Diana's Blog

This is not only true for books but also for life. My love for writing did not start before my love for reading had reached a peak.I wasn’t born a booklover. My passion for reading was triggered by an early, accidental interest in becoming a librarian. Before that, I had only frequently touched books and only under threat of some kind of school assessment. You might ask why someone who hated even looking at books suddenly wanted to become a librarian. Well, let's step back to

On the 30th of August 2011, I climbed out of a plane with the intention of spending a year, max a year and a half, in the UK. To reach that goal, I had applied for various university jobs all over the country. After several rejections, I was successful. The University of Cambridge offered me employment. I took it. 15 years and 1 month later, I’m still here. The reason: I met some of the nicest people who would end up becoming my friends, including the man I inevitably married

I was asked why I have a blog and what I’m trying to achieve with it. To be honest, I couldn’t answer that question. At least not at that very moment. Let’s move back to a time long before my blog was born. I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Even as a child, I made up stories. Most of my work never saw the light of day. Never leaving the premises of my mind or my room. When I was older, I published a few of my short stories in Germany, but only on other auth

I would love some feedback from you. After setting up my website, I dedicated one page to my novels, with subpages that discuss each of them. Well, that’s the plan. So far, I have only written one novel, and I’m still working on number two. Ergo, I have only one subpage (and a ‘coming soon’ one). Anyway, I felt something wasn’t quite right; something was missing. Then it hit me. What I like when shopping for new reading material is to have a glimpse of what I’m buying, or i

When I started looking for an editor, I talked with many people. Editors, proofreaders, advisors, agents and more. All said the same. My novel was too long and not suitable for marketing. Their unanimous advice: A novel should be no longer than 100 000 words. I did not like listening to them. My argument: What’s with all those great novels that are longer than mine and are just amazing? However, regardless of how much I tried to defend my work, I had to admit, those authors w

My debut novel is with my editor now. I can’t tell you how excited I am! Claire, my editor, has already been in contact a few times to discuss final details before she hits the ground running. Her cheerful and straightforward manner is just refreshing. I’m glad I found her. So, after I visited her website the first time, I had excluded her from my initial selection list. Before I tell you why this has changed, let’s turn back time. In December 2025, after I had finished my no

And so is my website. Now that I’m only a few weeks from publishing my first book, I followed the advice that rained from all sides onto me. All said the same. A writer needs a platform. So, here we are. It’s the first time I created my own web presence. I chose to do it with Wix, as everyone said how easy Wix makes it for its users. And that isn’t a lie. So, I needed a few attempts to get the hang of it. Lucky me, I’m married to a software engineer. A proper geek when it c