DiAne Gates Ropes the Diamond Mine! (UPDATE! Giveaway!)

Hello everyone, welcome to the Diamond Mine! As y’all know, we have a slew of new miners this year and I have the honor of welcoming a great friend to the crew, DiAne Gates. In addition, she’s an awesome author! But I won’t spoil the surprise, let’s get started with the interview!

Renee: Hi, DiAne, I’m so happy you’ve joined us at the Mine. What can you tell us about how you began writing?

DiAne: Renee, thank you for introducing me to the Diamond Mine Writers. It’s a pleasure and privilege to be included in this talented group of authors.

Even though I’m a late starter, I’ve been writing for years, like since I was a teen. I’ve written and illustrated five other children’s books and hope to find a publisher for them in the coming year. We have an Air Force Colonel son and his beautiful wife, a daughter who resides in heaven for the past almost sixteen years, and her two almost grown children.

In 2010 God led me kicking and screaming to North Texas Christian Writers and the rest is history. He always knows best and has a perfect plan. Sure would have been easier if I’d gone peacefully, but that’s another story.

Renee: Oh, boy, now that does sound like an interesting story. I’d love to hear about it someday, as would everyone else, I’m sure! But for now, I think we have ANOTHER story to talk about. What’s special or unique about your book…you know, the latest one up for all these cool awards?

DiAne: Anytime you include Texas, horses, and rodeo in the same paragraph you have the makings of a rollercoaster ride of dips, dives, and page-turning drama. Throw in a tall, handsome Texas Ranger under that Stetson, El Grande, a teenage immigrant boy from China, and a teenage competition-crazed, barrel racing, bull riding gal, and her spoiled, temperamental, red-headed diva competitor—that spells unique by any description. Confine them all in a small Texas town outside Dallas, Texas, where prejudice and family lies flourish like a crop of sandspurs, and the story writes itself!

Renee: Well, then, I’d say ROPED is deserving of its acclaim! You said the book is set in a small town outside of Dallas? Is there anything unique about this small Texas town? How did you come up with rodeo as your topic?

DiAne: This Florida girl (meaning me!) arrived in Texas and had not a clue about anything rodeo. But due to corporate downsizings, I needed to help with family income and God opened the door for me to open my own business. After trials and errors, I hired a young mom who was a barrel-racer. We became close friends and my teen daughter and I learned to love the excitement of rodeo!

We pulled on boots and jeans. Weekends on the circuit taught me the lingo, introduced me to the nuisances of competition, buckles and titles, and ROPED became a figment of my imagination. One evening, perched high atop a field judge’s seat, I commenced to photograph the events, barrel racing first then bull riding. But instead of “that super shot” of a bucking bull, a Brahma bull named Booger Daddy had other ideas. The cowboys threw the gate open, he bucked twice and his cowboy hit the ground with a thud. Then I realized BD was staring right at me. He pawed the ground. My mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out and my feet and fanny refused to move.

Did I mention there was an enormous puddle of muddy water just inside the arena fence beneath me? A pick-up man galloped toward the now charging BD. The cowboy, his paint pony, and the bull all hit the puddle at the same time from opposite directions. Mud covered me, my camera, my white eyelet blouse, and fancy jeans—and Booger Daddy became immortalized in my first book of the ROPED series.

Renee: I wish I had been there! Mud baths are so nice, aren’t they? Besides watching rodeo (just kidding!) do you have any hobbies or things you like to do when you’re not working?

DiAne: For most of my life, painting has been my pursuit. I toured while living in Florida, doing weekend art shows. My mom referred to those years as my “gypsy life-style.” And when Book Two-TWISTED is released in the Spring of 2017, I will be giving away five or six of my paintings. I’ve graduated from that mud-caked camera and still love to roam the countryside taking pictures of God’s gorgeous creations. I also love to garden and cook and have a new blog entitled The Southern Side of Flavor, at http://floridagirlturnedtexan.wordpress.com. I share family recipes and give some tips on cutting calories yet maintaining flavor…southwestern flavor!

Renee: Oh, yum! Did you here that, folks? Food! Good southern food! I may need to visit this blog. J Is there a special quote or saying which comes to your mind in times of need or adversity?

DiAne: My mom was the queen of proverbial sayings. One of her favorites that is permanently engraved on the underside of my eyelids is, “If you don’t want to get in trouble, don’t be where trouble can happen!”

And yes, all these years later there are numerous times her words still echo in my head and heart…

like the night a girlfriend and I were driving from Orlando to an art show in Marco Island, Florida.  We took a wrong turn, ended up on Alligator Alley, and ran out of gas on this notorious roadway across the Everglades where every bad four-footed and two footed varmint comes out after dark. Cecil Murphey’s book, “Heavenly Strangers, Entertaining Angels Unaware”, contains my story of that frightful night, entitled “Alligator Alley Angels.”

My barrel racing terror, Crissy Crosby, hears her mama repeat those wise words to her in TWISTED, just like I repeated them to my own children when they were teens. And sometimes I still have to repeat them to myself when I see that uber-super shot I can only capture with a trip across someone’s pasture. My husband won’t buy me a four-wheel drive saying, “At least with a regular car I can hope you’re still on the roadway.” If he only knew—

Renee: God uses life to teach us lessons. Share one of your life lessons with us.

DiAne: This would be an eanie-meanie-miney-mo choice when you’re my age. But the most dynamic number of lessons came from one tragic life event—the sudden death of our twenty-eight-year-old daughter, almost sixteen years ago.

I was convinced my life and world went to the grave with her. But God taught me about “those secret things” He proclaims in Deuteronomy 29:29. The “why” questions drove me to near insanity until I read that verse early one morning. “The secret things belong to the Lord. The things revealed belong to you and your children forever.” I read and reread the verse, never having seen it before and God whispered Do you trust Me? I would love to tell you I answered with a clear, firm, Yes Lord. I trust You. But I could barely answer back with a nod and a gulley-washer tear storm. It took months for me to understand that if He answered my why questions, our Michelle would still be gone. Her death was one of those secret things. He had numbered her days before she was born.

The subsequent months and years I’ve learned that if we clutch what and those we have with a fierce grip, God cannot and will not replenish our hands with His peace and joy. I learned that as the scripture in Revelation says, “Blessed are those who die in the Lord for they find rest” comforts my soul when I miss my daughter. I’ve learned to count the blessings her death has loosed in so many lives. At her funeral five of her friends found Jesus and accepted Him as Lord and Savior. God has blessed me by allowing me to walk through over fourteen years of helping and being His physical arms of comfort around others who are new to the grief journey. Does her loss still hurt? Of course, it does. But grief is the price you pay for loving someone. And it’s a small price when compared with our mutual love.

Renee: God promises never to leave or forsake us. Share an instance where you have been alone but God has been by your side in the tumult.

DiAne: In the weeks, months, and year after my daugher’s death, I cared for her almost five-year-old daughter and seven-month-old son. With all those people around, I was alone. Caring for little ones gave me no time to grieve and physical and mental exhaustion became normal for me. One afternoon I had enough and collapsed on the living room floor and sobbed. Our almost five-year-old granddaughter stopped and said, “Mimi, why are you crying?” I replied, “’Cause I miss your mama.” “Why?” She asked. “Cause she was my daughter,” I sobbed.

With her blonde tussled hair, hands on her hips, and that look only a little girl can give, she scolded. “Mimi! She’s still your daughter!”  I dried my tears and accepted this new insight from a tiny girl who gained wisdom from her Jesus. God is good…even in times of great distress.

Renee: It’s amazing how complex we make life, isn’t it and through the eyes of a child, we are reminded how complete—perfect God’s plan is for us. All of us, from now to eternity. What is your life goal?

DiAne: My life verse is Hebrews 12:1-4…”Run the race that is set before you…”  God doesn’t make mistakes. He promises if we belong to Him, He will bring good for us and glory for Himself out of everything He allows in our lives. And sometimes we forget, but God doesn’t.

However long He allows me to remain on this earth my one goal is to honor and give glory to His Name and His Word, and to share that Word and those difficult life lessons He’s taught me with everyone He places in my sphere of influence. ROPED, TWISTED, UNTIED, and any other titles yet to be named, share real life, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and show God is Sovereign over all things. And if we allow Him, He will indeed transform our lives and fill us with His joy, now and forever!

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UPDATE!

Woohoo! The rodeo has come to the Diamond Mine!

DiAne has agreed to giveaway a digital copy of ROPED!

Leave a comment about the interview or ask a question to enter!

Don't forget to leave your email address to validate the entry.

One winner will be selected by random draw on 1/18/17.

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About ROPED by DiAne Gates:

Thirteen-year-old Crissy Crosby chases a dream to live up to her parents’ rodeo legacy. But the rodeo championship is two months away and problems beyond her ability to solve stack and teeter like a game of Tumbling-Towers. Meanwhile rival Jodie Lea and her father, Ed Fairgate, contrive to swipe the silver buckles from Crissy’s grasp any way they can. Prejudice, anger, and dark secrets simmer in a pot of family feuds destined to boil over in a tragic nightmare at the rodeo. Will Crissy develop courage and faith to overcome the consequences of her temper? Will her dreams of buckles and titles become reality? Or will the character-building adversities of her life quash her dreams forever?

About DiAne Gates:

Texas writer, DiAne Gates, illustrates, photographs, and writes for children, young adults, and serious non-fiction for adults through her two Word Press blogs, Moving the Ancient Boundaries and The Southern Side of Flavor.

DiAne also works as a freelance artist, photographer, edit group leader for North Texas Christian Writers, and GriefShare facilitator. A writing stent with the East Texas Rodeo Association magazine, gave birth to this western rodeo adventure series, released by Prism Book Group in August of 2015. ROPED--Available at Amazon.com and the second book, TWISTED, continues the journey of the Crosby and Fairgate families. The third book of the series, UNTIED, is her current work-in-progress.

ROPED was selected as a finalist for the Grace Awards and the Christian Literary Henry Awards in 2016.

Wife, mother, and Mimi, whose passion is still to share those hard life lessons God allows in our lives. Lessons she hopes will leap from the page into your heart.

DiAne’s Website: http://www.dianengates.webstarts.com

Word Press Blogs: http://dianegates.wordpress.com/ and http://floridagirlturnedtexan.wordpress.com features The Southern Side of Flavor

Crosswalk Christian Online Magazine: http://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/grief’s ugly-step-sisters.html and several other articles

Face Book: http://www.facebook.com/dianegates.125

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Roped-DiAne-Gates-ebook/dp/B0147NL6KS

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14246715.DiAne_Gates

Our Own Gail Kittleson Talks Life and War on the Diamond Mine

Life and War on the Diamond Mine

In Times Like These

We have a special treat this weekend! One of our very own miners, Gail Kittleson has a new release and we’re celebrating! Make sure you check out the giveaway after the interview for your chance to win a copy. Without further ado, here we go…

RB: Hi, Gail! I’m so glad you could take a break from your busy day to join us on the Diamond Mine…this time as a guest.

GK: Thanks so much for having me, Renee. I appreciate the opportunity!

RB: You’re very welcome. That’s what the Diamond Mine is here for! We love to spread the Good News and your new book is definitely a way to do that. How about we dig into that great topic right now? Is there a favorite part of In Times Like These which stands out in your mind? Something you can share with the readers and fans?

GK: This is a hard one, but maybe a scene in Addie's chicken house, where her volatile husband Harold never goes, since he remembers being chased by roosters in childhood. The day before, he's gone all day, so Addie finally breaks out and changes something in the house that begs for attention.

In the morning when he spies what Addie did, Harold's so furious he risks going into the chicken coop to confront her. She's terrified. I don't want to spoil the scene, but I hope the reader will be right there with Addie, cheering her on as he faces her down.

RB: Is there a particular reason you chose your setting?

GK: Yes. They say you should write what you know, and I grew up on an Iowa farm in the fifties and sixties. So it's not so much that I chose the setting, as it chose me. Addie was a farm wife, and that demands a farm. I imagine an Illinois, Minnesota, or Wisconsin farm would have worked, but what I know is little old Iowa. Plain and simple, where people in my childhood made do after World War II.

But through writing Addie's story, I think I've realized more deeply how World War II's effects still permeated the lives of farm folk in the fifties. When you've sent your loved ones to a terrible war, when you've listened to the Fireside Chats in the dim light of your living room radio, calling you to more and more sacrifice for the cause, it changes you.

The war, like an ever-present thunderhead, lasted for four long years and colored ordinary people's lives far into the future. To better understand my parents, Greatest Generation members, studying the stateside effects of the war was helpful. My mom waited and prayed for not one, but TWO brothers to return from the fighting. My dad spent the entire war overseas, in more than one country. That has to change you forever.

RB: War’s reach is far and long. Its impact can be felt across the generations. By the way, how did you come up with your title, In Times Like These?

GK: This novel has had several titles. Because of the emphasis on its heroine Addie's victory garden, I first called it A Time For Flowers. Kind of like the touching story from our literature classes, Flowers for Algernon. But as time went on and I studied more about a novel's moral premise, I realized the story was bigger than that.

World War II's chaos all around the globe highlighted the battles Addie fought for her autonomy under her husband's tight control. The old hymn In Times Like These came to mind as I wrote, and the words seemed fitting. What's interesting was discovering this isn't a particularly "old" hymn - a woman wrote it during World War II!

RB: That’s awesome! I didn’t know that, Gail! I absolutely love these interviews…I learn such interesting things. And I know what you mean about books changing titles left and right. Mine do too. I think my novella Racing Hearts changed titles about four times before I finished writing it. Speaking of writing things, what’s easiest about writing for you?

GK: Characters come to me, often when I'm walking. But it took years for Addie, for example, to evolve into the fully dimensional character she is, and I didn't always understand what was going on. (Thing work better for me this way, actually. The less I know sometimes, the better things turn out.)

The character relates their story to me, so it's not my agenda filtering through the plot, it's HER STORY. What's amazing to me is how this whole process works. It's kind of like living a double life--maybe you have to be a little on the weird side, which is no problem for me, to be able to balance this existence?

RB: I can understand what you’re talking about there. It’s kind of neat to have the characters actually tell you the story instead of the other way around, isn’t it? God teaches me so much that way. But what happens if you get “stuck” in the process? What do you do for inspiration?

GK: Walking seems to help more than anything. In Iowa, it depends on the weather, but in the Arizona Mountains where we spend the worst winter months, almost every day provides a time good for walking. Even when it snows 24 inches, sometime that day, the sun will shine and you can get out to walk.

Something about the rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other, the beauty I see all around me, and the quiet—inspires answers to where I'm stuck. I pray for ideas/guidance/a way out of a sticky situation, and they come. I'm so grateful to be involved in this partnership.

RB: I may try that the next time I hit the literary brick wall. How has the Lord impacted your life?

GK: Believing that Jesus would never leave me was tough. I had a miserable sense that my bad thoughts would tear me from His grip. Once I went to my mom's pastor and shared my night terrors (that lasted all day long, too). He was a simple, kind man, and pointed me to John Bunyan's little book, Grace Abounding To the Greatest of Sinners. Not as well-known as Pilgrim's Progress, but written for fearful, trembling souls like me,

That small volume helped me so much--somebody else had felt as unworthy as I did, yet survived to believe God had his back no matter what. Great relieved sigh--although my doubts persisted years after that. But they gradually faded, and I can't be thankful enough for God's abiding presence in my life.

RB: Oh, Gail…God is good. Fear can be a powerful and destructive force in our lives. It can also be life-saving grace but not if it consumes us to the point we can’t live productively. I’m so grateful you trusted God to relieve you of that burden. As a Christian, what do you believe your role is in the world today?

GK: I used to think my spiritual gift was rescuing and fixing people. LOL Seriously, though, that's what I tried to do. Now I believe I'm here to use the gifts God's given me the very best I can and encourage others along the way. I also used to think we were supposed to understand everything. Giving up that goal is truly freeing!

Instead of endlessly trying to figure out everything, I attempt to embrace each moment as it comes. This is one of the themes in my memoir, and learning the ancient Benedictine practice of Lectio Divina (Divine reading) helped me a lot with this. Focusing on ONE Word the Holy Spirit highlights during my devotional times revolutionized my perspective. It's not so much FINDING the meaning for this day, but LISTENING and allowing Him to show me what to focus on.

RB: Well, you may be able to “rescue” someone, but only God can truly “fix” them. I’m glad He revealed that to you! Thanks for the fun interview and sharing so much about yourself. I can’t wait to read your new book, In Times Like These.

GK: Thanks so much, Renee, and anyone who's taken valuable time to stop by and read this article. I'd love to hear from you, so please feel free to contact me on Facebook or at gkittleson@myomnitel.com

BOOK GIVEAWAY!

COMMENT BELOW TO ENTER!

One winner selected by random draw!

One Kindle copy of In Times Like These awarded to one commenter (must leave e-mail address with comment).

Minimum of five comments required to validate contest. Drawing to be held one week following postdate of blog.

About the Book:

Pearl Harbor attacked! The United States is at war.

But Addie fights her own battles on the Iowa home front. Her controlling husband Harold vents his rage on her when his father's stoke prevents him from joining the military. He degrades Addie, ridicules her productive victory garden, and even labels her childlessness as God's punishment.

When he manipulates his way into a military unit bound for Normandy, Addie learns that her best friend Kate’s pilot husband has died on a mission, leaving her stranded in London in desperate straits.

Will Addie be able to help Kate, and find courage to trust God with her future?

Buy Link: http://amzn.to/1VFEoYh

About the Author:

Gail Kittleson taught college expository writing and English as a Second Language. Now she focuses on writing women’s fiction and facilitating writing workshops and women’s retreats. She and her husband enjoy family in northern Iowa, and the Arizona Ponderosa forest in winter.

You can count on Gail’s heroines to make do with what life hands them, and to overcome great odds. Her World War II fiction is set in Iowa, England, and Southern France.

Meeting new reading and writing friends is the meringue on Gail’s pie, as her heroines would say.

http://www.gailkittleson.com/

www.facebook.com/gail.kittleson

https://www.facebook.com/Gail-Kittleson-author-1799350843625035/timeline/

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/gail-kittleson/43/935/b06

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3459831.Gail_Kittleson

SPOTLIGHT!!! Rough Diamond Writers

Spotlight!!!

Freeze right there! I mean you! Yes, you! Did you say you didn't know the Rough Diamond Writers??? Wha???!!! (Mouth open, insert flies.) I'll have to read you your rights, here and now. You have a right to know the Rough Diamond Writers who staff the very blog you read. You can and may at any time, follow up on each and every author on the right side panel to learn more about them. You also may learn a few of us are published and may have even done something fab in a contest. (Wink) So, let's get you in the back of the squad car, watch your head, and I'll speed you on over to our precinct.

Ahhhh. Have a seat in that comfy chair and take in the sights.

First on the agenda is Nancy Shew Bolton. Her first release was The Right Ingredients, and sweet, romance, squeaky clean and full of  finding what's really important.

And her new one, Hidden Storms, captures a woman as she searches for her worth and finds it with God. (Of course!) Love, love the cover!

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Next we move on to Renee Blare. Her debut novella, Beast of Stratton is a moving Romantic/Suspense which touches on the subject of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

And for those of you who aren't aware, her next book comes out in July! To Soar on Eagle's Wings is first in a series of romantic suspense. And I'm not really supposed to share it with you, but, shhhhh. Here's the private file, hot from the press. It will explode in 10 seconds. (JK)

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And last, but maybe least, Moi! And that concludes all the French I know. Here's my little beauty, a Christian Historical Fiction, Year of Jubilee. Although I've had several people ask for the sequel, I have a Contemporary Romance coming out Oct. 9th. Perhaps I'll keep that sequel in mind though!

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Next is Misty Clifford-Russon who's busy tapping faithfully on her computer right now, churning out her next novel. Although she's not published yet, you can get a taste of her wonderful work right here:

http://mistysmusings4u.blogspot.com/

Can you tell she loves to take pictures? And she loves storms! Watch for this Rough Diamond Writer's debut. Don't worry. We won't let you miss it.

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Now. We have a surprise. Some of you more astute readers have noticed a new face on our blog.  Rebekah Millet has joined us her on the Diamond Mine! Woohoo! Welcome her in!  She'll be putting in an interview in September, so I encourage you to stop in and take part. She's a finalist for the Maggie Awards!  You can see her here:

http://www.rebekahmillet.com/about.html

And you can celebrate with her here:

http://www.georgiaromancewriters.org/2015-unpublished-maggie-finalists/

We're cheering her on!!!

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Perhaps we'll let you in on the undercover Rough Diamond Writers at a later date, but that is on a need to know basis. You're free to go and do your civic duty. Spread the word about these authors and about the Diamond Mine. You never know when you might win a free book! Now, book 'em Danno. We're back to walking the beat. Next Wednesday, we'll welcome in BV~it's in code, you see. But you won't be disappointed.

Be sure to check out Prism Book Group for clean/inspirational books before you leave.

http://www.prismbookgroup.com/

You're free to go and may the Lord bless you!