Guest Jennifer Starks

Welcome, to the first guest posting as part of the Virtual Blog Tour sponsored by MasterKoda.com and organised by Tasha Turner and friends. This week, I have a treat for you. Today we have a post written by Jennifer Starks on how she got into writing. So let's have a read of what she has to say and should you feel an incline to comment then please feel free. 

Jennifer Starks says....

I am not sure how I got into writing. My mother writes poetry. She was always working on her poems and there were always crumpled old notebooks lying around our house. I can see it right now. Her perfect cursive, the smell of pencil lined pages and words crossed out in a fit of frustration.

My mother is a fine person, so the fact that the fine arts are so ingrained into her personality has never surprised me. The first memory I have of writing was on summer vacation. I believe I was eight and my mother and I had just moved in with a friend who ran an adult foster care home out of her house. The people living there were so wonderful. They each had such different personalities and it was entertaining as hell to watch them interact, but being cooped up with a bunch of old people every day could be a bit dull especially for an eight year old.

So, I took a pen, notebook and lawn chair out to the back yard and started writing a story. I don’t recall what that story was about, but I remember the main character had a thing for apples. Like so many of my stories, I don’t think I ever finished it, but that day was one of the best days of my life. I felt so free, so unencumbered sitting in the sun roaming around a world of my own making. I don’t know how long I stayed out there. Most the day, I’m sure. 

This was my very first taste of writing and while I’ve taken some breaks from it, I’ve never stopped. Not completely. Not since that day under a bright, hot sun with the smell of dirt, grass and an occasional gust of wind keeping me and my handy notebook company.

Jennifer Starks has been writing since the tender, but still wise beyond her years, age of eight. She gets giddy at the thought of visiting a book store, loves that good ole Library smell, is most at home on the couch reading or at her desk writing. She adores her children (though they make it entirely difficult to keep any kind of writing schedule) and is humbled beyond belief to have a mother who fostered her love of the arts and a husband who supports the lifestyle even when it means listening to her type at 5 AM. Messy Death will be Jennifer’s début novel. Updates on its progress can be found at www.jenniferstarks.wordpress.com