By Sarah Daponde Asst. Arts & Features Editor Local author Diane Barnes gave a lecture on book publishing and her road to becoming an author on Feb. 12 in the McCarthy Center Alumni Room. The event was hosted by the Arts & Ideas Program. It was a part of the Arts & Ideas series for this year, “Vitality and Vision,” which aims to bring optimism and hope to the campus through creativity, according to Program Coordinator Joseph Adelman. Adelman gave a brief opening for the event and then introduced Natasha Bizanos-Ashe, event coordinator and good friend of Barnes. Bizanos-Ashe thanked Barnes for coming and gave some background about the author’s life and career. “Her books focus on friendships between women and how female friendships have the power to help women overcome obstacles in their lives,” said Bizanos-Ashe. Kirkus Reviews called Barnes’ debut novel, “Waiting for Ethan,” an “engrossing page-turner,” she said. “When Diane isn’t writing, she’s at a concert or a Broadway show or being much too competitive playing board games,” said Bizanos-Ashe. “Or at a beach, engrossed in a book and oblivious to what’s happening around her.” Barnes and her husband live in New England with their golden retriever, added Bizanos-Ashe. She then gave the microphone to Barnes, who began by thanking the University for inviting her to speak and the audience for attending. She began with some facts - 84% of Americans want to publish a book, but only 0.002% of works actually get published, said Barnes. The average book sells about 3,000 to 5,000 copies, she said. But there needs to be 5,000 to 10,000 copies sold during the first week to be considered a best-seller. “I gave you these numbers to point out that publishing is a very hard industry, very tough, and the path to publication is filled with roadblocks - I know mine certainly has been,” said Barnes. She named three attributes that helped her get through the roadblocks - her love of writing, her love of reading, and her perseverance despite being “heartbroken by rejection. “I didn’t let it stop me. I kept on going. That’s the most important thing - resilience,” added Barnes. She said she began her path to publication in the second grade. The teacher asked them to do a creative writing exercise and gave them each a journal. Barnes said she filled up that journal, asked for another one, filled that one up too, and then several more. “And I have been writing ever since,” added Barnes. She said in college she knew she wanted to learn more about writing, but did not really know creative writing was something she could study. Instead, she studied journalism, which led her to jobs at a newspaper, a magazine, and in an editing department. “Every job I’ve had since college has related to writing,” Barnes added. She worked during the days and took creative writing classes at night, first studying short stories and then switching to novel-writing classes. During her first novel-writing class, Barnes said she wrote her “practice novel.” It was a novel she worked on for several years and never published. “But the time was well spent because with every page I wrote I felt like my writing improved and my confidence in my writing certainly increased,” said Barnes. She said feedback from her classmates and instructors was helpful to her because it told her where she did well and where she needed to improve in her writing. “You could be the best writer, but not everyone is going to like what you write. … And that taught me that not everyone is going to be my reader - and that’s OK,” Barnes said. She read every one of her reviews because even if the feedback was harsh and negative, that person was just “not my reader,” she said. After her “practice novel,” Barnes said she was determined to finish her next book. She did not want a desk filled with unfinished manuscripts. She discussed how a friend of hers asked her to do National Novel Writing Month, an annual challenge to write 50,000 words during November. “I’d meet my friend after work at Border’s, and we’d write until they kicked us out, until closing time - and then we’d go back on the weekends, and we’d write again, and we’d just keep writing,” said Barnes. At the end of the month, she had 50,000 words written and she kept working on the story until it was finished. When describing her writing style, Barnes called herself a “pants-er.” “There’s different kinds of writers. There’s plotters - they make outlines … then there’s me, a pants-er. I make it up by the seat of my pants as I write,” Barnes said. She used feedback from writers and non-writers to get different types of reviews. The revision process lasted for approximately a year and then she said she was ready to try to publish. There are three types of publishing Barnes described, including self publishing, traditional publishing, and hybrid publishing. She chose to get published the traditional way, which meant she needed to find an agent. “Getting an agent in publishing - I would say it’s the hardest part, but honestly, it’s all pretty hard,” said Barnes. She discussed the process of querying. She said she researched agents for women’s fiction, the genre she considered her novel. Barnes said many agents would not agree to represent her, but finally one offered and she has been representing her for the past 12 years. “So, I thought, yeah, I’m published now. I’m an author now - but now the agent had to do the same sort of thing with editors. She has to query editors, she has to get their interest,” she said. She said the first two editors rejected the novel because it did not fit into an exact genre. “Why does it have to fit into a neat spot? Why can’t it just be a book?” Barnes said she thought at the time. The third editor agreed to publish her novel, which she titled “Waiting for Ethan” and it placed 56th on Amazon’s Top 100 List. Barnes said she went through a different journey to get all five of her novels published, all involving rejection and revision. Multiple times, her original titles were changed in the final publication and she said she did not get input on the cover designs of the books. Barnes then read an excerpt from her latest novel, “The Mulligan Curse,” released on Feb. 4. It is a novel about a 54-year-old woman sent back in time by a family curse. To end the discussion, Barnes opened the conversation up to questions. An audience member asked who her literary inspirations were, which Barnes said were Elizabeth Berg, John Irving, Frederick Backman, and Kristen Higgins. She was also asked who her audience was when she wrote and answered she wrote with only herself in mind. “If I don’t love it, it’s going to show up in the writing - if my heart’s not in it, then the writing is going to be flat,” added Barnes. Another attendee asked her how she wrote so optimistically about difficult topics, like infertility and Barnes said she tries to give her readers something joyful. “There’s enough sadness in the world,” said Barnes. “So I want my books to be happy. I want people to use them as an escape.”