Month: June 2020

covid 19, Cozy Mystery

Book Cover Design

carolyncordon

I had a talk with the person who is going to ‘do’ the front cover of the book (an anthology of Poetry and Prose in response to Covid-19), that I’ve been seeking submissions for. I told this person, Patrick, my ideas for a possible cover image, and he told me his ideas. Patrick listened to my idea, which was nice of him, but we both agreed his idea is better. He is going to put some things together to show me when they are ready.

Some of my earlier books, a wide variety …

I like the idea of getting people, especially young ones, interested in things I do. This Anthology is attracting lots of interest from a broad range of people. Patrick is a student, who is in between things at the moment, as many others are also. His mother is a member of my writing group, the Secretary, actually, and Janette is working on a piece of prose to go in the book, so they can perhaps workshop some ideas about what they’re doing.

So this is another step in the process of getting this book up and running, a necessary step. A good cover can make a book, and a bad cover, while not necessarily ‘breaking’ a book, it doesn’t help. Patrick’s idea for the cover, give hints about what readers might find within the pages of the book, teasing them a little. I like that idea!

It’s still quite a while before this book comes into the world, but there are lots of people waiting, and that has to be a good thing. I have high hopes for this Anthology, and if it’s successful, there’s no telling what may come next. Perhaps ‘next’ will be a stepping back to the series of Cosy Murder Mystery books I’d been working on, when the whole Covid-19 thing hit us, and those cute little village mysteries seemed too small a thing to spend my writing time on.

The “Plague Invasion” anthology is a much more important and worthy thing to be spending my time on. Once things are back under some kind of control though, the world may be looking for something lightweight, and my own head may feel better about getting back to my amateur detective, Meredith, and the little town of Talloola, where Meredith does her detective, with her worthy helpers.

Uncategorized, Writing

Considering Options …

carolyncordon

Having options, thinking about them, talking about them with others who’ve done the same kind of thing before, these are always good things to do, no matter how you feel about how things are going. But even if you think about it and discuss it, but stay with the same mindset, it’s still a good thing.

If the thing you are thinking about doing in the same way as usual, still seems like the easiest way, and especially if it already something you know how to do, and have done successfully in the past, then, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? I think so. And because I think how I’m looking at doing things a particular in the future, because they’ve worked in the past, then I’m staying with that.

Thinking about it is a good thing. Thinking is a good thing. Doing things the same way, always with never any further consideration about other methods, that isn’t a good thing at all. I’m a writer, I write things, and work to have them published, in various ways. I’ve self-published, I’ve been published by professional publishers. I’ve made money in both of these ways.

One of the methods is simpler in many ways, put together a collection of my poetry, send it to a poetry publisher and wait. Simple. Or write something else entirely, put it together into a book format, or as close as I can get to that, have a friend do illustrations, wait while they happen, put the illustrations into the proposed book, look at it, make it as good as i can, take it to the printer, work with them, get it printed.

I’ve used both of these methods. The ‘do it myself’ version was early on in my writing career, and it went so well, I went on to do two more books in a series, with another book being thought about, and will happen, at a later stage. This Covid-19 pause in our lives has slowed the progress on that, and so has the other project I’m working on, which is actually Covid-19 related.

Self-publishing means self-promoting as well, and at the moment, self-promoting for me is limited to doing things on Social Media, and I’m doing that, to some extent. I’m not selling thousands of books, constantly, but apart from my most recent outlay, I’m well in front with money going out and money coming in, for my self-publishing endeavours.

With my own books, I have very small print runs, so I don’t end up burdened with lots of boxes filled with thousands of books. Instead, I order a hundred if I have a bigger event to attend, and fifty if I’m only ‘topping up’ what I have left. I usually have copies of my books with me if I go out anywhere I might have an opportunity to find a book buyer. In my self-published books, I cover a range of topics, from serious, to amusing – sexual abuse, chronic illness, and most recently, my broken ankle at the serious side, to various angles on dogs being dogs, at the amusing side.

In my published by trade publishers, I have a children’s school reader, and two poetry collections, one about the animals I come across in my life, the most recent, about my broken ankle. Both of these books are available from me, and from Ginninderra Press.

So given that my books are ‘out there’ and available, and bearing in mind that my printer of choice is in a town I visit at least once a week, I am extremely content with my chosen path with my self-publishing endeavours, and with Ginninderra Press, with the two books of mine they have published – Tense and Still, and Angles on Ankles.

But talking with my friend the other day about some of these issues was a pleasant lunch time meeting up, with lovely food bought from a sweet little cafe in a lovely town not too far away from my home. Freeling was the town, and even though I live relatively close to that town, I certainly don’t know it very well. I saw more of it than I have at any other time, mostly because I forgot to bring my mobile phone, and neglected to check the details of my friend’s address.

I thought I knew her address, but even though I had the street name correct, I got the number wrong initially, I had remembered to bring my laptop with me so was able to check the correct number and I found her place then. All was well. Getting the address correct is a good thing, if you need to find where you want to go!

The road I was looking for is the main road in Freeling, Hanson Road, and because it’s the main road, there are no signs telling the ignorant visitor that is the road they’re driving on. So even though I was moderately confident I was on the ‘right track’, it was still a little unnerving to be out without my phone and a little bit unsure of where I was and where I was going … Not lost, but unnerved for sure. It all turned out fine though.

Have you ever had that kind of experience? I actually knocked on a couple of doors, to perhaps get some help, but no-one answered my knocking. I’m glad that didn’t matter. Why not tell me your horror ‘lost’ story, I’d love to commiserate with you!

New Ideas

The Books are in the Fridge

carolyncordon

Books in the fridge? What madness is thins, who would put books in a fridge? It may seem like a weird and way out thing, but in the small South Australian town of Mallala, there a brightly coloured fridge carefully placed just on the other side of the fence, so it’s between the Dublin Road, and a house. that is loaded up with books.

I know about this strange thing, and I was happy to be able to go along and have a look. The fridge is actually a Little Free Library ! If you’ve never heard of Little Free Libraries, they are tiny libraries, most often out in the open, often near someone’s home. That ‘someone’ may be the ‘steward’ who looks after the Little Free Library. There is more information about this cute little book homes here – Little Free Library

I’d heard of these little book halfway homes before, but had never actually seen one, even though I certainly thought about the possibility of having one myself. I decided my house doesn’t have enough traffic pass through it to make it a viable option for me. So, like some other good ideas, nothing more came of it.

I still love books, and libraries though, for sure. So when a resident at my closest town put up a notice on a Facebook Page I have, Mallala Crossroad Chronicle, I immediately wanted to help out, with further advertising this wonderful service. The town of Mallala certainly has a normal library, inside a room at the Adelaide Plains Council building in Mallala, but that is only open twice a week, for a few hours on each of those days.

Now, Mallala has its own Little Free Library, and yes, it’s inside a fridge! This fridge is an old fridge, that was bought and painted in bright colours to make it beautiful, and also obvious. If you drive past the house where the fridge is place in front of, you can miss seeing the Little Free Library.

So I got some more information about this Little Free Library, from the people at whose house the fridge is, and I put it on the front cover of the May issue of the Mallala Crossroad Chronicle. This a newsletter that I edit, that comes out once a month. So on the front cover of the May 2020 issue of the Chronicle is the story all about the Mallala Little Free Library. Christine, the woman whose idea it was, wrote the article, and provided me with a great photograph of the fridge/Little Free Library.

If you go here, and scroll down, you’ll find another photo of the Library, as well as a little bit about it all. I’ve been thinking about taking a look at this library ever since I heard about it last month, and today, when I visited my mother, she gave me two books for me to take along and put in the library! I was thrilled, finally, I would finally get there! So I did. I opened the fridge door, and there were many, many books! Grown up’s books, and children’s books, fiction and non fiction, lots of lovely pre-loved books.

So I placed the two books from my mother into the library, and took out four books to bring home. One of the books I took, I will give to my mum, and the others I will keep. I’m going to take some of the books I have at home, to the Mallala Little Free Library soon, perhaps tomorrow. I have lots of books, and sharing them feels like a good thing to do!

Have you heard about Little Free Libraries before? Do you have one at your place? This is a big thing, a world wide thing, and sharing books with others is surely a fine thing to do! I’d love to hear any thoughts you have about it!

Writing

I Love the English Language, but …

carolyncordon

Yes, as a writer, I adore our language, the way it changes, and grows, taking bits from here and there, and using them in sometimes different ways. And the sounds of words, too, when they fill the mouth with the essence of the meaning of a word, accidentally, perhaps, or maybe on purpose.

The word SCRATCH, for instance, compared to the word MAMA. One of those words is painful and nasty, the other word feels like a warm hug from a beloved parent. Do you agree? Of course, knowing the meanings might taint my attitude, but even so, say the words out loud, and you’ll get what I’m saying, I’m sure. Words have power beyond their meaning …

Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash

And speaking of meaning, I had the most weirdly interesting use (misuse?) of a word. It’s one I’ve never encountered before, and suspect I may not ever again, unless it were to take off amongst a certain group of writers, Spammers. I was checking the spam on my website/blog, and came across a sentence, and had to share it with my writing friends here. Is it a brave attempt to reshape a word, or is it simply misuse of a word by a person whose first language isn’t English?

This is the sentence, picked out of the spam post, and copied, just before I deleted the spam. “I did however expertise several technical issues using this web site, as I experienced to
reload the website many times previous to I could get it to load properly.”

It’s an awkward sentence for sure, but really, a brave attempt, I suppose to make a person want to use the spammer’s expertise to fix a problem. But they’ve confused two words, using ‘expertise’ when they obviously meant ‘experience’, and then they use ‘experienced’ incorrectly when ‘tried’ would have been a better word for what they meant. And then they made a mish-mash of the final part of the sentence. With ‘previous’ instead of ‘before’ and ‘to’ instead of ‘so’.

I’m not laughing at this person, or trying not to. If I had to write anything in a language other than English, my attempts would be equally as dodgy, I suspect. But if this person had stuck to smaller words, they may have been more successful. Short words, when used correctly, have far more gravitas than longer words used incorrectly.

I’d love to have some comments about this from my writing friends here, lets have some fun with words. Who has a favourite word they’d like to share? I like the word softly, said in a gently voice, with the ‘s’ extended, like a blanket, and the ‘of’ sound, a person snuggling down and the ‘tly’ sound the blanket being tucked in …

Tell me about your favourite word, I’d love to hear about it!

inspiration, meaning in life, New Ideas

Writing Inspiration – Accidental or Formal

carolyncordon

When you write creatively, you’re a writer. Many of us take a long tome to actually acknowledge this, and claim the title, but it’s true, if you write, you’re a writer. And if what you write is poetry, then guess what, you’re a poet. The words don’t have to be published, or even shared with anyone else. There are many writers and poets who have many written words tucked away, hidden from the world that may be desperate to read those words, without realising, as you don’t realise it either.

So, there are many of us writers and poets. And of the many out there, what we all love is getting an inspiration, that lights the fire of our imagination and mind, and the words come. For some they feel they need that inspiration to come from something within themselves, or from Nature, or some such thing. Others feel fine using writing exercises, and things such as a five word challenge can be their inspiration.

Or an inspiration can be a happy accident, where two different things come together, adding up to, not two, but fifteen, and something far greater than the sum of its parts has emerged. Certainly, I feel my current writing adventure was one of those happy accidents, where a phrase, and an idea have come together, and an Anthology is on its way to coming into the world.

I enjoy five word challenges too though, and am finding that the more often I do them, the better I get at doing them. I know many of my writing friends enjoy doing five word challenges, because members of writing groups I’m involved in do them, and produce marvellous pieces of writing with them.

Nature, though, Nature is my biggest inspiration, in my life, and in my writing. My usual writing position at home, during the day, gives me a window into Nature, with flowers, trees, creatures, and the sky all bringing me peace, ideas, and conflict too, sometimes – all inspirational.

My front yard inspiration

Today I was watching an ant. It was in my back yard, I was standing watching the goings on in and around some ant nests, and one ant was carrying something, so I decided to watch where it would take it. WE often think of ants as being purposeful workers, but this ant wandered around one tiny area, about 30cm x 30cm, carrying that burden over difficult areas, backwards forwards, over and under weeds, toward a next hole and away, back again. Then I looked away and the ant was gone!

Well the ant of course could have still been there, because there were ants all around the nests, but I couldn’t see one carrying that piece of whatever it was. And of course, to me, all of the ants around that nest look exactly the same. I was only able to see that particular ant because of the ‘whatever it was’ it had been carrying. So, burden gone, interest gone? No not really – the idea of carrying a burden, a thing, giving one a sense of purpose is definitely an interesting idea to write about, in many ways.

What could it mean to the one with the burden, or to be burdened and to put it down, and go back to normal life. Does carrying, or having a possession make you more important than others, or give you a sense of purpose? These ideas could certainly be inspirations for many kinds of writing.

Inspiration is the thing that takes our writing from ordinary, to something more, something greater, from the mundane to meaningful and perhaps magnificent. Use the world as your inspiration and look with eyes, and mind, and all of your other senses, if need be. Inspiration fed gives much to the writer, seek it, feed it, benefit from it. The world needs your words!