Seeing Different Things

Almost every time I switch on my laptop, and check my emails, I see a new submission for the anthology I’m editing. With the closing date for submissions still almost two months away, I’ll have an enormous book, the way things are going …

This Anthology, “Plague Invasion – Creative Writing Responses to Covid-19” has been an idea that gets bigger and bigger all of the time. I thought this idea would attract interest, after all, we’re all living with this terrible and potentially deadly virus, and that sort of thing sure attracts the attention.

Today’s submission grabbed my attention immediately, and there was no doubt in my mind, that this one would be in the anthology, it was different, it was on an issue that hadn’t been written about before, certainly not in the same way, anyway. Fiction is a genre where the writer can sometimes tell a larger truth than is possible with non-fiction, a strange thing, but true.

This current world is going mad, in some ways. Many of us are locking ourselves away to keep safe, which is good, but that could lead to ending up ‘stir-crazy’. Interestingly, the ‘stir’ in stir crazy is a 19th century word for prison. And having to remain at home for such extended periods of time can sure feel like being in prison. I know I’m very grateful that I can go out of my front or back door, and there is a lot there still, that is my place.

Today, I took a photograph of a bee, and being able to do that is a beautiful free-feeling thing to do. I went out onto the front veranda, and saw a bee flittering around a flower, and decided I wasted to try to get that photo. So I went back inside, grabbed my phone, and went outside again. So did I get the photo? You bet! Was it worth it? You tell me:-

I’m happy enough with this result, the actual bloom is actually pinker than this, but I was using my phone, not a camera. And as you can see from this image, I’m certainly able to get outside and do things I want to do, view Nature, taking photographs and so on. I’ve been looking at ant nests out of the back of my place too, and and part way though writing a poem about these ants. Being able to do these things mean I feel free to do things I like to do.

So for me, staying home doesn’t feel like being in prison, far from it. But I live in a rural area, on one and three quarter acres, where there is a lot of ‘Nature’ there for me to see, photograph, write about. Many people don’t have the same available, far from it, in fact.

The different experiences people are having leads to different kinds of ideas, and different things to write about. I’m hoping to showcase many of these differences. And we all might see the same thing differently too, so one person’s apartment life may give them one way of looking at their current life, while the person in the next apartment may see different aspects of their same life.

This thing, Covid-19, has been an interesting writing prompt, that’s for sure, and the resulting Anthology based on that theme is shaping up to be an interesting book, filled with different aspects of this Coronavirus life we’re all facing.

If you have ideas you’d like to write about, relating to this terrible virus, I’d love to read what you write. Please submit up to three poems of fewer than thirty lines each, and/or up to three pieces of prose of up to 3,000 words in total for all prose submissions. Send them via email to me at kittycordo@gmail.com