My name is Christine Senter and I’ve been a freelance writer for the past 20+ years.  I began writing as a hobby in grade school and began trying to write professionally at about age 18.
I wasn’t able to go to college as children and life got in the way, so I read everything I could find about the writing field on my own time.  I wrote articles, short stories, and poetry on an old
1950s manual typewriter.  And after several rejection letters, I did manage to get a couple poems published in small chapbooks.

In 1994, I finally joined the online revolution.  My husband got us our first computer and I spent 3 days in my room teaching myself how to work the Internet and how to build a site using HTML.  In 1995, I found a free online site that would help me with my online writing career.  The class was called “Beginning Writing” and the teacher was Shery Ma Belle Arrieta.  She taught me a lot about being a writer online, and soon gave me my own column on her personal website.  Her site was called The E-Writer’s Place and I wrote a column called The Write Sites.  I researched the Internet looking for sites that had anything to do with writing, from free classes to research sites to literary agents.

Within a couple of years, I was producing my own sites through a company called WebSeed Publishing.  It was one of the very first writing communities and I ran 2 different sites.  One was called Finding the Father.com—a site about finding God in today’s society—and the other was called PlantLore.com—a site that looked into the histories, mysteries, and mythologies of the plant kingdom.  When Webseed went under, so did my sites.

It was then I decided to take the plunge and buy my first domain.  It was a site called The Prompt Writer and was filled with writing prompts for my fellow writers.  I also put together a weekly newsletter for my readers and posted each week’s prompts onto the site.  Though I no longer maintain the newsletter, the site has been updated several times and is still filled with free writing prompts.

From 2004-2007, I worked at writing poetry and short stories.  I had a few published on various websites and made a little money along the way.  When I started writing for Associated Content, my writing career took on a life of its own.  I found out that I could make money as a writer, though I didn’t see me making enough to pay off any bills.  I had also started writing for Hubpages and a couple other sites that are no longer in existence.

In 2008, everything changed.  I was contacted by a pro-blogger by the name of Garry Conn.  Garry and I became great friends and he began paying me to write SEO styled articles for his many web blogs.  Up to that time, I had had a blog, but it was more of a play place than a way of making money.  Garry taught me how to monetize my sites and how to run a WordPress blog.  With a year’s time, I owned 3 more blogs—Special Offers Blog, Sapheyerblu Review, and Christine Senter.com.

Today, I still work to maintain my many blogs, though I don’t get it done as often as I’d like.  I do, however, make enough to keep me going by writing for several different content sites such as TextWriter.com and WordGigs.  I also work as a ghostwriter for a couple other bloggers who prefer to remain anonymous.

Outside of being a writer, I also run a couple different online shops.  I run a webstore called Classic Curios Boutique and I’m working on putting together my own Zazzle store.  However these are only as a hobby for the time being.  My real triumph is winning my own EZshoppe called Prairied Treasures, which I’m working on getting put together as I write this.  I want to have enough items made (all handmade items) to make it worth sending people over to see.  My problem is that I’m a perfectionist and I can’t see anyone wanting to buy my jumbles.

So that’s me.  I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff I’ve forgotten about.  Several sites I’ve written stuff on that I can’t remember the address of or even the name of.  I’m sure there’s a lot more out there about me, but some of it’s probably not worth seeing.  If I think of more stuff, I’ll update this page.  Until that time, this is the bio that is me.

I’m very happy to announce that I’ve just published my first e-book of Christian poetry.  I’ve been writing poetry all my life, and during the 1990′s, things got pretty rough in my world.  I hit rock bottom and wasn’t sure how to bring myself back out of it.  Then, I started writing poetry.  I wrote hundreds of poems, but many of them were just the rantings of someone lost in the world.  I’ve titled my book Silver Cloud-Poetry for Christians, and hope that it brings at least one person in this world to the foot of the cross.

Over the past couple of weeks, I went through all those poems and picked out the best of the lot.  I went back through each one and polished them up a bit, making them more readable.  That’s when I decided to put them into e-book form and offer them out to the world.  I know the first thing everyone is going to ask is, are you charging for them.  The answer is yes, but I’m only asking $2.00 or $2.50 per copy, depending on where you buy it.

I’ve been trying to come up with a way to sell my e-book from my site, but I think that’s just a little beyond my brain at the moment.  With all the problems I’ve been having with websites and such, I decided to let the experts handle this part of the process and have my book for sale at Lulu.com for $2.50 per copy.  The reason it’s 50 cents more is due to their costs.

I’ve also added the e-book to my webidz store for sale at the price of $2.00.  I can do it for that price as I don’t have to pay someone else to sell it for me.  The problem is that because I have a free store there, I can only offer 1 book at a time.  I can relist it a thousand times, but I have to do it by hand.  Kinda sucks, but that’s life.  I don’t mind, I’m just thrilled that I finally convinced myself to do this.  I’ve been thinking about it for a very long time, but because of the backlash I’ve gotten because I write in rhyme, I almost didn’t do it.

(UPDATE: I figured out how to add more than one copy.  Thanks to the wonderful people in the forums at Webidz.)

I know there will be someone out there who gives me crap for doing this, for one reason or another, but I don’t care.  This is something I had to do for me and my family.  In the future, there will be more coming out.  I’ve got a whole cupboard full of stuff I’ve written over the years and it’s going to waste.  Keep on the look out for more poetry books coming out in the near future.  There will be one for children, one for nature lovers, and one for, well, lovers.

I’m also working on two more e-books of writing prompts, but they’re going a little slower than I’d like.  I have a thousand ideas, but I’ve also got an inner critic who talks me out of doing a lot of the stuff I think about.  Sometimes, I’m my own worst enemy.

As the other books come out, I’ll post about them here.  I do hope that you’ll run over to one of the sites and pick up your copy.  It would totally make my day.

I found that a gentleman by the name of Ollie Lind had read one of the poems I’d posted here and not only liked it, but offered up the link to his own readers.  How cool is that?  So, I spent a little time at Mr. Lind’s site and was amazed at what I found.  Ollie Lind is quite the poet in his own right, and has even released his first book of poetry titled Reflections of Life.

Now mind you, I was a little intimidated about reading Ollie’s work.  Several years back, I’d posted some of my poems to a critique group and almost quit writing poetry all together.  I write in rhyme.  One of the people in the group had told me that it was a sure sign that I was nothing more than an amateur.  I was devastated.  I’ve tried my hand at free verse, but I have to say that I totally SUCK at this form of poetry.  Everything I wrote in free verse sounded forced, so I just gave up.

Anyway, I decided to read a few of Mr. Lind’s poems and fell in love with his writing style.  He’s a rhymer.  His poems come together in a magical way that dances across the heart.  It gave me hope that my poems might not be dead after all.  It also caused me to pull out my dusty old book filled with the poems I’d written so many years ago.  And, it made me realize that just because one person in this world didn’t approve of my style, someone else out there might enjoy it.

Thank you, Mr. Lind.  You helped put a spark back into my soul that’s been silenced for a very long time.  They say that all things happen for a reason, and I believe that you reading my goofy little poem was no accident.  May all your writing dreams come true.

A shot was fired.
A car sped away.
I heard a siren,
and started to pray.

I felt a hand,
glide over my side.
I couldn’t move,
though I had tried.

I then heard a voice,
whisper to me.
“It’s after midnight,
shut of the T.V.”

Then there are all the styles of poems.  One of these styles is known as a Cinquain.  The cinquain is a very simple style of poetry, based on syllables instead of stanzas.  Cinquains are made up of 5 lines of verse.  It will look something like this:

Line 1=2 syllables
Line 2=4 syllables
Line 3=6 syllables
Line 4=8 syllables
Line 5=2 syllables

The thing about cinquains is that they can be based on any topic or theme.  They can be totally silly:

Pork Chops
Each night at six
Father demanded them
Just once I wished we could have
Fish sticks

Or they can be completely serious:

Soldiers
Freedom fighters
Sent to lands far from home
Protecting the lives of millions
Bravely

Cinquains can have a nature theme to them:

It’s cold
The winter storm
Creeps in without a sound
Laying down a blanket of snow
Frigid

Or they can have a love theme to them:

For you
The one I love
I’ve never known just how
To tell you of my true feelings
For you

They can even have an artsty feel to them:

Moments
Like living art
Each person around you
An actor in an unknown film
Captured

The cinquain is one of the easiest poems you can write, and they can be written by anyone.  It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re a creative writer, or just looking to release a few pent up emotions.  The cinquain is a great way to let your emotions flow.

In order to really make your writing stand out in the crowd, you need to find your own style.  If you try to write like anyone else, your work will may have a stale feel to it.  By putting your own personality into your work, you make it fresher and more exciting.

There will be many experts who will tell you that you should write in a certain tone, depending on your topic or chose genre.  This may work for them, but that doesn’t mean the same is true for you.  The best writing comes from your heart, not from what youve learned from the experts.

I learned this many years ago, when I had some of my poems critiqued by poetry experts.  I’ve always enjoyed writing verse poetry, or poems that rhyme.  According to these experts, my poems were clearly written by an amateur who had no business writing poetry, simply because they rhymed.  I was so devastated that I didn’t write another poem for nearly a year.  That’s when it hit me, I needed to write for me.

I decided to keep writing in my own style, no matter what these experts thought.  I felt that if I changed my style to fit their ideas of what a perfect poem, it was no longer mine.  Since that time, I’ve written my poems in my style and though the experts may hate it, they make me happy.

Don’t let anyone else out there tell you how your work should sound or be written.  Always write in your own unique voice.  Your readers will know the difference and appreciate your efforts.