Blog Hop Tour

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Hi!

I’m Janet Ann Collins and this post is part of a blog hop tour. That means various authors will take turns telling about themselves and how they write.

I want to start by thanking Penelope Cole, the previous writer to post, for inviting me to participate. Her blog is:

http://penelopeannecole.blogspot.com/

Here’s what I look like:

And here are links to my website

http://www.janetanncollins.com

And Facebook page:

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Janet-Ann-Collins-Author/252145518209053

I used to write feature articles for a newspaper in the San Francisco Bay Area and my work has appeared in many other periodicals and some anthologies. I’m the author of four books for children. The most recent one is called Slime & All and it’s an early chapter book (second grade reading level) about a giant talking worm who wants a friend.

You can get the book at:
 http://www.guardianangelpublishing.com/slime&all.htm 
or at other online bookstores and some local “brick and mortar” ones.

I’m currently working on a book that’s unusual since it’s Christian speculative fiction for middle grade readers. As far as I know, there aren’t many new books in that genre, but some older ones, like the Narnia books have become classics. However mine doesn’t involve a fantasy world. Instead it’s about time travel. I won’t say more about that book because it’s still in process and things may change.

Why do I write for kids? Well, I love kids, I enjoy reading books for that age group, and I’m still a kid on the inside. And I want to give back some of what the books I read as a child gave to me.

A few years ago I attended a school reunion and someone told me they remembered me as being brave. I was shocked! I had often felt scared as a child. But then I remembered times when I had stood up for what was right in spite of my fears because the protagonists in the books I read always acted that way.

They say some writers are planners and others just write “from the seat of their pants.” Those are sometimes called pantsers. I don’t fit into either of those categories. I guess you could say I’m a framer. I need to have a general plot plan, but knowing too much detail before actually writing makes me bored with the project before actually writing it. What works best for me is to know the basic story line and fill in the details as I go along.

The next author on this blog hop will be Marci Seither, who will be posting in about a week.  She is a writer, a public speaker, a talented seamstress, a wife and the mother of six kids.

Her website is here: http://www.marciseither.com