Author: carolyncordon

Wife, mother, Poet, Writer, Art Installationist, Stand Up Comedian, Dog Enthusiast. Spending most of my time being creative in a variety of sometimes quirky ways! I have suffered in my life, I have had wonderful things occur in my life. Concentrating on the wonderful things makes it easier for me to live a great life.
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Metaphorically Getting My Ducks In A Row

carolyncordon

I have a number of writing related things going on at the moment, with the two most recent ones taking up most of my time and interest, even though neither of them have deadlines …

https://kittycordo.medium.com/getting-my-ducks-in-a-row-16a041a35b04

That link will take you to an exploration of some of those projects, and the platform the link will take you too, is my most recent writing related project. Medium.com is the name of the platform, and it is one that a writing can earn money from, with only a slight effort.

Of course, if you put a bigger effort in, and manage to write something that lots of readers love, and share, you will make more money, as is the way of things in life, often. I suspect I will only make small amounts of money, but if I manage to have one thing that goes viral(ish), what a fine thing that would be!

At the moment, after a week on Medium I have only made a bit over a dollar, with 22 published articles. I have a draft piece that I need to finish and post, and actually wrote and published a new one today, on the subject of getting my metaphorical writing project ‘ducks’ a row.

But writing for Medium won’t get my Cosy Murder Mystery novel written, nor will it get my chapbook from the River Murray cruise I went on with other poets and writers, or anything else either. I have homework still to write for my writing group that will be meeting tomorrow too, and I don’t even know what that homework actually is!

Haha, it feels like my ducks are flying off, as they look over their shoulders and laugh at me!

Ah well, homework will get done, and I will make sure that homework piece relates to my novel, and that will be those two ducks covered, all in one piece of writing. It’s a good thing my living expenses are covered by my husbands pension, because if we relied on my income from my writing, we’d be in big trouble!

So my ducks are there, lining up at least a little, and that chap book I began on Saturday, will progress further today, or if not today, then tomorrow morning, and afternoon. I hope so, anyway! Come along, little duckies, line up and lets get moving!

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Inspiration On Water …

carolyncordon

Yesterday (Saturday1st May), I went to an amazing event, put on by friend and poet Colleen Moyne, where a group of poets/writers gathered together in Mannum, and boarded the boat waiting for us at Mannum Waters Marina, and we cruised the Murray River, looking for, and finding inspiration.

It had been many years since I’d been out on a boat and I felt at peace inwardly, as I rapidly wrote notes in the notebook I’d brought with me for the purpose. I wrote about the trees, the birds, the sky, the water, and the other people out on the water too. By the end of the two hour session, I already had a good start to a chapbook, with a photograph taken by another attendee lined up for the cover, and a title for the chapbook taken from Colleen being the name of the workshop she had put on – Words On The Water.

So this event has definitely woken up my mind to poetic possibilities, and this new little collection, which I’ll be working on today, for a while, and definitely tomorrow, for my Writer in Residence stint at Gallery 14 in Hamley Bridge tomorrow. I have written I think 5 or 6 poems already, from my notes, and there are still many words to be turned into poems as well as all of the words still floating around in my head from the great day we all had yesterday!

Being on the water, up close to it, and seeing Nature on the banks of the river – the trees, the birds, and the clouds up above, all lovely! I think Nature, being up close and personal to it, is an important thing for the poetic mind, I feel, for my poetic mind, anyway! Trees and I have a special relationship, and the birds are a part of that relationship too. All of us living our lives, but still connected in various ways …

Being there with other writers, most of of us, anyway, and most working with our minds, and pen and paper or laptops/mobile phones, I’m sure much great writing will have come from this day of inspiration. I know I enjoyed the words read out on the day!

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Getting the Word Out

carolyncordon

Writers can be shy and retiring types of people, who humbly sit at home, tapping or writing out the words that express whatever it is they feel compelled to express. The writing is the point of who they feel themselves to be, they are writers, they write.

But when you have words that have come together to form a book, and that book is published, then comes a completely other stage of the process, the marketing stage … These days, the writers who sell their books are those who can also to at least a reasonable job of selling themselves.

This may be simple talking about their books, to interested people, whether individually, or in group situations. Or in might be on the radio, or even television. These things can be more than the writer first thought they’d have to do …

The good writer needs to be a good presenter to, to give their words the best boost possible, and attract the interest of possible book buyers … It is a learning curve I’m doing my best to get my focus on, and tomorrow, I’m going to be getting the word out about one of my books.

That book is the memoir I wrote after I was diagnosed in 2010 with Multiple Sclerosis “Mick Jane and Me – Living Will With MS”. Tomorrow, at the Gawler Poets at the Pub Poetry reading event (2-4pm Prince Albert Hotel Gawler South Australia). I will have a time when I can do my stuff and read from that book, in the best way I can, and also talk about my life with MS.

My Book, cover photo by Martin Christmas

This event will also be a fundraising event for the MS Society SA and NT, as well as an awareness raising event. MS is a widely varied disease, with different people have a variety of different symptoms. Some with MS have a lot of pain, most have numb, and/or tingling hands and legs. Some have blindness of various levels, continence problems can occur for some, balance problems leading to falls are common, muscle weakness can be common as well.

Find out more about it the fundraising event here.

Some of those things are part of what I have, or have had, or possible may have in the future, I don’t know … But apart from my most recent fall, (OUCH) I’m doing well. I went for a walk with my husband and our dog this morning, and was able to easily keep up with them both.

Anyway, tomorrow I will be dressed up, wearing red for a reason (raising awareness of Multiple Sclerosis), reading from my book, and I hope, helping to raise money, and getting new orders for a copy of this book!

I’ll have copies of my other books there too, so who knows whether I will get any sales? Doing my part in this fundraising and talking about Multiple Sclerosis, these are the main things for the afternoon for me. Book sales are always nice though!

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Getting My Written Words ‘Out There”

carolyncordon

https://kittycordo.medium.com/looking-beyond-self-secular-spirituality-good-not-god-581b8228a64a

Writing left in a drawer, or a laptop or computer, and never shared is fine, if a person is happy enough with that. But for me, sharing my words is one of the main reasons why I write.

This is why I am enjoying my newly joined writing platform, Medium.com, where I have been able to share new things I’ve written, but also found a place for some of my much older pieces of writing.

The piece in the link about, is one such thing, and I am glad to have found this new option for my words. The knowledge about this site came from one of my writing group friends, and I’ve certainly seen the good things that can come from sharing ideas with others!

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Re-Purpose Your Prose, and Win!

carolyncordon

A few years ago I had what I considered to be a great idea. I was going to write a book titled ‘Wise Words’ filled with my own words, ones I considered to be particularly wise ones. I kept that little book in a file on my laptop, and it stayed there, doing absolutely nothing …

I’d pretty well written off the idea of doing anything more with those words, but then, oh glorious time, then I came up with the idea of breaking that small book into a serious of articles, and began posting these articles to a new (for me) writing platform, Medium.com. So at the moment, I’m about halfway through posting these, not rushing it, and doing other things, both writing related, and other things.

This new platform is a global one, and even though at the moment, I’ve only been here for a week or so, I’m enjoying learning more about what it is, and how it works. I’m not expecting to make huge amounts of money there, but that file on my laptop, doing nothing, was never going to make any money at all. And of course, the sharing of my words is more important to me than making any money.

So even though this will not be a huge money-making thing, in fact it will be lucky if I make more than a single dollar in April, my first month of placing my work here, at least I can see how many people are reading my work, and that’s a good thing!

https://kittycordo.medium.com/looking-to-nature-a7c0d1df4d77

above is a link to that most recent piece from ‘Wise Words’ – why not take a look, and explore the platform, It may appeal to you as well! Leave a comment there, and one here too if you want to, I’d love to know how you feel about my ‘wise words’ and about that writing platform too!

Words shared with others will always be better than words rotting away on a laptop, never looked at again …