Talkshow Thursday: Meet Dianne E. Butts
I didn't know what that was, and I thought it had a funny name, but it was like a telephone book filled with publishers – everything from book publishers to magazines to newspapers, greeting cards, gifts… Pretty much anything you can think of that has words printed was in that book. Not only was it listed, but that book gave all the information a writer needs: what they published, how to submit to them, how to contact them, their address, phone numbers… everything.
Together, my teacher and I picked three magazines that accepted poetry. She taught me how to format my poem on the page and how to send it off to the publisher with a self-addressed stamped envelope for their reply. And then we waited. We heard back from two of those places. One was a form rejection letter. I remember the other one said, “This sounds like a Hallmark card,” but they did not mean it as a compliment. We never heard from the third place. So, my poem never got published. And that was that.
Or so I thought.
Fast-forward a dozen years, and now I'm thirty, and I’ve met Jesus. Probably because of that experience
in high school, the thought of writing to get published came to me as a way to share my faith. I thought, Maybe I can write articles and stories that share my faith and reach people who otherwise would be unreachable. I already had all the information I needed about how to do it. I went to the public library, found The Writer’s Market, and I was off and running.
Around that same time, I heard a commercial on Christian radio for a Christian writers’ conference in Denver, Colorado. I went. That was 1989. I have been writing ever since. I've written for national and international Christian publications, on assignment for newspapers, for fledgling internet sites, and for books like Chicken Soup for the Soul and Zondervan’s New Women’s Devotional Bible. I've written five books under my real name plus a sixth co-authored, and 27 fiction novellas under my pen name. I have also written feature screenplays and a TV pilot (as yet unproduced), and award-winning short films which I have produced.
For nearly thirty years, my husband and I moved a lot to follow his job promotions. Every move meant that I had to start over and find a new job. Finally, he said to me, why don't you just write full-time? That was in the mid-1990s and that's what I've been doing ever since.
Have you ever considered writing under a pseudonym? Why or why not? Yes, I do use a pseudonym for my fiction writing. I do so because an author needs to let readers know what they are going to get. I want to separate my fiction from my nonfiction writing. People who know me as Dianne E. Butts know that they are getting Christian nonfiction teaching and inspiration. People who know me as F. Tilly Brownne know they are getting clean, inspirational fiction.
If your book is part of a series: Did you set out to write a series? Why did you decide to write a series? So far, my fiction books are part of multi-author series. These are series where each book is a standalone story and is written by a different author. I decided to write in these series because it was a great opportunity. Writing for these multi-author series gave me my start in fiction. Plus, I have met some amazing people who are authors by writing for these series.
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However, I do want to write some series that are all my own, and I'm working toward that goal. Currently, I am writing a short novelette for a Christmas anthology project. About twenty of those authors that I’ve met over the past few years got together and decided we’d each write a short story and put them all together as one ebook. The anthology will be available for Christmas this year. The story I'm writing is titled When You Find a Sprig of Holly, and it is the first of my own series that I want to write. I have more series that I want to write, even in different genres. So far I have written mostly historical romance with a few contemporary romances. I want to branch out and write contemporary women's fiction and also Christian End Times dystopian.
If you were to write a spin-off book about one of your secondary characters, which one would you choose and why? In December 2023, I wrote Mery's Christmas Escape. In that story, I had a collection of other characters in a town called Mistletoe. Somebody I don't know wrote a review on Amazon in February 2024 that said, “I would love for F. Tilly Brownne to build a series around Mistletoe.” When I read that, I thought, Oh my gosh, what a great idea. I have been thinking about that ever since. I have a lot of ideas, but with my schedule, I haven’t had the time. I would really like to develop the characters of Mistletoe and write their stories. I hope to do that someday soon. It's been long enough already.
Why do you write in your particular genre? Well, to be honest, if I had picked my genre when I started writing fiction, it would not have been historical. And it would not have been romance! I don't know a lot about history and so I have to do a lot of research to make my stories as accurate as I can with the time that I have.
And I always thought that I would never write romance. I tell people I'm not a romantic. You can ask my husband. So why am I writing historical romance? Two reasons: First, because that was where the opportunity was when I first started writing fiction. I asked to join a multi-author series, and I’ve been writing for these ever since. Secondly, because it sells. That may sound funny or even unchristian to some people. But I can tell you it's really difficult for an author to write books that nobody buys. That’s what happened with my nonfiction for a while. There has to be a meeting between what an author wants to write and what readers want to read. And while some people think this is a compromise, it is not. I can put the truth of the Christian faith in a historical romance, a contemporary women's fiction, and End Times dystopian. I'm not compromising on my mission at all.
And as far as making money as an author, that is not wrong either. As authors, we have expenses: book cover designers, editors, copyright fees, and more. This is a ministry, yes, but it's also a business. I have to make money to pay my expenses. And when I make money, I can also give to God's kingdom. I could not do any of that when the books I had written did not sell.
What is your process for writing? (Do you outline, have a special place or time of day you write,.jpg)
etc.) What is your favorite part of the process? That's an interesting question because I have been in so many workshops at conferences where people say you have to do it this way or that way. For many years I was told not to outline because it would ruin the creative process. I tried writing that way, and it just did not work for me. In fact, I wasted a lot of years trying to write the way someone else said I should.
The truth is, I need an outline. Contrary to what I was taught, an outline explodes my creativity! When we are creative, we don't necessarily think linearly. I may have several good ideas that are not in any order. And as I write those down, I get more ideas. And those need to get woven into what I already have.
And then I might see that something isn't working. For example, I'm currently outlining my story, Sweet Lies, Safe Secrets, for the Mail-Order Brides Undercover series. I had a lot of ideas for the crime my main character, Sabrina, is investigating undercover. But when I got to the end, I had too many ideas and I didn't know how to get the bad guys caught, get the good guys out of trouble, and end the story. If I had been writing, I would have had to go back and change many things to try and make it work. I would have wasted a lot of time and energy. But when I outline first, I'm building my story brick by brick. I get everything figured out before I actually write. I do have an office in our home where I do most of my work. However, when it comes time to write the story, I do best when I get out of my office and away from all of the distractions that need to be done so I can follow my outline and write out my story.
I think my favorite part of the process is the editing. That's because the outlining is hard. And the writing is hard. And by the time I get to the editing stage, the hard work is done. At that point, I get to rediscover what I've written and polish it to make it as good as I'm able.
How did your jobs prepare you for being a novelist? I held several jobs before I started writing full-time. In high school, I worked fast food at Taco Bell. I punched a clock at a manufacturing company and worked as an EMT on an ambulance in Denver. After I married, I worked at a beer distributor doing computer work. I worked on an IBM computer that was about 4 ½ feet tall, 8 feet long, and a couple of feet wide. It used 8-inch floppy discs that were actually floppy. Then personal computers came out, and it was my job to learn how to use it and the word processor on it. That definitely prepared me to write.
After that, as I moved with my husband, who was in law enforcement (now retired), I learned about the law and enforcing it. I worked at a District Attorney’s Office, which taught me about crimes and court proceedings. After we moved again, I worked at an attorney's office.
All of these jobs taught me efficiency and work ethic, which means showing up on time, putting in a full day’s work, and getting my work done well and on time. But I have to tell you, learning to write was a real process. Someone once said that writing clearly is thinking clearly. I love that. When we have our own thoughts, they can be vague as we understand what we mean in our own mind. But I had to really learn how to lasso those thoughts and pull them down from the clouds and think them clearly enough to put them onto paper. And then I still had to refine them so that someone else understood what I was thinking. That's not easy.
I actually wanted to write fiction from the very beginning back in the 1980s. I did write a couple of novels in the ‘90s. But I struggled to get my stories to come together. It wasn't until the early 2000’s that I began to understand there was such a thing as “story structure.” And then I started screenwriting and that is where I learned story structure, and my stories came together. So, it has been a long, circular journey for me to come back around to writing the fiction that I started out to write. I still believe in that dystopian story I wrote back in the 1990’s when I was discouraged from writing and publishing it. And I’ve written a women's fiction story. I hope that soon I’ll be able to make room in my schedule to write these stories that I wanted to write when I started.
What is your advice to fledgling writers? If writing is hard for you, that doesn’t mean you’re not supposed to be a writer. It's hard for all of us. I haven't met a writer who thinks this is easy. But, as they say, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Some people write because they say they can't not write. I don't think that's my story because I didn't start out to be a writer. In fact, in school I never liked English classes. My favorite subject was math.
I write because I met Jesus. And I have a flame in me that makes me want to tell others about Jesus, and it won't ever go out. That compels me to do the one thing that I believe can reach the most people: write. So, if you're just starting out, when it gets hard, don't quit. And don't get discouraged. Because the evil one will douse the flame of whatever God has put on your heart, if you let him. But, with God’s help, those of us who have something important to say can't be stopped.
What books are on your nightstand right now? Well, my Kindle is on my nightstand, and it is filled with so many books I want to read. Most of them are by the authors I have met as I've participated in these multi-author series. For example, I want to read Levi's Loyalty by Lynn Lanning and several by Sarah Lamb, Heather Frey Blanton, and Cat Cahill. I want to read their stories and learn from these wonderful authors so I can improve my own stories. I also love to read nonfiction. Right now, I’m reading The Dragon's Prophecy by Jonathan Cahn and Antinet Zettelkasten by Scott P. Scheper. But I am always elbow-deep in my never-ending to-be-read pile.
What is your next project? My next project is the short story, When You Find a Sprig of Holly, for the multi-author anthology, A Vintage Christmas to Remember. After that, I'll be finishing Sweet Lies, Safe Secrets, which releases on October 13 in the Mail-Order Brides Undercover series. And just as soon as I can meet my deadlines with fiction, I plan to get back to writing my nonfiction books. I have several that are now out-of-print. I plan to rewrite them with new titles and new covers and republish them. The first of that series will be Breaking the Prophecy Code of Christmas. I hope to have that one out for Christmas 2027.
For updates on all my projects, you can sign up for my fiction and/or my nonfiction and writer’s newsletters. Sign-up forms are on my website at http://www.DianneEButts.com
Thank you, Linda, for having me on your blog today.
Sweet Lies, Safe Secrets: Mail-Order Brides Undercover
He says he's a safe-cracker. She says she's a mail-order bride. They're both lying.
Sabrina Brooks didn’t join The Brides of Liberty Bureau to fall for criminals. She joined with one promise to herself: find out what happened to her father when he vanished in the South. With Liberty’s undercover training in her bones and self-sufficiency in her blood, she’s ready for anything…until her first assignment sends her West.
In West Haven, near Denver, the Cleveland gang prepares to strike its next victim: Murdoc McGill, rich, older, and already asking the Bureau for protection. Sabrina arrives undercover as his mail-order bride—exactly the kind of woman a robber could overlook.
But the moment she meets Doylin Wiles, his charming confidence and dangerous profession collides with her instincts. He’s the gang’s new safe-cracker. But that’s not all. She discovers he’s chasing his missing sister, last seen with the gang leader, Albert Cleveland. As Sabrina suspects something off in the man who claims he can crack any lock, his sweet lies begin to crack open the lock on her hardened heart.
Will romance and, worse, the threat of love, betray her mission? Because Doylin isn’t merely a thief…he’s a temptation. The closer they get to the truth, the likelier they are to ruin each other.
Pre-order link: https://amzn.to/4w1Ldqs
Social Media:
Web site: https://www.dianneebutts.com/
Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/DianneButtsAuthor
Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/DianneEButts/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/DianneEButts
Fiction:
Amazon Author Page https://www.amazon.com/stores/F.-Tilly-Brownne/author/B0B3WTN5CY
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ftillybrownne/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/ftillybrownne
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/f-tilly-brownne
Nonfiction:
Amazon Author Page https://www.amazon.com/stores/Dianne-E.-Butts/author/B004KEXS42
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dianneebutts/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/dianneebutts
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/dianne-e-butts
Together, my teacher and I picked three magazines that accepted poetry. She taught me how to format my poem on the page and how to send it off to the publisher with a self-addressed stamped envelope for their reply. And then we waited. We heard back from two of those places. One was a form rejection letter. I remember the other one said, “This sounds like a Hallmark card,” but they did not mean it as a compliment. We never heard from the third place. So, my poem never got published. And that was that.
Or so I thought.
Fast-forward a dozen years, and now I'm thirty, and I’ve met Jesus. Probably because of that experience
For nearly thirty years, my husband and I moved a lot to follow his job promotions. Every move meant that I had to start over and find a new job. Finally, he said to me, why don't you just write full-time? That was in the mid-1990s and that's what I've been doing ever since.
Have you ever considered writing under a pseudonym? Why or why not? Yes, I do use a pseudonym for my fiction writing. I do so because an author needs to let readers know what they are going to get. I want to separate my fiction from my nonfiction writing. People who know me as Dianne E. Butts know that they are getting Christian nonfiction teaching and inspiration. People who know me as F. Tilly Brownne know they are getting clean, inspirational fiction.
If your book is part of a series: Did you set out to write a series? Why did you decide to write a series? So far, my fiction books are part of multi-author series. These are series where each book is a standalone story and is written by a different author. I decided to write in these series because it was a great opportunity. Writing for these multi-author series gave me my start in fiction. Plus, I have met some amazing people who are authors by writing for these series.
.jpg)
If you were to write a spin-off book about one of your secondary characters, which one would you choose and why? In December 2023, I wrote Mery's Christmas Escape. In that story, I had a collection of other characters in a town called Mistletoe. Somebody I don't know wrote a review on Amazon in February 2024 that said, “I would love for F. Tilly Brownne to build a series around Mistletoe.” When I read that, I thought, Oh my gosh, what a great idea. I have been thinking about that ever since. I have a lot of ideas, but with my schedule, I haven’t had the time. I would really like to develop the characters of Mistletoe and write their stories. I hope to do that someday soon. It's been long enough already.
Why do you write in your particular genre? Well, to be honest, if I had picked my genre when I started writing fiction, it would not have been historical. And it would not have been romance! I don't know a lot about history and so I have to do a lot of research to make my stories as accurate as I can with the time that I have.
And I always thought that I would never write romance. I tell people I'm not a romantic. You can ask my husband. So why am I writing historical romance? Two reasons: First, because that was where the opportunity was when I first started writing fiction. I asked to join a multi-author series, and I’ve been writing for these ever since. Secondly, because it sells. That may sound funny or even unchristian to some people. But I can tell you it's really difficult for an author to write books that nobody buys. That’s what happened with my nonfiction for a while. There has to be a meeting between what an author wants to write and what readers want to read. And while some people think this is a compromise, it is not. I can put the truth of the Christian faith in a historical romance, a contemporary women's fiction, and End Times dystopian. I'm not compromising on my mission at all.
And as far as making money as an author, that is not wrong either. As authors, we have expenses: book cover designers, editors, copyright fees, and more. This is a ministry, yes, but it's also a business. I have to make money to pay my expenses. And when I make money, I can also give to God's kingdom. I could not do any of that when the books I had written did not sell.
What is your process for writing? (Do you outline, have a special place or time of day you write,
.jpg)
The truth is, I need an outline. Contrary to what I was taught, an outline explodes my creativity! When we are creative, we don't necessarily think linearly. I may have several good ideas that are not in any order. And as I write those down, I get more ideas. And those need to get woven into what I already have.
And then I might see that something isn't working. For example, I'm currently outlining my story, Sweet Lies, Safe Secrets, for the Mail-Order Brides Undercover series. I had a lot of ideas for the crime my main character, Sabrina, is investigating undercover. But when I got to the end, I had too many ideas and I didn't know how to get the bad guys caught, get the good guys out of trouble, and end the story. If I had been writing, I would have had to go back and change many things to try and make it work. I would have wasted a lot of time and energy. But when I outline first, I'm building my story brick by brick. I get everything figured out before I actually write. I do have an office in our home where I do most of my work. However, when it comes time to write the story, I do best when I get out of my office and away from all of the distractions that need to be done so I can follow my outline and write out my story.
I think my favorite part of the process is the editing. That's because the outlining is hard. And the writing is hard. And by the time I get to the editing stage, the hard work is done. At that point, I get to rediscover what I've written and polish it to make it as good as I'm able.
How did your jobs prepare you for being a novelist? I held several jobs before I started writing full-time. In high school, I worked fast food at Taco Bell. I punched a clock at a manufacturing company and worked as an EMT on an ambulance in Denver. After I married, I worked at a beer distributor doing computer work. I worked on an IBM computer that was about 4 ½ feet tall, 8 feet long, and a couple of feet wide. It used 8-inch floppy discs that were actually floppy. Then personal computers came out, and it was my job to learn how to use it and the word processor on it. That definitely prepared me to write.
After that, as I moved with my husband, who was in law enforcement (now retired), I learned about the law and enforcing it. I worked at a District Attorney’s Office, which taught me about crimes and court proceedings. After we moved again, I worked at an attorney's office.
All of these jobs taught me efficiency and work ethic, which means showing up on time, putting in a full day’s work, and getting my work done well and on time. But I have to tell you, learning to write was a real process. Someone once said that writing clearly is thinking clearly. I love that. When we have our own thoughts, they can be vague as we understand what we mean in our own mind. But I had to really learn how to lasso those thoughts and pull them down from the clouds and think them clearly enough to put them onto paper. And then I still had to refine them so that someone else understood what I was thinking. That's not easy.
I actually wanted to write fiction from the very beginning back in the 1980s. I did write a couple of novels in the ‘90s. But I struggled to get my stories to come together. It wasn't until the early 2000’s that I began to understand there was such a thing as “story structure.” And then I started screenwriting and that is where I learned story structure, and my stories came together. So, it has been a long, circular journey for me to come back around to writing the fiction that I started out to write. I still believe in that dystopian story I wrote back in the 1990’s when I was discouraged from writing and publishing it. And I’ve written a women's fiction story. I hope that soon I’ll be able to make room in my schedule to write these stories that I wanted to write when I started.
I write because I met Jesus. And I have a flame in me that makes me want to tell others about Jesus, and it won't ever go out. That compels me to do the one thing that I believe can reach the most people: write. So, if you're just starting out, when it gets hard, don't quit. And don't get discouraged. Because the evil one will douse the flame of whatever God has put on your heart, if you let him. But, with God’s help, those of us who have something important to say can't be stopped.
What books are on your nightstand right now? Well, my Kindle is on my nightstand, and it is filled with so many books I want to read. Most of them are by the authors I have met as I've participated in these multi-author series. For example, I want to read Levi's Loyalty by Lynn Lanning and several by Sarah Lamb, Heather Frey Blanton, and Cat Cahill. I want to read their stories and learn from these wonderful authors so I can improve my own stories. I also love to read nonfiction. Right now, I’m reading The Dragon's Prophecy by Jonathan Cahn and Antinet Zettelkasten by Scott P. Scheper. But I am always elbow-deep in my never-ending to-be-read pile.
What is your next project? My next project is the short story, When You Find a Sprig of Holly, for the multi-author anthology, A Vintage Christmas to Remember. After that, I'll be finishing Sweet Lies, Safe Secrets, which releases on October 13 in the Mail-Order Brides Undercover series. And just as soon as I can meet my deadlines with fiction, I plan to get back to writing my nonfiction books. I have several that are now out-of-print. I plan to rewrite them with new titles and new covers and republish them. The first of that series will be Breaking the Prophecy Code of Christmas. I hope to have that one out for Christmas 2027.
For updates on all my projects, you can sign up for my fiction and/or my nonfiction and writer’s newsletters. Sign-up forms are on my website at http://www.DianneEButts.com
Thank you, Linda, for having me on your blog today.
Sweet Lies, Safe Secrets: Mail-Order Brides Undercover
Sabrina Brooks didn’t join The Brides of Liberty Bureau to fall for criminals. She joined with one promise to herself: find out what happened to her father when he vanished in the South. With Liberty’s undercover training in her bones and self-sufficiency in her blood, she’s ready for anything…until her first assignment sends her West.
In West Haven, near Denver, the Cleveland gang prepares to strike its next victim: Murdoc McGill, rich, older, and already asking the Bureau for protection. Sabrina arrives undercover as his mail-order bride—exactly the kind of woman a robber could overlook.
But the moment she meets Doylin Wiles, his charming confidence and dangerous profession collides with her instincts. He’s the gang’s new safe-cracker. But that’s not all. She discovers he’s chasing his missing sister, last seen with the gang leader, Albert Cleveland. As Sabrina suspects something off in the man who claims he can crack any lock, his sweet lies begin to crack open the lock on her hardened heart.
Will romance and, worse, the threat of love, betray her mission? Because Doylin isn’t merely a thief…he’s a temptation. The closer they get to the truth, the likelier they are to ruin each other.
Pre-order link: https://amzn.to/4w1Ldqs
Social Media:
Web site: https://www.dianneebutts.com/
Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/DianneButtsAuthor
Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/DianneEButts/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/DianneEButts
Fiction:
Amazon Author Page https://www.amazon.com/stores/F.-Tilly-Brownne/author/B0B3WTN5CY
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ftillybrownne/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/ftillybrownne
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/f-tilly-brownne
Nonfiction:
Amazon Author Page https://www.amazon.com/stores/Dianne-E.-Butts/author/B004KEXS42
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dianneebutts/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/dianneebutts
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/dianne-e-butts
Photo Credits:
Author and Book image: Courtesy Dianne E. Butts
Writers' Market: Courtesy Writers' Market
Lantern: Pixabay/Anastasia538
Pad and Pencil: Pixabay/Conger Design
Woman at Computer: Pixabay/HamanAzaryan1
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