Yellow Springs woman publishes book after she retires
‘The book is about something we don’t often look at. The process of aging and older people living together and how they navigate those final few years of life.’
Diane Chiddister Local author
Growing older is inevitable. Regardless of how hard people work to stave off old age, it happens to everyone. Diane Chiddister of Yellow Springs has opted to approach her own aging as opportunity.
“I’m originally from Goshen, Indiana,” Chiddister said. “I went to Indiana University and majored in political science and then social work.”
Chiddister said she was looking for a creative outlet and stumbled into a fiction writing class at IU in South Bend, Indiana.
“It was a process that seemed magical to me,” she said.
She ended up attending a writer’s workshop at the University of Iowa and was there for two years, feeling mostly like she found a perfect fit.
“Everyone was talking about fiction writing all the time,” Chiddister said. “The real world is not like that, and I loved it.”
Chiddister found her fellow students to be both talented and competitive, and eventually, she said her writing “froze” after it became too painful trying to make her writing “perfect.” She ended up leaving Iowa and moving to Yellow Springs in the early 1980s and began moving away from fiction to a career in journalism.
“I saw an opening at the Yellow Springs News, and I thought I’d start writing for them,” Chiddister said. “It made me get the words on the page because of the deadlines.”
Chiddister said during her time as a reporter, she learned to not only trust her process of writing, but to also refine and improve it. In 2006 she became the editor of the paper and remained in that role for 12 years, until her retirement in 2018.
“It was exciting and intense at times,” Chiddister said. “I felt like it was a job for a much younger person.”
She found someone to take her place and began planning her life in retirement. But rather than sitting in a rocking chair or checking into a retirement community, Chiddister decided to return to fiction and wrote her first novel. That book, “One More Day,” was published earlier this month. Set in an assisted living facility called Grace Woods Care Center located in a small fictional town in Ohio, the book focuses on residents facing the great challenge of growing older and the staff members who care for them.
Chiddister’s inspiration was her own mother, who lived in a small independent and assisted living center the last few years of her life, and the nurses aide whose kindness and compassion made a huge impact on the residents.
“The book is about something we don’t often look at,” Chiddister said. “The process of aging and older people living together
and how they navigate those final few years of life.”
Chiddister’s first job after graduating from college was as an aid in a nursing home, which she said was one of the most rewarding jobs of her life. The book features four main characters: two residents and two staff members.
“My goal for the book was to get people to look at old age differently,” Chiddister said. “Our assumption is it’s all about dementia and sadness, but it seems to me that there is more to this life than what we see.”
Chiddister enrolled in a course that encouraged her to write quickly for 30 days and try to finish a first draft without worrying about how good it was. She said it worked for her, and after two years and some revisions, she connected with a small publishing company in Columbus where she met a “developmental editor.”
“She looked at characters and plot and gave me feedback after I thought I was done,” Chiddister said. “Before her feedback, I was hesitant, but her suggestions were wonderful, and I think they improved the book.”
Now, Chiddister is not only busy marketing “One More Day,” but is also working on her second novel, set at a wedding of a young couple and focusing on one of the mothers as the main character and the other family members attending the wedding.
“I write in the morning for about two hours,” Chiddister said. “Then I walk and think about what I’m doing in my writing, and that brings me to about noon each day. I used to think if I’m a writer, then I have to write for eight hours a day, but that’s not true.”
Chiddister said she loves being a novelist, although she never thought of herself in this way. Her first novel is available now on Amazon.com and other retailers online.
“I’m really happy because I have an idea for a third book, and I finally have time to write,” Chiddister said. “It’s a magical process and fascinating to write fiction. People of my generation need something meaningful. Our parents’ retirement is not ours. We are still looking for meaning.”