Alex, by Diane Hartsock
Dianne Hartsock, a local writer from Oregon, conqured the many tasks of getting noticed, and now has a published novel and several published short stories.
Alex is a cross between a Dean Koontz novel and The Sixth Sense. The story reflects around the 20-year-old Alex, a young man who was severally abused as a child who can hear the voices of people in need of help. With his adopted sister, Jane, Alex realizes that he must follow wherever the voices call him, even if it puts his own life at risk. With the threat of a murder hanging above his head, Alex knows he’s running out of time before the killer takes another victim, and puts he and his friends at risk.
Perching over her laptop at her family kitchen table resembles how Dianne sat in her room thirty years ago: concentrated, drawn in, determined. In that bedroom, Dianne was a girl of twelve, running the tip of a pencil along her notebook, putting words together and taking them apart. Motivated by the interest shown by her younger siblings, Dianne sat cross-legged on the carpet of their living room, reading her stories out loud to her brothers and sister. Their interest created a “spark” to reach out to others with her writing.
However, even though Dianne continued to write short stories, it wasn’t until several years later that the goal of publishing resurfaced from her past. “At the time, I was only writing short stories and didn’t think most publishers were interested in anything less than novels,” Dianne says. She cracked down and wrote her first full-length fantasy novel (the start of a saga) just a few short years ago, and started the not-so simple task of researching the process of submitting to publishers.
Words such as “pitch,” “query letter,” “proposal,” and “synopsis” became very important words to Dianne. After weeks of investigation, Dianne buckled down and wrote the one-page query: a short summary of the overall narrative. The synopsis came second, a more broad and in-depth review. Soon enough, her submissions were complete and ready to be read by professionals.
The first rejection letter was the hardest, Dianne says. “When a publisher decided they didn’t want the story after all,” she goes on to say; “the disappointment was hard to take.”
While Dianne waited for replies on her fantasy novel, Dianne tried her hand at a paranormal novel entitled Alex. Alex was first discovered by Catherine Rudy, the founder of Wolf Pirate Publishing, Inc., back in 2009. Alex didn’t fit their publishing list, but she liked it well enough to refer the manuscript to their Writer’s Workshop.
Dianne worked with May Bestall, voyaging through two very difficult, yet imperative editing processes that lasted about nine months. The ending product was a fine-tuned manuscript, ready to be submitted to publishing houses.
Alex was picked up by Solstice Publishing, published as an eBook and in print in 2011. Alex is also available in print at Amazon.com.
Dianne Hartsock has two published short stories: Shelton in Love, and Shelton’s Promise, by Breathless Press. The Trials of a Lonely Specter, a paranormal/ghost short story, will be published in October by MuseItUp Publishing.
“It’s been a long time and its been a lot of work,” says Dianne, in view of her publications. “I feel a great satisfaction that my work is out there for other people to read.”
Dianne works as a florist for the locally owned gift shop Incahoots in McMinnville. In her spare time, she enjoys Thursday’s Blog Hop and Six Sentence Sunday, as well as watching Staregate SG-1 with her husband, and chatting on Facebook with her daughter and son.
Related articles
- Second Terroir Creative Writing Festival 2011 (jennifermhartsock.wordpress.com)
- ALEX is in Print! Win a signed copy. (diannehartsocksalex.wordpress.com)
