Category: inspiration

Arts, inspiration, New Ideas, starting a business, therapeutic writing, writing opportunities

Moving Forward, Slow & Sure!

carolyncordon

I know what I want to do, and I know many of the people who can help me as I go. Having goals is one thing, but with action, a goal is just a decoration, amounting to not a lot that is very useful in terms of ‘doing business’.

The goals I’ve set for this year though, ones developed after reading a recent Journaling topic given by Nan Berrett on the Facebook page ‘Your Journaling Journey’ will be guide posts to assist me as I go through the necessary steps to make my business the best it can be!

The ten ideas I came up with in response to this prompt topic cover a variety of things, some of them concerning my business others more personal things, but it all blends into creative things for 2025!

This Journaling Journey has brought up many interesting thoughts and ideas, and I definitely want to continue with journaling once this 30 day program is all over.

This is part of our gate, which forms a part of the Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation, which is going to be one part of the business I am going to start up early this year, if all goes as I want it to! I’m excited about this new direction I’ll be going, it feels like I’m finally doing what what my life has been leading me to!

So slow and steady wins the race, and I have my eye on the prize, which is to have a respected business doing a variety of creativity-connected activities that will bring in a reasonable profit for me (eventually).

This year is for setting it all up, next year though, let that be the year it takes off in good ways!

I’ve made some money from my writing over the years, but now, with many more things to do, I ‘m expecting more! An I nervous about starting a new business at my age? No! I’m almost 62 and that is the perfect age to do this!

So I’ m not nervous, I’m excited. Bring it on, I’m ready to make it all happen! Many thanks to the people who’ve been helping to get to this position, especially my Support Worker, Tereza, and my husband Graham! You are both great, and have helped me to be great too, or more than that, I am Awesome!

inspiration, meaning in life

Watching the Footy, Thinking on Role Models

carolyncordon

When young people see their heroes on the football field, they may decide to model themselves on their heroes. In terms of their sport, this is an excellent thing, to try to make yourself the best player you can.

But a good football player, is a person who is good at football, and their abilities at their chosen sport may have no relation at all, to indicate what kind of a person they may be. They are merely human beings, who have great skills to enable them to play well.

Certainly, some of them may have exceptional skills at being a good team member, or a great leader, who shows their team the way to win. But they might simply be really good at kicking goals, and is terrible at most other things. Certainly there are AFL players who I feel do great things away from their sport, as well as when they’re playing, and those are the players, I hope young people will follow, as they go through their lives.

Above and beyond …

But truly, the people we could all be thinking of, if we wish to have good role models for a good and worthy life, are those people who do good things that have long lasting benefits for others, rather than simply helping their team to win a game. People who work in the public arena, working hard and well to help other people to have better lives. There are Australians who do wonderful things, helping vulnerable people in many ways, to enable the ones they work for to have better lives. They are my role models, humble people doing wonderful and selfless things.

In this Covid-19 time, many of us are staying home, as safe and sound as is possible, while nurses, doctors, and other essential workers do their work, never knowing if, or when, the coronavirus might be there to infect them. Good role models, all of them. Working hard to help other people, above and beyond what their job requires of them – risking their lives to help.

I’ve had people call me an inspiration, does that make me a role model of sorts? Well if others can emulate me when I’m at my best, that would be a fine thing. (Just don’t look too closely at me when I’m slacking off!)

We all have our moments, good and bad, and surely having others copy us when we’re at our best, would be a time to be proud of, both for ourselves, and the others who follow, and do good also … I’d love to know what you think about these ideas, please leave a comment!

inspiration, Writing

What is a Writer?

carolyncordon

A writer can be many things – a teller of stories, a truthsayer, an inspiration, a liar, an explainer, a teacher, a flirt, and many other things. There are many genres of writing, from poetry, to fairy stories, to crime fiction, to scientific jargon filled papers about things most of us have never even heard of. And of course the many millions of things in between.

Writers can say the things we’d like to say, but are too afraid of. They can also tell us why the things we’ve said are nasty and dangerous lies, and should never have been said. Writers pen their words, sometimes getting them published, if they can, to share with the world, sometimes (they say) just writing for themselves. Who am I to doubt them?

I can only go by how I feel about this, and I have to say that I certainly want my words to be read by others. If I was a writer for myself only, I wouldn’t be writing on a blog, like this, that can be read by anyone and everyone, if they happen to come across it. And I certainly hope many people to happen to come across this blog post, and go on to discover the others I’ve penned here, and on my other blogs.

I’ve been named as being an inspiration, for sure, and even though I humbly duck my head and blush at that, I wear the label with pride. Looking back at my life, there have been hard times – I’ve been a victim, but not anymore. I went from victim, to survivor, to striver, and now to thriver!

My life is one on hope, and action, and thought, writing things that may entertain, and yes, inspire others. Writing is what I do, I am a writer. I write poetry, prose, fiction, non fiction. My life, and what I see, hear, am told, and think about, these are all my writing prompts. Thoughts come from it all, and when the time is right, the writing comes too, at the right time. Most of the time, the right time is whenever I can sit down and write!

Writing, with green bling!

So what is a writer? A writer is anyone who writes, published or not, if you write, you are a writer!

inspiration, meaning in life

Is Life Planned, or Random?

carolyncordon

Seasons come, seasons go, we know what to expect, and can plan for that. We sow our seeds, the earth and the sun so what they do, clouds bring shade and rain. Things happen, seeds become plants, become food and we thrive.

Or it doesn’t go that way at all, sometimes, the rains don’e come when we expect them to, no clouds, a blazing sun, viscious winds, the ground an empty womb, nurturing only starvation … Can we plan for such times, never knowing when they may come, or not with any certainty. Random is always the unplanned thing, that brings changes, ones we’d never expected.

Is this a bad thing, or good? Change from farming, sell up, move, become something else entirely, but holding within you all of the knowledge gained, watching, working with Nature and using such gained wisdom in new ways. Unplanned, random good coming from bad.

But really, the things are only what you name them, and many are too quick to name, write off, move on, forgetting the possibility of good coming from bad, and only remembering the bad, hating it, blaming it, reviling it, railing against it, making it the main focus of life. But that bad season, could have been a good season, if you’d learned from previous ‘bad’ seasons, and planned for whatever might come, rather than the planned thing you expected to come …

We plant the seed …

I’m not a farmer, I’m a writer. I’ve written about many of my life experiences, the ‘bad’ ones the most, particularly early on in my writing ‘career’. Abuse, illness, accident, they’re there, but the words that came from those remembered experiences have brought peace of mind, understanding, and even joy.

Abuse, disease, good things from bad …

Life has happened, in unplanned and random ways, as it always has and always will. Randomness is the truth of these things, that’s what I believe. Nature goes with what happens, plants release seeds and sometimes they fall on barren land, with no rain to nurture seed to plant, to food, to plenty. Animals, including this human animal we are, deal with what is there, when it’s there, working to provide for the ‘bad’ times in and when we can, if we think to do so.

These things are what happens, some of them shaped by us, or more likely by Nature, and we deal with them, as best we can. Or we don’t, forgetting what we should always remember, from what our random lives have shown us …

inspiration, poetic forms, poetry, writing exercise, writing prompts

A Sonnet Response

carolyncordon

I like writing prompts, a lot. So when I saw this challenge, ‘EIF Poetry Challenge’ I gave it a good look. Sonnets are lovely. With a sonnet, you know what you’ve taken on. There will be only 14 lines, with a set number of ‘beats’ in set places, and there will be a rhyming scheme of a particular kind (one of two, actually, but not terribly different from each other.

So, the call for a sonnet, how could I resist? The person calling for sonnets is someone I know, as much as one ‘knows’ people online. She had got on board with something I’m working on, and so adding all of this together, of course I’d get a sonnet into the action.

When I got myself ready for this EIF Poetry Challenge, I’d intended looking into a sonnet I might already have, but the keyboard called to me, and changed my mind. It was time to write a new sonnet. And so, in accordance with instructions, here is my sonnet.

Ideas!

I hadn’t necessarily meant to write a poem about Covid-19, but that’s the main thing these days, isn’t it? And that’s the way it went, but with a possibly different slant on it, and bringing another ‘big thing’ into the action. A thing that may or may not be connected.

This is my new sonnet:

No Decent Reason …
What on Earth is the reason, for this disease?
A rhetorical question, but is there a ready answer?
Is it response for doing whatever we please?
Have we become Nature’s deadliest cancer?

We’re killing things with barely any restraint –
With no regard for damage that we’ve caused,
Murdering creatures – no avenue for complaint
Wanting things right now. If only we’d paused …

Covid-19 a symptom of devastations,
Inflicted on habitats, trees cut down.
Some put all the blame on developing nations,
But the destroyer here is the big end of town …

How do you explain to a little kid,
The selfish reasons for what us oldies did …