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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Why Writer friends are Great to Have!

carolyncordon

As a Writer, I love my writer friends, and I know, at least some of them love me too! I’m talking in platonic ways of course, my dear husband, though being a book lover, is not a writer.

Here are some reasons why I think writers should have as many writer friends as they can. There won’t necessarily be people you love, but they will at least be people who understand some of your writing related issues.

Obviously if you have writer friends, they will understand you if you tell them you’re having problems working on the motivation for a character’s actions, and you can’t decide whether first person POV, or third person POV, or even the gasp second person POV! much more than a non-writing friend might, particularly if that non-writing friend doesn’t read much fiction.

By the way, does anyone out there have a secret idea they want to write a novel in second person but are afraid to try? I have to confess, I’ve considered it at times, but chickened out. It still interests me though, but not yet, and I would definitely go that way with the main fiction thing I’m working on at the moment.

Moving on, having friends who are writers means you might be invited to book launches and writing workshops, and other fun events! Better still, as a writer, you may get to launch your own books and present writing workshops yourself. These are often paid gigs, and are great opportunities to sell your own books.

Writing friends often are unafraid to think ‘outside of the square’ which leads to interesting discussions, above and beyond the mundane. Not always, but certainly sometimes. Writers seem, often, to be able to look beyond the obvious, and find much, much more in life.

Being a writer, and being with writers can lead a person to amazing and awesome opportunities, both personally, and professionally. I kniw, if I wasn’t a poet and writer, my own life would be a sadder and narrower life. I have stepped up and taken chances at times, and have never regretting them, no matter how things go. Writing and being with other writers allows me to look beyond the obvious, into the awesome!

So there are some reasons why having writer friends is great, and I’m sure there are many more. If you think of any, please leave a comment, telling us about them!

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Getting New Ideas

carolyncordon

When you’re writing a novel, you are living that place, with those people, quite closely. Even if you’re not totally glued on to it, and not writing more every day, it is still an idea, a setting, a community that takes up a certain amount of your mind’s attention.

I’m not as glued on to this book, as I want to be, not on the outside, but inside, my head is still very much living in the place where my story is set, and I’m there with my friends who are the characters in the book. When I’m actually writing, I’m much more connected to them though.

But if I’m going to get a whole series of these books written, do I actually need to get more committed? Life is a collection of doing a variety of things. and writing books is an important one, for sure, but being a good wife and mother is important, playing my part in looking after our dog, Missy, and helping with house, and our finances, they are important too.

But Meredith is there in my head, with all of the other characters, and I feel I have a responsibility to them too. And of course, I know have a responsibility to my friends who are waiting to read this book I’ve begun! I’ve currently written nearly 19,500 words of book one of my “At Talloola” series, with Meredith Webster as my amateur sleuth.

I had a chat with a friend the other night, on Social Media, and she gave me some great ideas for this book, another new and interesting character (two new ones if I include a dog as a character, which for this series of books, I think I have to). So many thanks Cathy, your ideas have got me back interested again, and I will use the notes I copied from what was said, if not in this book, then in a following one.

My idea has always been to write a series of books in the ‘At Tallola’ series of Cosy Murder Mysteries. I have a setting, I have characters, now I just need the kick up the bum to get writing the first book, and then I can get onto book two, then book three, etc. I have I think twenty book titles, so I want to keep going until I’m in my eighties.

It’s an interesting idea, and I love the idea of it all. But is it absorbing enough? Will it, can it, be absorbing enough to finish this first book, “Winds of Death At Talloola”? Only time can tell the answer to that one. All I can say is that I will try …

If anyone has any hints or tips on how to ‘get connected, and get on with it’ I’d really love to hear what you think. As long as it doesn’t involve me getting out of bed earlier, because that is not going to happen!

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Which Characters Make Their Bed?

carolyncordon

I was on another person’s blog earlier today – https://murdochmouse.wordpress.com/ , leaving a comment, and that got me thinking about whether the main character in the novel I’m (supposed to be) writing makes her bed every morning.

And then, what about all of the other characters there, which of them would make the bed every day, I wonder? Could this become a thing to think on for all of my characters? I certainly have ideas about which would make their bed every single morning, no matter what.

Is making the bed a generational thing, a ‘class’ think, a town versus country thing? Or is it a trait of being tidy versus being messy, OCD even, versus just don’t care? These feel like ways to learn more about the characters in my series of Cosy Murder Mysteries, the “At Talloola” series, with amateur sleuth Meredith Webster.

So do you make the bed every morning? We don’t make the bed every morning, even though, yes, it does look a lot neater if it is done. It just doesn’t seem that important. And given the news about those dust mites that will die off if they get exposed to the light, and lose access to moisture in the bedding, if you leave the bed unmade, I guess I’ll likely go on leaving the bed unmade.

Having written that though, I’m now thinking about all of the creatures that will die earlier than they otherwise would have. If I truly cared about all of Natures creatures, surely I’d make the bed, so those dust mites could live long enough to pass on their genes, as all creatures want to do …

Hmm, I feel that is a discussion for another blog, on another day. But this is where I read about the dust mite. making (or not making) the bed: https://coach.nine.com.au/health-issues/making-the-bed/0d58606f-3204-4255-91cb-af313c9d2113

Do you make the bed every day? Should I even care about dust mites? Is making or not making the bed a moral issue? Does it even matter?

I’d love other people’s ideas about these important things.

meaning in life, Philosophy

Some Day …

carolyncordon

There are a number of things on my ‘Some Day …’ list. It isn’t a ‘Bucket list’, there aren’t any big and amazing things on this list, but it’s just a list of things I think I’d like to do, some day. One of the things I’d like to so some day, is to go up on a hot air balloon.

This is one that is also on other people’s Bucket Lists, so the two things, the lists, are not entirely different things, I just think the term Bucket List is a clumsy title for a list of good, or exciting things to do, some day.

It sounds like a container for waste products, not a holder for possible wonderful things to do. So the hot air balloon one is there. I’ve toyed with idea of going up on a glider. I’ve seen them up in the sky, not to high up, but floating up where birds might be. That seems lovely and peaceful, although I believe it might be a little bit more noisy than it is in my imagination.

I like birds, a lot, and the idea of sharing the sky with the birds is a think I’d like to do. some day. Being in a plane doesn’t feel anything like that, it is a totally unnatural thing to me. But I like being with birds on the ground too, so that’s what I do, I watch them as they get about at my place, which is also their place. I live here, and the birds (many of them) live here too.

Photo by Flickr on Pexels.com

I see so many sparrows, every time I look or go outside. Some people think sparrows are boring, but they have their own interesting lives, and I enjoy watching them, and the other birds that live around here, all doing their own things.

Maybe some day I’ll do some study, and learn more about these birds who live here at and around our place. Or perhaps I’ll just go on being here with them. watching them, providing water to them, enjoying them …

I love observing Nature!

Cozy Mystery

Not One or the Other, but Something Else!

carolyncordon

Deciding to write a novel is a heck of a lot easier than actually writing the novel … I’m very much more comfortable with writing poems. Even writing a collection of poems is much easier than writing a novel.

My most recent poetry collection

With a poetry collection, even if you are writing on a particular theme, each poem is a single thing, while with a novel, you’re working on one big thing, that all joins completely together, to make the whole. With a verse novel, it might feel a bit different, being a combination of the poem plus novel thing. I’ve not written a verse novel, and suspect I’ll need to go back and look at the verse novel I know is in my bookshelves, somewhere, to get a better feel for the differences present, or not, in that particular genre.

But back to the writing of a novel, there is talk about whether a writer is a plotter or a pantser, I just did a quiz to see which of the two it indicated I was. The answer to the quiz though, based on my answers didn’t lend an easy answer, it said I was a hybrid. Maybe that is why I’m not able to get an outline settled on and then the novel written, or the novel just written, and then I’ll work out what I’ve actually done.

This is where the quiz is, if you’d like to give it a try yourself: https://www.writinglaraferrari.com/plotter-or-pantser-quiz

I want my plot, but I want surprises too. And if I actually end up writing something else entirely, well, at least it will be something, a novel, hopefully a novel that is something similar to a Cosy Murder Mystery!

I have an increasing number of people waiting for me to finish writing this novel, so I’d better get back to doing just that, as well as watching this Adelaide Crows football game, that is looking good at the moment, with Crows on 2 goals, 2 points, to Greater Western Sydney on 1 point. Go Crows!