BarbsWriteTree

Name:
Location: San Marcos, California, United States

Southern gal living in California. Have been writing since the age of ten and am addicted to the written word. Have stacks of books-to-be-read in almost every room. I teach writing on a volunteer basis and in a paid position. I once worked with foreign customers for an aerospace company; interesting job that gave me great insight into other cultures. Family scattered all over the US so have excuses to travel.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

PURPLE

Several weeks ago at the memoir writing class I teach, I gave my students an assignment to write about a color--red, since it was the month of Valentine's--and at our last session they came back with some very good essays. One wrote that the color of red reminded her of anger; a gentleman said it reminded him of a dress his wife (now deceased) often wore, several reminded us that red is a part of our flag and most every patriotic celebration we have in this country, and I wrote about the red barn at my parent's homeplace.

But red isn't really my favorite color. I love the color purple.

The royal robes worn in Biblical times were purple. That in itself should give me a clue as to why my favorite color is purple. But I'm not royalty and, although a Christian, I don't reckon God has washed away my sins enough to consider me ready for a purple robe.

Actually, if you look in my closet you will find a rainbow of colors. I wear some because the chart (remember the color parties we used to have?) says I am a mixture of fall and spring. Others are "in style" so I don them when around certain people. But if I was free from those voices that mentions seasonal colors or style, I would probably wear my favorite color every day. Purple slacks, skirt, sweats. Lavender shoes and purse. I am often, my colorful wardrobe left lingering in the closet, called the "lady in purple."

Purple is the color of grapes which I love and eggplant which I'm less fond of. When I am fortunate enough to walk the beach on a winter evening, different shades of this color may tint the sky moments before dark descends. Just yesterday I saw a metallic purple PT Cruiser(TM) and contemplated a carjacking. I'm into a purple craze it seems.

So, you who read this blog mostly devoted to writing say, what does the love of the color purple have to do with my favorite habit of writing?

I write most everything I do in longhand first. You can't see it but all of the words you are reading in black on white is merely an illusion. It's all originally done in purple ink.

TIP: Use all the senses in your writing. They will liven up characters, scenes, plot, dialogue and color your story with whatever tint you want readers to see.

PROMPT: Pick your favorite color and write an essay or a poem about it.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

COVER OF MANY COLORS

When I first began journaling, I wasn't able to afford anything fancy to write in. Maybe it was a good thing. I have boxes and shelves filled with journals now--most done on 3-ring notebook paper, divided by months and, at the end of each six-months or a year (depending on how creative I was), bound into hard-covers via metal fasteners.

I have purchased small journals and managed to fill them but I tend to do my favorite work on loose-leaf paper, or those spiral notebooks purchased at back-to-school sales. The two fancy ones I have are decorating bookshelves with not a word written in them. I guess they're too intimidating.

Some people use a blog as their only journal. I don't think I'm ready to give up my paper journals just yet. Maybe it's also because I'm not ready to bare my soul with the world. That sounds rather presumptious, doesn't it? Like everyone is going to read my blog. Yeah, right! "Barb's Write Tree" isn't exactly the most exciting title, is it? Well, I did play around with the title "If (or When) Pigs Could Fly" but came to the conclusion that that was a little too out there.

I also name my journals when bound into the hard covers. Titles like: Snapshots, Promises, Stop the World and Let Me Off, Reflections. And I always add the dates included in the journal so that at a glance I can have some idea of what may be included. However, when I go back 15 years and read the old ones, I am not too concerned with the date. I want to know where my thoughts were then, what characters sketches I might have included; I find lots of first lines and titles for essays, stories or books.I have been known to find a completed piece right there in those journals. And several of them have been published.

I believe that journals should show our personality too. So if you read my journals, and maybe some of these blogs, you will hear my Southern voice and figure out that I am still a small-town Southern girl at heart. We gals are raised with manners; we should be soft-spoken, overly polite and sweet-tempered if what our mama's taught us has sunk in. A lot of that rubbed off but we also have a little touch of wildness about us too.

Have you ever heard one of us root for the Texas Longhorns or scream above the roar of engines at a Nascar race? We hope you will ignore the slight misstep in our language when we find our man cheatin' on us, or when we hit a six-point buck at midnight on a lonely road our husband told us not to travel on our way home from girls-night-out.

I do promise I will use some decorum in this blog here. Although Mama can no longer hear, or read me, I still owe her memory the respect of not being too "over the top." If I can't always follow the straight and narrow with my writing, I'll just save it for my purple spiral-notebook.

TIP: To become a writer, takes practice. All the things we write, including blogs and paper journals, gives us practice. Practice.

PROMPT: Write an essay, blog, or story beginning--"Abandon all Hope" was etched in the glass above the door.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

GRATITUDE JOURNAL

Journaling has been a part of my life for over fifteen years. I started as a way of remembering my life--joys,sorrows, ambitions, travels, even what I was reading--and notes of what was going on in the world in general. I also include a lot about what I am writing or thinking about writing.

A few months ago I received a letter from a friend I've made through a writer's letter exchange. She wrote to tell me that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, had received a lympectomy and radiaton. As is normal,however, they removed several lymph nodes and sent them off for biopsy. Although her cancer had been a small growth, the tests showed it had spread.

Each year on January 26 I take out a special journal I began several months prior to that date in 1998. Because of this letter, I took it out again. This journal is the story of my journey with breast cancer. When writing it, I filled it with my words of fear and anguish, prayer and hope, thanksgiving and praise. I called it my gratitude journal.

I will share some of the verses from the Bible and quotes from other survivors in my next letter to my friend. I will pray for a speedy journey through her treatment and that eight years from now she too will be able to shre her news of recovery and life after the Big C with others.

My gratitude journal still renews my spirit when I read the words there. It offers me a glimpse into how much closer I have drawn to my family and my God. The journal gave me an outlet for the fearful struggle, the challenge of a deadly disease, and the journey I took to arrive at the fulfilling life I enjoy today.

I urge you all to keep a journal. Problems or fear, happiness or success--you too can use your writing as a tool to create the person you always wanted to be.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

MARY MARGARET BUTLER IS WAITING

I'm a writer in waiting. But my book is the baby that I am hoping will be given a breath of life by the agent who requested to read it. I followed the guidelines of the agency, submitted a query letter, synopsis and the first ten pages. In about a week I received an e-mail from a member of the agency who requested 50 more pages. Since I had worked over the first chapters of my book numerous times, I was able to get it in the mail quickly. Two weeks later I received another e-mail asking me to send the entire manuscript. Luckily, I received the request on a Saturday so spent the next twenty-four hours polishing the rest of the novel. I have the postcard on my bulletin board declaring that the agent assigned received the book. I haven't heard another word. Good? Bad? Who knows. In the meantime, I am a writer in waiting.

I wrote this book about a small town in East Texas and the various characters who make up the place over a period of several years. The main character is a young woman--in that part of Texas she would still be called an old maid at 26--who has yearned to get out of town forever it seems. She dreams of beaches and big cities and something other than a job in a hot kitchen. But her Aunt Lutie, with maybe a little help from a conjuring woman, Bess, binds her niece to the town. Her aunt dies and leaves Mary Margaret Butler (MM) the Blue Moon Cafe, and Bess to look out for her.

You'll get to read all about it--the cafe, the closest to a homeless man the town has, the drug dealer and his precious daughter--and the murders, soon, hopefully. Of course, being a female writer, I had to have the handsome sheriff add a little spark--although MM finds herself torn between lust and leaving town.

I had a hard time with MM while writing the novel. She kept wanting to take out parts here and there while shaking her head, telling me I was leaving out the best parts. MM wanted me to shut Aunt Lutie's ghost up so she, the living person, could make her own decisions. Aunt Lutie would have none of that and I think readers will enjoy Aunt Lutie's presence.

MM has a kind heart (though sometimes you may wonder when you hear the mouth that woman has) and she wants to make nice with snooty Livy Vandergraf. I say no 'cause they've not had any love lost between them in all their lifetime. Besides Livy is a minor character who will have a major part in the next book. (Did I tell you this is a series character?). In the same vein, I had a hard time figuring out what to do with several of the other characters who popped in and out of the story--whether to have them move on, leave town, drop dead, whatever; guess I will have to give them major rolls in other books--or dump them if they don't fit.

There's a little romance along with murder. Here again, MM seems to have a mind of her own. She remembers what it was like to have a daddy who disappeared into another life and a mama who drank herself to death. She's not sure she has what it takes to create a lasting relationship. When I speak of marriage, her face turns red to match her hair and she hisses at me, "We are kissin' friends only." Lordy!

We Southern women do have a mind of our own. But when we Southern writers allow those women to sit on our shoulders as we write, we stand a good chance of losing our mind.

Or maybe all needed to go crazy is waiting for a published novel to be born.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

RUTS IN THE WRITING ROAD

"If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."
- Dolly Parton

I often find myself in a rut with my writing. I am capable, though not an expert, of writing in more than one genre. But I find myself stuck on one at a time--never the twain shall meet. Although I have more nonfiction credits, for the past few years I have pursued the writing of fiction more often than not.

Making a living with my writing has never been my goal. I want others to read my work; I enjoy the feedback I receive, bask in the words saying my work somehow made a difference in their lives or made them laugh, chuckle, or smile. I have always had a day job to support my love of writing. However, the money I have generated with my work has been from researched articles or personal essays. I know I can sell my "true" words and yet I love to write fiction. Why?

To me, there's a special magic in spinning a new tale, creating characters in an image I dream up, and setting them down in places made exotic or scary by my descriptions. I am challenged to put them though imagined trials to reach a happy ending--or at least one that will, hopefully, satisfy my readers. Research for fiction is more interesting--clothes appropriate for the era; my heroine flying a fighter plane; the setting of Paris (Italy, Texas or Georgia) comes alive when I read travel magazines; listening to local phrases (you do know that Texas and Georgia have their own choice of language, don't you?). With all of these I hope to create a real feel for the characters, place and speech of my makebelieve world.

As I have eluded to, my current rut is fiction. For the moment it's a smooth road, an enjoyable trip into an area of Mexico that I know well, with a heroine from Texas running from the FBI and the Mafia, and a hunk (American-Mexican) double-agent who has to figure out why he got involved with this mysterious woman in the first place. When my road into this story becomes bogged down, I'll find a way to temporarily jump ship.

A child's death in New Mexico sets a traveling accountant and a hardened sheriff on a collision course; I need to write the next chapter, the one where he decides whether he should arrest her on suspician of murder or tuck her into his bed--for her safety, of course. Or I could interview one of the seniors for a profile for a local magazine, or rewrite one of the poems in my collection almost ready to offer to agents/publishers.

Maybe you find yourself in much the same place with your writing. Maybe I've given you some idea that you aren't alone, made some suggestions that will send you to the file cabinet drawer for one of those incomplete articles/stories or a first draft that needs revising. Or maybe there's another solution: you and I could exchange ruts. I wonder what we would do with each other's work?

TIP: Are you off-track? Pick up your pad or laptop, go to a park, a fast-food restaurant, or climb into the backseat of your SUV. A change of environment may work miracles.

PROMPT: Start a story or article with the following: "How many of us are left?"

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

EXTRA SPECIAL VALENTINES

"A loving heart is the truest wisdom."
- Charles Dickens

HEART IN A VALENTINE

I have often written about what a tomboy I was in my younger years. But when a girl went to school in those days, you had to discard the jeans for dresses. My daddy was the sole support of a growing family so there was a lot of “make-do” with what we had and what we wore. Mama was a beautiful seamstress and I always looked clean and neat in her creations but…they were still handmade. I was made fun of from day one for those feed-sack dresses I sometimes wore to school. And I had tons of freckles. I was tall and gangly. Plus I was bored in school and became the class clown, often in trouble for it. All, or any one of those things, meant that I was not the most popular kid in class.

That was brought home to me clearly on Valentine’s Day of the first grade. Mrs. Gregory had created the most beautiful box we had ever seen—pink and white crepe paper twisted into frills surrounded the box and top, with bright red hearts scattered here and there all around. In those days, we made most of our cards at home or at school. I made sure I created one for every member of my class and proudly slipped them into the slot on top. On Valentine’s Day I expected to carry home a paper sack filled with cards. I received five cards. There were no antics that day in school and the usually bubbly child arrived home in tears she didn’t want her classmates to see.

Of course, I got over it. I never said a word about the lack of cards and went on my merry way. The next year, however, I told Mama I wasn’t giving any cards. She set me straight about that—she reminded me that if I skipped even one, that child might end up the same way I had the year before. So, probably with little heart in it, I made my cards and put them in the box. And, though I don’t remember, I probably hoped in my child’s heart that this Valentine’s would be different.

It was certainly different. Mrs. Holloway, the second grade teacher, opened the lid of that box and began to call names. It seemed that every other card had my name on it. The other kids began to squirm in their seats and look at me with surprise. I hit the jackpot. I couldn’t open the cards fast enough. Why, I even had a card signed by…Jesus!

Years later, when I had long gotten over the slights of classmates and was surrounded by friends who didn’t care that Mama still made my large wardrobe (not out of feed sacks any longer though), the truth was told. On that first Valentine’s Day, Mama had hugged me and dried my tears, telling me that I was a sweetheart to her and Daddy. In her heart, she vowed this hurt would not be repeated. She made cards, her friends purchased cards, even Reverend Rose posed as Jesus to sign a card. Mama had stuffed the box!

PAPER HEARTS

One February many years ago, my husband and I were in the process of having a new home built. As usually happens, the length of construction had grown and the cost was slowly eating up our excess cash. Most of our furniture was in storage while we occupied a tiny apartment, attempting to weather the cold winter and survive the disappearing money. Thus, we made a pact.

We agreed we had no money and no room for frivolous gifts for Valentines. We had been married long enough that we didn’t need lacy reminders of our commitment to each other or the love we shared. It was decided we would not commemorate the occasion.

I, the overly sentimental you’ve-got-to-give-a-card-for-every-occasion gal, stuck my hands in my pocket each time I passed the rows of cards at the store. I wouldn’t allow myself to trip down the candy aisle for fear I would succumb to the urge to purchase one of those sweet-filled hearts to place on hubby’s pillow on February 14th. I prided myself on being strong.

Valentine’s Day dawned cold and rather gloomy. I was the first up that morning and slipped down the stairs and through the darkened living room to turn on the coffeepot. Coffee dripping and cinnamon rolls baking, I switched on the light in the tiny dining area between the kitchen and living room. That’s when I found the first one.

A bright red heart, cut out of notebook paper and painted with a marker, sat at my usual place at the table. Smaller ones were scattered over the rest of the surface. A trail of hearts led me to the coffee table, across the sofa, onto the recliner. They stopped on my chair with a big one. “I Love You” was printed in its center.

After all of these years I can still remember the tears of joy I felt on that Valentine’s Day when my dear husband, usually the one to forego symbols of love, made that day one I will always cherish.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY TO ALL!

Monday, February 13, 2006

UP A MULBERRY TREE

Mulberry tree. In the middle of a chicken yard in a small Texas town. A place to hide from chores. A writing room. That's where the name of this blog comes from. Climbing to the top of the mulberry tree, Red Chief tablet and pencil in my jeans pocket, offered me the first place to write my stories. I loved the solitude. It seems that I could climb up there among those big leaves and when Mama called me to do chores, I couldn't hear a word she said.

I don't climb mulberry trees anymore but I still write--most every day. It is such a part of me that I dare say I would be the dullest, most unhappy, desperate woman in this town if I could not write. I have an addiction. Actually, more than one addiction afflicts me...the love of writing and the love of reading.

My home is going to sink into the ground one day from the weight of all the books, journals, files, and odds and ends collected to enhance these addictions. There is a stack of books between my nightstand and the bed, not to mention the roll out shelf filled with books beneath my side of that bed. In my bathroom there are two wide, deep shelves filled with books--I light candles, pour in the bubble bath and read every night. There are collections--mine and mama's--of cookbooks in the bottom of the china cabinet in the dining room and on two wrought-iron book shelves in the kitchen. In baskets beside the leather sofa and my recliner in the den, you will find--yep, books. My office has shelving built in one half of a long wall--and it is entirely filled. I cull the writing books now and then and pass them on to my students; then I turn around and buy books to fill the space. The bottom of the closet has stacks of books--and don't ask me about the plastic containers in our storage shed outback.

My already-published articles and book drafts are filed away in their own boxes in the shed. My in-process work is filed in my office in rolling files. Some of the recently published, research of interesting subjects and supplies are contained in a file cabinet on our driveway. Since we aren't supposed to have something as noticable as that on our driveway, hubby Ray painted the file cabinet the same color as our manufactured home and the shed--it fades into the background.

I don't know what would happen if we ever moved a long distance away--like to Florida as my duaghter and son-in-law would love for us to do. I'd have to really clean out, throw away papers and give away books. I don't know if I could do it as this addiction to writing and reading has a mighty strong hold on me.

TIP: You don't need a special room to write in; you can write and read anywhere. In fact, getting away from the messy desk, dirty dishes in the sink or unmade beds may be just the encouragement you need to do your best writing.

PROMPT: Write about a secret place (from family members at least) where you'd like to be writing at this moment.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

WRITE THE SETTING

"The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place."
- Rachel Carson

I'm sitting on a picnic table bench at Oceanside Small Craft Harbor. Fishermen are on the L-shaped pier using shrimp, minnows or mussels to hook the "big ones." So far, the biggest catch has been six inches long.

It's not summer though I want it to be. The sky is that scattered blue-white color so often found along the California coast during what we call winter. The sun is warm on my neck but my back is turned away to ward off the cold West wind. I must be a wimp--all around me people, clad in shorts and tank tops, are jogging, pushing strollers and sunbathing while I pull my jacket closer around me.

In front and behind me, I can see private boats and small yachts moored in their spots at wooden docks. Further to the East, when I walk later, I'll find stacks of crab traps near the commercial fishing boats. Scattered among the boats near me are a few that house permanent residents. What would it be like to live on a boat? With my itching foot, I know I'd want to pull anchor and head south to the Sea of Cortez or the resort ports along the Mexican Riviera.

Sea lions have come into this area since I was here last summer. They sun on the rocks protecting the shoreline; I hope they won't be allowed to take over the docks as they have Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. A few small crafts and several sailboats are headed out past the breakwater. Just now a couple of rowboats with crews calling cadence follow the path to the open sea. Coming in from the Pacific are kayaks--the sea has been high and dangerous these past weeks as visioned by the waves crashing over the seawall, so I wonder what the people in those small rubber boats feel when out there.

There's a beach campground across the channel. No tents on the concrete; even if they could be set up the wind from the sea would sweep them away. I've seen a few tent trailers but can imagine that when the wind picks up they will do what Ray and I have had to do when in the desert--drop the tent trailer top down and crawl into the van to sleep.

It's getting warmer as the hours slip by. More and more craft are moving down the channel, past the breakwater and out to sea. No fishing boats--they headed out before dawn and will be coming back in soon with their catch--fish and/or people who paid dearly to maybe snag the big one.

I'm doing as many writers of books on the craft tell us to do. I've chosen a place and described what I see. Now I'm supposed to be using what I've observed to create a story. Can I do that? What does my description suggest I write?

What if my character, who lives on one of those boats, comes home one night to find a body on her deck? What if someone is killing sea lions with a harpoon gun? What if an athletic father reluctantly takes his wimpy son on a sport-fishing boat and the son makes the prize catch of the day? What if a writer is working on her laptop and a hunky Marine officer decides to use the opposite bench to take a break in his daily run?

I think the experts might have something here. Observing our surroundings brings out great ideas--one of which may become my next story.

TIP: Settings, if written well, are as important as characters to your story. They can also be a necessary part of your plot.

PROMPT: Go to a favorite, or new, place. Write down all you can about the scenery, the people in your sight, anything to help you describe this place. Begin a story with this setting.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

GOALS REQUIRE COURAGE

"It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.
- Erma Bombeck

Did you make resolutions this year? Not the same old lose weight one, I hope. What I really had in mind are the ones geared toward our writing--setting goals for ourselves. So many times when we attend writer conferences or lectures we hear authors expound on reaching their goals of so many words or pages each day. We hear that we must treat writing as a business, shut the door against family interruptions, and never take a vacation until we have completed the first draft of our novel or sold four awe-inspiring articles for publication.

This may be the correct way to become famous. Who am I to say? I never had the "leisure" to set such goals. Yes, I use the word leisure as Webster meant: free time. Roget's Thesaurus says leisure is: ease, rest, recess, vacation, holiday, liberty, pause or interlude. Sounds good, huh, but I don't seem to have much of that so-called leisure time. Life seems to have a firm grip on a great deal of my time so I must grab snatches of time here and there in order to write.

I keep an on-going to-do list so I will have some idea of what I would like to accomplish. If I have a definite deadline (a paying gig), that of course goes to the top of my list. Otherwise, I attempt to work on what I "think" is most important. Is it working on a book I've almost completed, revising for the umpteenth time, or doing research for a new project?

Is there a middle to my story hanging out there somewhere seeming to have no place to go? If so, I print off my work, sit down with pen or red pencil, and read it aloud. Try it. The problems will be more noticable when you hear the words. If this is not for you, find a good critique group or a partner who can help. As Erma Bombeck said, it does take courage to share your dreams with others but their input might make another dream come true--the publishing goal.

Sometimes we need to catch up on our reading--either in our genre, or reseach info or merely for pleasure. Since I have a romantic suspense novel hanging in that nasty middle, I tend to read that type of novel. Some writers say that reading in the genre you are writing should never be done; they say it is too easy to filll their thoughts with someone else's voice, plot or characters. To me, this reading drives me enthusiastically back to my own writing, teaches me lessons as I read, and challenges me to write what I enjoy reading.

As I said, I have an on-going list of goals. However, I never set myself up for failure by listing the unattainable. I set goals that please me as a writer. I want to enjoy each moment I find to write, not be driven by what I hope will sell to a certain market. Maybe that feeling comes from those thirty-years of working, and writing, at an employers direction, for his plan, saying what he thought would sell. Today I feel the need to be "leisurely" independent.

That's what I wish for you: goal setting that helps you attain the main goal of becoming a better writer. Make the goals that fit your schedule and give you a sense of pleasure when you sit down to write.

TIP: If ;you don't have a lot of time to write, use the little notebook all writer's should carry. Capture those fleeting ideas, character sketches, or scenes before they disappear.

PROMPT: Open a book in the middle; find a sentence that grabs your attention. Start a story or article with that line.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

ALMOSTS, REJECTIONS, BINGO!

After years of writing and sending my work out, more notes of "almost accepted" and stacks of rejections, I met a lady publisher, Ann Philipps of Southern Star Publishing. I say I met her but we have never seen each other face-to-face. I found her though an online call for stories for an anthology she was publishing; she wanted Southern stories--romance, mystery, whatever. Right down my alley, huh? So I submitted a mystery story set in one of my favorite cities, New Orleans; it was accepted and I was published in my first anthology.

We kept on chatting online and while sharing the saga of my attempts at finding a publisher for a short story collection, Ann sent me the email that set me on the road to becoming an author of a successful book. She could help me become publsihed. Ann does POD book publishing. Yes, I paid to have my first book published and would do it all over again. "The Quilt Maker" has been a success and is still selling on Amazon.com after three years. I have had emails from all across the country regarding that book; one instructor emailed requesting permission to use one of the stories in a class for nursing students as it emphasized the caring of medical personnel. A teacher called me to express how much she appreciated a story reminding readers how important teachers can be into adulthood. It is a heady experience to receive praise from readers. And, yes, I recouped my publishing money back. And more.

The moral of this is: don't give up. Those "almosts" may lead you in another direction. Enter contests, submit to calls for anthology stories or online publicatiions. Editors of all sort of publications check out sites online just as we readers/writers. You never know when one of them will contact you regarding something you have shared online.

Don't feel that a rejection is personal. The editor is not critiquing you; most of the time you will never know whether they had a similar piece already accepted, if you missed the mark for their publication (always research the publication and follow the guidelines) or if he/she merely had a bad hair day when your submission hit the desk. If your work comes back, send it to the next spot on your list. You do have a list of editors/publishers to send your work to, don't you? Make one for everything you send out in order not to waste your time nursing your hurt in rejection hell.

A very wise man, Andy Byers, editor of "The Great Blue Beacon" newsletter, told me long ago that you should have at least eleven pieces/queries out in the mail. If one is rejected, send it out again--keep that number out. It's in the odds that one of those will sell. He was right.

TIP: Look into all opportunities to write: contests, anthologies, newsletters, everything.

PROMPT: Use your favorite search engine for a list of contests. Pick one. Enter it.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

BARB'S WRITE TREE

This blog is being created by a writer with a Southern voice who wants to share writing tips, pieces of her creations, a bit of her life, books read, news that touch her heart and the joy she feels that God and his angels hover over her shoulder each step down the path of life.

I have been lurking around blogs for months and months but have not seen any that were from beginners. So I have no idea how you all began. Maybe by introducing yourself? I'm Barb, Babs, Barbara, BJ--depending on our relationship. I was born in Texas, lived in the South half of my life, have been displaced in California more years than I want to talk about. I have been writing since the age of ten when I climbed into the top of a mulberry tree with pencil and Red Chief Tablet in order to hide from chores. I don't climb trees anymore but am still writing.

What do I write? Fiction mostly now but I have been published and paid for more nonfiction than anything. I dabble in poetry, have had a few efforts published and have recently had a book of memoirs published. I am currently working on a second collection of "quilt" short stories (which I will discuss later), a romantic suspense novel, and am doing reserch on a book on writing hooks.

You might learn more than you care to know about me, will surely meet my husband, Ray and, hopefully, you'll learn a little from the writing experiences I will share with you. Each blog entry will end with both a tip and a prompt.

I hope you will check in once in awhile and carry something away that will assist you in your quest to write.

TIP: Follow the suggestion of famous writer/lecturer, Julia Cameron, and write every day. She calls her "Morning Papers" as a prompt that gets her going. My "Night Papers" work the same way.

PROMPT: Cut a picture out of a magazine or newspaper. Write the story you see there (not the news given--a story you believe is there).