Category: Cozy Mystery

Cozy Mystery, Public Speaker

Excited About My Writing

carolyncordon

If a writer isn’t at least a little bit excited about their writing, is their really any reason to write? I’m talking about those of us who write for pleasure, rather than people who write reports for a living. People who do that could well still get a buzz out of writing a good report, but it may not live up to the huge boost of the writer who sells their first book.

Getting published is a huge rush of excitemnt for sure. Sharing our words with other, interested people, is a boost too, though, one that I definitely find exciting even after having done it for many years.

This writing prompt thing for all of February though, that’s something else entirely, sharing my love of words, and assisting other writers to come up with now ideas, brand new pieces of writing. Fabulous February I’ve been calling it, and I’m havng a good time with it, giving the writing prompt every morning, and then I’ve been using the new prompt myself to being a new piece of writing into the world!

Well eventually I will, if not straight away. When a poet is working to put together a poetry collection they need all of the inspiration and writing prompts they can find! And I am that poet, for sure. My poetry collection has a title, and it has some poems, it just needs more of them!

I’ve begun putting some of my brand new poems into the collection, and I’ve been thrilled at the way some of my new words fit in with the words already there. By the end of February, may there be at least twently more poems, to go wih other poems I have to include.

I’ve been looking through various places I have around the house with bags and folders, all with poems, pieces of writing that haven’t made it into anything yet, for one reason or another. Some of them where needing a little more work, others simply were misfiled, to be found later, perhaps edited a bit, made better, and woohoo, more poems to go into my new collection!

I also have a different writing project going on at the moment, and this is something I’ve been thinking about since last year, and was working on, but disaster struck, in the form of a broken ankle. This led to a brand new book, more poetry, this time a small collection, in the form of a chapbook, with 21 poems all about my broken ankle.

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So writing these poems was what I worked on from early October, until the book was published and launched in December. The book launch was certainly a good time, selling copies of my brand new book. But that excitement’s done now, time to go back to what I was working on, when my focus suddenly and painfully changed.

And what that project was, was the writing of a series of Cosy Murder Mysteries, all set in a fictictious town, which is modelled slightly on a town I know quite well. For this project I’ve used the same town and characters of something else I was working on last year, something that wasn’t working the way I’d hoped.

That other piece of writing wasn’t giving me a real buzz, not all of it. Working with the characters was good, exploring the town was, it was more that the genre of that book wasn’t working for me, it wasn’t something I read much myself, if at all. I wasn’t excited by it.

The idea of writing a series of Cosy Murder Mysteries, that certainly floats my boat! I can see myself in twenty years time, the beloved writer nearly fifteen mysteries in the ‘At Talloola’ Series with sleuth, Meredith Webster. I’ll be 76 then, and still working my way through my list of book titles, and I hope giving talks and workshops all around Australia, an internationally too. Haha, you gotta have a dream cos if you don’t have a dream, how’re gonna have your dream come true. (clumsily plagarised lined from that movie, you know the one)

Anyway, by then, Meredith will be living with her adviser in police matters, Travis, who by then will be the Mayor of Talloola, and Meredith will still be coordinating the town of Talloola, but as a retired lady of leisure … as well as still doing her samateur sluthing thing …

So that’s my career as a writer sorted out, and Meredith’s career as a fictional amateur sleuth sorted out too. There will be lots of things going on in my life and hers, “At Talloola”!

Cozy Mystery, Writing

Time for a Holiday!

carolyncordon

I have returned today from a short holiday in the country, and it was a delightful time! I had plans to write, and took a notebook and pen with my for the purpose. Surely staying somewhere else, with a writer friend would be inspirational, I thought. Might it result with some words written in my Cozy Murder Mystery series again, at last?

I have to admit that, no, there were no new words written for my “At Talloola” series, but I did get some ideas that I could write up and work on, perhaps when my writing group next has a lock in. We don’t actually have  lock in booked in, but it might be a thing we could talk about at the next meeting, tomorrow …

Any way, I may not have written anything for my fictional prose writing, but I did write a few things very much inspired by the place I was staying. The house I was staying at is a friend’s place, just across the road from the water of Spencer Gulf, beautiful blue water, when I am far more accustomed to beautiful green trees.

I was writing short poetic pieces, not knowing if they would lead to anything more, but happy to be capturing some of my thoughts about a different but still beautiful aspect of Nature. They might go together in something larger, perhaps a collection all about locations, or Nature …

Or I could take it further, and write about how lovely it was to be staying with a friend, and muse on the whole idea of what friendship is, and what it can be, what makes it good, what makes it bad … Early stages yet, who knows where it might lead.

And regarding the Cozy Murder Mystery series, I was certainly thinking about what I need to do to make it all actually happen. This short holiday was about being with a friend, and just have a good though quiet time. It was not a time for me to lock myself away to get on with planning my books, not at all. I did talk a little about it all though, keeping my interest happening in it, and hoping to interest someone else too.

Now that I’m home, I can see I have to get on with this series, to make it real, to help me to get it written in the easiest and least time wasting way. So, my next step will be to finally set up a template for these books, and to put it all together, then bite the bullet and just get on with the writing of them, consistently!

I spend/waste so much time on Social Media, could I stop doing that and commit an hour a day, every day, to working on this series? Hmm, I don’t see why not … I have characters, I have possible titles, I have story ideas, I need to set out the template and fill in the gaps, creating plots, subplots, and method to turn the current bits and pieces method into something methodical and doable.

So that’s it, I will now go and get my Template done (after some online research on the topic) and the “At Talloola” Template will be created, and the series properly begun!

Cozy Mystery, Uncategorized

Promoting Interest in Book-to-be

carolyncordon

A writer friend recently suggested to me that I might do well to publish an excerpt from my current work in progress, a Cozy Murder story, called “Kissing Cousins At Talloola”. I’d mentioned that my initial strong interest in this project had waned for me, a little, and the friend (John Malone) felt getting some feed back on what I was doing, may be enough to re-pique my interest.

The fact that I recently fractured my ankle, giving me lots of time, but little interest in doing much that seems like hard work (as writing a series of Cozy Mysteries feels right now), this is probably part of the reason the “At Talloola” project has slowed down. I’m more interested at the moment in Social Media (Facebook and Twitter), rather than novel writing.

However, I feel that John’s idea certainly has merit, so here is an excerpt from chapter one of “Kissing Cousins At Tallola”, which will be the second book in the “At Talloola” Cozy Mystery series, of which there is proposed to be at least eight books.

“KISSING COUSINS AT TALLOOLA

Chapter One

The museum seemed to be closing when I arrived, even though it was still too early for that, as far as I knew. People were milling around the entrance, or walking toward the cars parked alongside the museum, or judging by the direction they were headed, maybe to the Talloola Hotel. 

Closing time for the museum was five o’clock, two until five, every single Sunday, no matter what, as I’d been told by one of the museum volunteers recently. And if anyone should know those details, the museum volunteers certainly should, I mused, to myself. I’d presented a brief presentation recently in Talloola, on the “The Importance of Getting Out the Most Important Thing”.

It was certainly an important thing with the museum volunteers, going by the answers at the workshop.

Surely, if there was something special happening at the Museum, they would have let me know? I felt a little miffed at missing out on the news of something happening, I should have been the first to know …

Usually, people leaving the museum would be chatting about the interesting things they’d seen or found out about, but most of the people here, looked like been told some very bad news. I figured I’d better take off my “On Holidays” hat, and put my “Community Worker” hat back on, and find out what might be going on.

And if I wanted to know what was going on, I was in luck, there was Gert, she’d know for sure. I picked up my place a bit, and strode toward the Museum entrance, and waited while dear Gert gently ushered out Museum visitors. I couldn’t catch everything Gert was saying, but as I got closer, I picked up a bit of the words.

‘Yes, it’s shocking, never seen it here before,’ Gert told a woman I didn’t think I knew. ‘Not since, when was it? Fifty-five? No, ninety fifty-six, I think it was. Now you drive safely, and keep safe. And please mention my name to your dear mother, and let her know I fondly remember her orange sponge cake.’ Gert reached up and patted the woman on the shoulder, and closed the door, with a heartfelt sigh.

I walked over to her and was again amazed that such a tiny person could hold so much knowledge and energy. ‘Hello Gert, how’s things going?’ I asked her. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Oh Miss Meredith, I hardly know how to start telling you,’ Gert said. ‘Can you come with me to the Hotel, or perhaps not,’ she corrected herself. ‘It’s got too busy there, come to my place, this needs a good strong cuppa! Follow me. I’ll get the machine going, and we can gave a good long talk about it.'”

 

So, there it is, if you think it sounds interesting, and you’d love to know more, please leave a message. Or really, any feelings you have, whether you like it or thing it needs work, please let me know, I definitely want to get back the sense of excitement I had about this project at the very beginning.

I have around 8000 words of this book written, and also have book titles and ideas for at least eight books or more for the series. If I can get my headspace back into this, I can see it becoming my life’s work, but if not, I can go back to being a published poet, no worries, not really …

The Cozy Mystery genre though, it is certainly calling to me in some ways, more strongly than the thriller genre did, when I first created the characters which are now moving into the Cozy Mysteries instead. So if you have any thoughts about this, please leave feedback, y main character Meredith would like to have more of her stories told!

Thank you!

 

Cozy Mystery, Story Ideas

Being Cozy with Writing Cozy Mysteries

carolyncordon

I have to admit that my recent injury and hospital stay, followed by recovery at home, has slowed down the writing of my next writing project, a Cozy Mystery series. But with action on the fractured ankle front happening tomorrow, with more to follow the next day, I’m back to being interested in this project.

If you don’t know what a Cozy Mystery novel is, this website has lots of information to tell you about it. You could also take a look at this earlier blog post of mine on the subject, and continue reading this post.

Today I have taken a look back at my files on my laptop, where I have written some early notes for some possible books in my proposed series, as well as thinking harder about the first couple of books, what has to happen, and whether and what still needs to happen, to make it ALL happen!

A series of books, each having 28 chapters, is a big thing, but I feel that if I can get the first two written, and written well, it can happen the way I want it too. Cozy mysteries feel right to me, while the thriller I was going to be writing didn’t sit so easily in who I consider myself to be. If I’m going to be killing people, I don’t want to see the the blood and guts!

At the moment, I thinking about Who I’m going to kill off first, and How I’m going to do it. And Why of course … If I’m going to begin murdering certain townsfolk of the town of Talloola, there had better be a good enough reason for it to happen! Talloola only has around 500 people living in and around it, and while I’m sure some out-of-towners will be victims, some residents may have to go too.

I plan to write at least twelve to fifteen of these books in the series, if it works out, so I’d better hope Talloola can get a good tourism industry going, or maybe some industry, so the numbers of people there won’t ‘drop off’ too much!

Given my recent injury (I fractured my right ankle on Grand Final day), I had an idea that one of the football players, might also suffer from a fractured ankle too. After all the experts say you should write what you know, and I know know quite a bit more about having a broken ankle now, that’s for sure.

I really do feel like this is the correct writing genre for me, and I’m excited about making it happen! The writing, of course is the hard part, but I’ve enjoyed doing the actual writing of it so far, and have over 8000 words written on on book. There’s still quite a few more words to go, but it feels good to write it, so it’s a blessing, not a trial. I hope tomorrow a good few more word will come to being!

If you know anything about the Cozy Mystery genre, I’d love a few hints and tips! Many thanks, and goodbye.

 

Cozy Mystery, inspiration, Uncategorized

Talk to your Character

carolyncordon

A dear friend of mine, Martin Christmas, is a fine poet, and even finer human being. He is a doer, an encourager, and as I said, a dear friend. Martin knows of my current troubles (a fractured ankle), and he is making sure my brain is still good, even if my ankle is busted.

I appreciate his effort, and his ideas that it might be a good chance to work on my written work. I agree that is should be a good chance for that, I’m comfortably seated, my laptop on my lap, with plenty of power available. So why is there no action going on with my proposed series of Cozy Mysteries, featuring Meredith, my main character.

I want this to happen, this series of books. I did lots of work on them earlier, perhaps when I was in hospital? Or it may have been before that. Hmm, before, I think. My mind is a little befuddled with all of the pain relief I had been taking, over the past fortnight … but anyway, I did manage to have a Talloola township thought while in hospital. I thought that I had to have a hospital in my town in my books, Talloola, and there had to be a murder in the Talloola Hospital, for Meredith to solve that crime.

I haven’t got much further than that thought, consciously, but I hope my subconscious mind may have been fiddling with the idea. To that end, I am going to do some free writing, chatting with Meredith, and see where (or if) things go. Meredith and I are good friends, she is a bit like the me I’d like to be, taller, prettier, a working woman, with a hunk of a football player as her love interest. (that bit is not me, my love interest is the wonderful man who is looking after me at the moment (and always).

So excuse me, while I go away and talk with my main character. If anything happens, and I sincerely hope something will happen, well, I’ll come back here and talk about it! I am very grateful to have Martin as a good friend, am hope I can live up to his (and my) expectations of what I am capable of doing!

Writing a whole series of Cozy Mysteries was a big project, but if I can live through a fractured ankle, and do it well, there’s no telling what else I can do, Ciao!