Happy to Be Here Blogging at the Jungle Fest

Already I see that I'm going to have fun here. Hi Margot! We seem to pop up on a lot of the same lists. 

Thanks to Lea I'm here with all of you awesome people. I am a member of KidsMuse on the museitupclub and thanks to Lea I have had amazing changes in my writing and have met so many great writers in the past couple of years. I am a YA writer for the most part with one finished but unpublished novel and second one halfway finished which I am sharing with the KidsMuse group. I also have an MG children's story published on Story Station  and I have also written a few adult flash stories. You can go read all about me on my website which is still under construction: ALL ABOUT BARBARA AND HER WRITING.  If anyone is interested in seeing more than an excerpt I would be happy to link them to the original. For some reason the links weren't where they needed to be on the website and I'm technologically behind in websites.

My writing comes mostly from my own experiences and I use my family as fodder for my characters. I wrote an MG fantasy when I first started writing seriously and it was a story that I had first told to my little brother that was passed down to be told to my own children. But that one is pretty much in storage now gathering dust in the archives of my computer.

Unlike some people my own writing never seems to have any organization when I begin. The idea happens in my head and then flows through my fingers and when I see the first sentence it takes off with my fingers flying until I've come to the end. I've gotten so used to using the computer for writing that when I have to use a pen and paper I'm bogged down by the slowness of it all and where is the Delete? But after awhile I'll step back and see if what I've written is a short story or the beginning of a novel. Then I'll take it out and show it to people to see if it makes sense to anyone else and whether or not they like the characters. That's where my critique group helps so much. But what really almost brings tears to my eyes is the reactions from the group when you've written something that works. It's like applause for an actor when the group appreciates your writing. I beam for a day and reread the comments when I'm down.

It took me a long time to get to point 5, Kim, so now I have to send out my first manuscript to a publisher. Would someone here please give me a virtual kick to do that? 

Who else has work that they need to send out but they are procrastinating or have no time? (my problem!)