Day: March 5, 2019

Writing

Finding Meaning through Writing

carolyncordon

Life, it can be a trial at times, but of course it can also be a wonderful thing too. When the bad times are there though, it can seem like there will never, ever be those good times again.

Some of us have worse things come into our lives, than other people have.There should be no blame laid, without knowing all of the details in a person’s life, you can’t know how or why every bad thing happened.IMAG0576 (1).jpg

Sure, some of our decisions can be wrong ones, but sometimes it can be hard to see any other way or ways to go. Options aren’t considered because there needed to be an immediate decision, with no time to look around, just act right then, no time for thought.

If we do get the chance to look at life, and decisions, the important things, the things that matter the most, that’s when we can begin to make better decisions, ones that speak to the issues we actually care the most about, instead of making a rushed decision that may serve us ill in regards to what we truly want to happen.

Knowing what we want most, what we believe in, what makes our heart sing, what we most do not want to happen. These are things that will come out if we give ourselves time to think on them, write them down, explore them, and look at the consequences of what you do or don’t do. close-up-court-courthouse-534204

Through writing about our lives, we can get a better understanding about these important issues we have, what our beliefs are, what are the most important things to us, why we do what we do, what could we do differently, for a better result?

analog binder blank book
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Answering these simple questions, could have profound results, give it a try, surprise yourself …

Writing

Branding -What Is My Main Focus?

carolyncordon

When a writer wishes to tell others what their writing is all about, it can sometimes seem they are a little bit of this, and that, a smidge of something else, and a morsel of something else. That’s not a useful description to be used for ‘Branding’ yourself in regards to your writing.

While it may be true, that you do a little of many things, it isn’t something a potential agent or publisher necessarily wants to hear. They may appreciate having a writer who can speak on many subjects, but they also want someone they can easily bundle up and present to the book buying public.

They want to be able to say something like: “Here is Author X, she writes brilliant thrillers,” for instance. But you might write thrillers, but also some romance, and haiku poetry, as well as some articles about your hang gliding adventures over the Murray River. How will they wrap up that oddly shaped and bulky package?

Perhaps a better way to look at “who you are” as a writer, could be to find a common thread that goes through all of your writing. So, yes you write all of those things, but you perhaps concentrate most, on finding the essence of the community, in all of the places you are writing about.

I suspect that would be my take on this subject, if I were to label my writing. I am focused on understanding how communities fit together, to get things happening. Communities such as where I live, the things I am interested in and the groups I deal with regarding those interests.

I write often about my life circumstances, in my various blogs, and there I find more community related things happening. My chronic illness, interest in dogs, gardening, and the sadder issue of sexual abuse, all of these things have connections with the overarching idea of ‘community’.

And of course the thing that takes up much of my time, is certainly intimately connected to community, and that is being the Editor of the Mallala Crossroad Chronicle. This newsletter is all about the community of Mallala, the biggest town close to where I live. I am writing a novel based on a town very much like Mallala, but with some differences to meet with various plot requirements.

My main character in that novel-to-be, works with council, and is working hard to get the best understanding on this new community she has moved to and is working with. The mythical town of “Talloola” is a community that is taking up much of my thinking, it being the town where that novel on its way is set in. Talloola is a bit like Mallala, a bit not like Mallala, but it is an important community to me, for sure.

So I happily and truly brand myself as “A writer with a strong focus on Community”.