertility. The story started with a writing prompt that best-selling author Elizabeth Berg gave Diane during a four-day intensive writing workshop in Boston. When Diane read the scene she wrote based on the prompt, the attendees and Elizabeth laughed at the beginning and by the end they were in tears. At the time of the workshop, Diane was writing her debut. She finished that and two other novels before going back to the story she started in that workshop that would eventually become All We Could Still Have.

You can learn more about Diane and her novels on her website at www.dianembarnes.com or on Instagram and Twitter @DianeBarnes777.

Order your copy of All We Could Still Have at your favorite bookstore https://bookshop.org/a/90599/9781662511813 or you can lend a little bit of support to the production of this podcast by ordering it through this affiliate link with Amazon https://amzn.to/41Gxjg5

A little about today's host-

Author and musical composer Kathleen Basi is mother to three boys and one chromosomally-gifted daughter. Her debut novel, A SONG FOR THE ROAD, follows a musician on an unconventional road trip. Bestselling author Kerry Anne King writes, “In a novel filled with music, heartbreak, and surprising laughter, Basi takes us on a journey that encompasses both unimaginable loss and the powerful resilience of the human heart.”

Meaty, earnest, occasionally humorous, and ultimately uplifting, Kathleen’s fiction highlights the best within ourselves and each other. She writes monthly reflections on life, writing and beauty on her newsletter. Subscribe at https://kathleenbasi.substack.com/. 

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Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us 15 minutes of your time, and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I'm one of your hosts, Kathleen Basi. I'm an award-winning musical composer, a feature writer, essayist, and, of course, storyteller. Let me tell you a little bit about today's guest.

Diane Barnes lives in Massachusetts and spends a large part of the summer in the White Mountains in Maine. She writes Women’s Fiction and her books often focus on friendships between women and how female friendships have the power to help women overcome obstacles in their lives. Kirkus Reviews called her debut Waiting for Ethan “an engrossing page-turner.” They called her sophomore novel “a charming, funny romance that keeps the plot rolling.” In 2019, Ms. Magazine named Diane’s third book, More Than, a favorite book to curl up with the for the holidays. More Than was also a Silver Medalist in the 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the category of Best Fiction, eBook, and Best Book of the Year Finalist, 2020 with Indies Today. Diane’s fourth book, All We Could Still Have, will be published on November 7 by Lake Union. It's about the effects of infertility on a marriage. Early readers have said it’s both gut-wrenching and heartwarming. USA Today bestselling author Ann Garvin said she read the book in one night, holding her breath until the very last line, and Amazon bestselling author Suzanne Redfearn called it a deeply moving story. Diane hopes you enjoy reading her books as much as she enjoyed writing them. Welcome to Author Express, Diane.

Good morning. It's great to be here.

So, tell me the most interesting thing about where you're from.

The most interesting thing about where I'm from. Well, I grew up in a town called Framingham, Massachusetts, and it's known as or it was known as the shopping mecca. And the reason for that is because Shoppers World is a mall there, and it was built 1951 before the word mall was even used. So, it was one of the first malls in the country, the first on the East Coast. It had this huge dome over Jordan Marsh that was definitely the largest dome in the United States, so it's a cool place.

That's very interesting. It's the super mall before the super malls.

Exactly. And it was and the weird thing too is the first on the East Coast, but it was outdoors. So, it was, you know, connected by walking past and you would think it'd be like here with the cold weather in the winter, so it'd be all indoors, but, no, that wasn't the case.

So, is it still there? Is it still open?

It's still open, but they knocked down the original structure and they made it more sort of like strip malls. It's not, it's nowhere near as cool as it used to be.

Yeah. It doesn't have the charm anymore. Oh, well, that is very interesting. Cool. I love that.

This is on my social study book in 7th grade. Like, there was big picture of it. I'm like, wait. Why is there a ball in here?

That's so funny. That's really fun. I really like asking this question to people because we get such different answers. Every place has got interesting things about it. So, let's ask you, what's something that you wish you would have understood more deeply when you were 20 years old?

You know, not to really just worry so much about the future, just to take life one day at a time and just enjoy every day as much as you can instead of, like, always trying to, like, prepare for the next thing and think where I'm going to be and what I'm going to be doing.

I'm just impressed that you have learned that because that's still me. Well, let's talk a little bit about your book, All We Could Still Have. I have to say that when I read the concept for this book, it just, like, little things lit up all over my brain because I went through infertility before I had my 4 children. And so, I am just really looking forward to reading this book. So, what do you hope readers will take away from reading this book?

I want them to leave the book with a hopeful feeling, and then that even if your plan A doesn't work out, you can always pivot. And sometimes plan B, plan C, whatever can be a better option and it's really your mindset that determines that. So, don't be disappointed when, you know, what you really were hoping to happen doesn't happen. You can make the best of the way things turn out.

Yeah. Is infertility something that you've experienced personally?

No. The book is fiction.

Okay. So, how does one go about researching to make something like that be sensitive and accurate? How did you go through that?

I read a lot. I read a lot of blogs, books, people's personal stories, and I think the emotions in the book are real. I mean, those are non, you know, that those are my true feelings, so.

Yeah. You know, the experience of infertility, I just know from my own experience, is just difficult. And what you say, you know, the concept of the book that it's about the impact on a marriage, it's a real thing. It's very, very difficult.

Absolutely.

It's really great to see that somebody is tackling this. I just can't wait to read it, I guess, is what I'm saying.

Great.

What was it that made you decide you wanted to tackle this topic?

Well, I don't have any children. I met my husband when I was in my late 30s, so it was more of a function of age, but I was in a writing workshop and the instructor who was Elizabeth Berg, she gave all the participants a prompt, and she customized them to each. So, there were 8 of us in the workshop, and she gave me a prompt. And from that prompt, I just wrote a scene. This was before my debut even came out. I was still working on it. And people in the class were laughing and crying, like, at the beginning of the scene, laughing at the end of the scene, crying. It was about a woman who dresses up in sexy lingerie and her husband just ignores her. So, it was like, why would that happen? That's what I had to think about. So, that's sort of how I came up with the idea.

So, is that scene in your book now?

No. So, that had to be one of the, yeah. Kill my darlings. And at the end, in my last drafts, I had to take that scene out, and it absolutely killed me to take it out. But I just kept putting it in there, trying to make the book work, and then it just, it didn't work with it. That was really sad to cut it out.

Yeah. I think every person who's ever tried to write a book is wincing on your behalf right now. We totally get it. So, let me ask, do you think that your book would be exactly the same if you'd written it 10 years ago or if you wrote it 10 years from now?

No, absolutely not. You know, that was my 4th novel and hopefully with each novel, I become a better writer, I hope. I mean, I feel like I have. So, and hopefully it's a lot better in 10 years from now. I don't know what it would be like.

What do you see that's changed in your writing over the course of those 4 novels?

I think I write more confidently now. So, I think my descriptions are better, and I trust the reader more than I used to. So, things that I would spell out, like, even though I describe something, I would, like, would double down on it, like, sort of telling the reader what to think, and now I just leave it up to the reader and their imagination, so.

Oh, that's very interesting. I like how you think about the reader so specifically. That's very cool. But let's talk a little bit about the writing process and journey for you. What part of writing brings you the most joy?

So, after I have the 1st draft done or just the 1st words on the page coming back and playing with them. When I start to see the story coming together, getting the original words down is always the hardest part. But then when I go back and I play with them and just, I love that part. Now you see how things connect, like something that you wrote later, like a word in there or just an object that you have in it. You can go back in the beginning. Like, oh, I have that here too, and you just see these connections, and it it's just so fun. It's like putting together this huge puzzle.

Oh, yeah. That sounds very familiar. I think it's like you have to get down the skeleton of the book. And then once you've got that skeleton, all of a sudden, you can see things that you didn't see when you were first putting it out there.

Yeah.

I find that too. So, you're a revising person?

Yes. Yes. And I don't always wait till the end, though. That's the thing too. Like, I'll write a scene, and then I'm like, oh, I can't just leave that like that. I have to go back. Until then I just keep playing, you know, I'm playing, and then I'll be like, okay. I think that's good enough. Now I can go on to chapter 2 or whatever.

Yeah.

And then at the end, you know, I have to go all the way back and revise it as a whole, so.

Of course. Do you, you know, people are always saying, don't revise while you're writing because it will stifle your creativity. But I find that if it's bad, I'm just going to write myself into a hole anyway. I need to, like, know that I'm pointed in the right direction before I move on.

Me too. Absolutely. It has to be as good as I can make it at the time before I can move on. So, I'll stay on chapter 1 for a really long time, you know, and then when I think I get it, then I'll go on to chapter 2. But it also, a lot of times, makes for less work at the end.

I think that's true. Yes. That makes sense to me because if you've written, like a long way in the wrong direction, it's like if you're off by 1% and you fix it early, then it's not that big a detour to get back, but if you wait until you've driven a hundred miles, you are a long way off.

Long way, right. You're really lost. Yeah.

So, what surprised you most about your writing career?

I mean, right now, when I look back at it, I just turned in my 5th book that I have 5 books and, you know, I still have a full-time job. Like, somehow, I've managed to work it in there. Like, I'm always surprised how long it takes to write a book.

If you have a full-time job, I'm not. I'm not surprised.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. And my full-time job is writing, too. Just that I've somehow the ideas just keep coming.

That is amazing. There's a real magic about that. Very cool. So, tell us where is the best place for people to find you online.

Sure. I have, my website is dianembarnes.com, and I'm on Twitter and Instagram as Diane Barnes 777.

Alright. Very good. Okay. So, we're going to close out by asking you this, what book or story’s inspiring you the most these days?

The book I always turn to, nonfiction, it's for writing, is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. And It's my writing bible, and it gives me confidence whenever I'm writing a story and I don't know where the story's going, she reminds me that I don't have to know. I only have to know how this particular scene works out and see the next. So, whenever I'm feeling stuck, writer's block, I go back to that book and I read it. And whenever I hear someone who wants to be a writer, it's always a gift that I give because it was so instrumental to me. It's just so helpful.

Do you go back and read it again and again?

I sure do.

That's amazing, and it makes me actually want to ask you another question. When you said you don't need to know where you're going, you just need to know, like, what's this little bit. So, does that mean that you're a pantser rather than a plotter?

I am definitely a pantser. Yes.

Wow. That's amazing. Alright. Well, that's all very good. Any last thoughts before we close-up today?

No. Just thanks for having me on.

Thank you very much for being on Author Express, Diane.

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