Author Guest Post with Kim Pierce: My Dead True Love

When a newspaper reporter’s fiancé dies abruptly, she questions how he could just cease to be.

Welcome to the November 10th stop on the blog tour for My Dead True Love by Kim Pierce with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

Curing the YIPS (a.k.a. writer’s block)

If you’re a sports fan (or live with one), you probably know what the YIPS are. 

For the rest of us, here’s a little explanation: The YIPS is a case of the nerves that prevents an athlete from performing an action s/he’s highly skilled at. Like a pro golfer who can’t land a putt. Or a pitcher who suddenly starts throwing wild. It’s like a nervous hiccup at the most inopportune moment.

When writers complain of writer’s block, it’s a lot like the YIPS. They know how to write. But one day they can’t seem to connect the words in their brains with the sheet of paper (or empty screen) in front of them.

I learned a great lesson about writing through the YIPS when I worked at a daily newspaper. Back in the day, the presses rolled no matter what. If you had a story due, you better darn well get it written. Failure was not an option.

The answer is simply this: You write. You write anything on that page. You can write what’s known in the news business as a sh—ty lead, knowing full well it’s sh—ty. You can write about how it feels not to be able to write. You can noodle around the main point. You can try different starting points, most of which you’ll discard. You keep writing.

Eventually you’ll break the logjam. It may not be your best writing, but you will have worked the (writing) muscle sufficiently to get good enough words out to get past the YIPS.

If you’re not facing a hard deadline, you have more options. Describe a character. Write a chapter synopsis. Write a dialogue between two characters. Write a scene through the eyes of an animal. Write to a writing prompt. Go walk around the block. Read something inspirational. Meditate.

The point is to do something laterally to break your nervous tension. And take a breath: You’re a writer. The words will come eventually. 

About the Book

My Dead True Love
by Kim Pierce

15 October 2022
Lucobu Books

Genre: Women’s Fiction
Page Count: 397
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

When a newspaper reporter’s fiancé dies abruptly, she questions how he could just cease to be.

Dogged by unbidden thoughts, odd coincidences and unexplained phenomena, Ann Stewart becomes obsessed with finding out what really happens after we die and whether her beloved Gregory is still out there. She finds her answer, which takes her and a close-knit coterie of women to the edge of the cosmos—and the core of their own hearts.

Based on a true story.

Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon UK

Excerpt

We stood a moment without speaking—sizing each other up, I suppose—before I invited her to have a seat on the couch. I sat down next to her.

“Look, I know this situation is awkward,” I began. “Me the fiancée, you the ex-wife…”

“Yeah, I can only imagine what he’s said about me. Medusa unbound.”

“Oh no, that’s not what I meant.…”

I tripped over my words.

“But it’s very likely what he meant.” She let out a belly laugh.

Bunching up her considerable green velvet skirt, she stretched out her legs, revealing black cowboy boots.

“Ours was not a friendly parting.”

“I gathered,” I said. “I also know you were married for, like, ten years—double the time I knew him. And I know I ought to feel jealous…”

Elizabeth stared at me, waiting.

“But I don’t.”

“No?”

“No. You were close to him. He was close to you.” I paused. It was difficult, even counterintuitive, what I was trying to say. “I could hear this in the intimate way you talked about him at the service.”

I clasped my hands as my words spilled out haltingly.

“I don’t even know how to say this,” I continued, “but I understood. It’s not like you’re a rival. You’re more like a sister. Or something like that. Someone I have a common bond with. He’s gone, and the hurt of that…”

I looked away. Tears were percolating up, boiling over again. Would this fountain of grief never cease?

I rushed to add, “The hurt of that doesn’t leave room for trivial bullshit like jealousy.” There, I’d said it. My heart was pounding.

“We… shared… him. Like no one else can understand.”

Someone understands.

About the Author

Kim Pierce is a former Dallas Morning News writer and editor who completed the Writer’s Path fiction program at Southern Methodist University. My Dead True Love is her first novel, inspired by events surrounding the death of her fiancé in 1998. She lives in Dallas, Texas, with her partner and three cats.

Website | Amazon | Goodreads

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