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What I’m Working On Today …

carolyncordon

I’m a writer, which means I write. But a writer, if they want to improve their art.craft, also must live, and learn, about life in the broadest of senses, and also in the most miniature and closely observed sense. They can then bring those closely observed tropes and treasures to the writers’ writing.

So to that end, today, as I’ve been editing the first draft of a poem written yesterday, in the hope of this second draft perhaps being included in my next poetry collection, I’ve been listening to the the Labor Party’s Better Future talks, with many fine words spoken, knowing these speeches were written by fine writers.

I hope such inspiring things may rub off on me, and I may insert such passion into my words. That poem I’m working on, will, I hope be included in the poetry collection I’ve been working on, in an off and on manner, as I created the poetry collection I will be having launched at the end of this month, on 29 May, the collection titled ‘Leonard Cohen Is Dead’, that will be a full sized collection.

The poem I’m working on today, will be in a much smaller collection, a chap book with a ‘clever’ title which I’ll talk about another time, and it contains some interesting poems, about things that interest me. choosing to write about things that interest me, means I can write with more passion, and interest, I hope.

I don’t write about things that are ho hum to me personally, because I can’t feign passion, where there is none. Passion comes from within, when we look deeper into our minds, and follow the lines of ideas, to considerations, to results …

And as I’ve been listening to our probable next PM, I have finished the second draft of that poem, which has the working title of ‘Meanings In Puddles’, and having read it, I feel needs another edit, and then, after draft number three, may become something special. I hope so anyway!

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Another thing I’m working on today, is the relationship I have with our new dog, Lenny. He is an adult greyhound, and while I want to love him dearly, the two of us aren’t there yet. So I will be taking Lenny for a walk quite soon, perhaps driving somewhere, to get to the place we’ll be having our walk, because it seems Lenny prefers being driven, over actually walking particularly far …

As a racing greyhound, and the necessary training to be good (which he was, earning stake-money for his owner), well, to be a good racing Greyhound, you have to do the work, which means walking and running to build up strength and better ability.

And me, with my Chronic Illness of Multiple Sclerosis, well, keeping active and mobile means I will be better able to keep on being active and mobile! If I’m going to be standing up and reading my poetry to others, I need to train myself to speak my words, but I also need to be mobile to get to where I will be presenting my work/words!

Body and mind working together, being better at the first, helps me to be better at the second! ***** Something to report on, in relation to that ‘active and mobile’ thing … I’ve had a trip and crashed down to the ground … Ouch!

Not my best look! ‘writer’s photo’

So there’s been a lot more thinking going on the past few days, and not much ‘mobility’ happening. I’ve been writing online, on Medium, and talked about the accident here: so it sure isn’t a good look, but it is nowhere near as painful as my thumb, my left thumb, which was sprained, as talked about in that article on medium

And because I had that fall, and time waiting at the local hospital, I’m feeling disconnected in some part, from what I’d wanted this post to be about, such is life!

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Blogging About My Next Poetry Collection?

carolyncordon

Blogging about poetry, interesting? I hope so! Now I’m wondering, could I write a poem about blogging, or even lots of poems about blogging, a whole collection’s worth?

Back to the subject of this blog post, regarding my next poetry collection. It’s underway, written, submitted, and has a back blurb written. Now it just needs to finish off the editing, get looked at by me for approval of the proof copy, and then it gets printed!

In case you’re interested, the title of this new collection is ‘Leonard Cohen Is Dead’, because that is the title of the first poem in the collection, and it’s an attention grabbing title, isn’t it? I wrote further about getting this collection to the ‘published’ stage here, which may be of interest to poets who have had a collection published, or would like to have one published.

My ideas about this are my own, and different people may get to that point in different ways. Some of the bits may be the same though, and it has worked well for me, on this occasion, and previously, in slightly different ways perhaps … But until you try it, you won’t know the best way you have for getting that collection published, yourself.

I haven’t always had my work published by actual publishers, but most recently, that is the way I’ve been going with my poetry recently, and it’s been ‘working for me’, as in, books get produced, and I get some money out of it all! The connections with readers are always the most important thing for me, though. I love sharing my words with people!

A Poem About Blogging?
A poem or a blog post, that is the question –
One a mere slice, a taste, or is it more?
A poem can be so small, but so deep,
an ocean’s worth of words, in a thimble
of meaning, and truth …

A blog post, can be a brief piece too,
but it may connect with hordes of readers, 
internet surfing, and include so much –
research, images, links, comments 
from interested others

Which is best, is it a contest of words?
Worth and value, trite words or true?
Or is it simple fact, all words can win?
This is the way I see it, for sure, all words
are worthy to me!

********************************

That little poem just cropped up yesterday, and I finished it today. I’m posting it here, on this blog post to show, perhaps what a poem can do, in few words, that would usually use many more words, in a blog post. And while I don’t consider this little poem to be my best work ever, I feel it does show the difference, between the two forms of writing.

And it was easier for me to express my point in that poem, that the truth is that I consider words, all of them, to be the best thing, in whatever form/genre they are presented. And if you are reading this piece, what to you think? Are you a word lover too? I won’t be surprised if you say yes!

And going back to the heading for this blog post, I am sure most of the poems in my next poetry collection, which is titled “Leonard Cohen Is Dead”, are far more worthy, and worked on, than the poem above this. But the poem up there has done what I wanted it to do, to give an example to further the point I wanted to make …

So that task is done, and so it is time for me to finish off, lest this short blog post out stay its welcome! Please leave a comment, if you have anything to say about blogging, or poetry, or words in general!

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I’m Still Here on WordPress, but on Medium too …

carolyncordon

I just like writing, about all kinds of different things, in a variety of genre … And if I can make a bit of money from my words, well, who wouldn’t want that? WordPress and Medium are both writing platforms, but with Medium a bit advantage is that you can get paid for what you write, easily.

I’ve been a member of Medium.com for a year now, and today I wrote this piece where I wrote about my first year. It may not be the best prose ever written, but if you’re interested in writing, and being paid for it, why not have a read.

And of course, if you like what I read, you can take a look at some of my other articles on Medium, where I seem to be posted quite a few things about our new dog, a big, black, beautiful boy, named Lenny, previously Lenny The Jet, until he retired from Greyhound Racing late last year.

So yes, here I am, still writing on WordPress, still connecting with my friends, Yay to making, and continuing connections! And an important thing I need to talk about here, on this blog of mine, my most important one, (I have others on the WordPress platform). And that important thing, is taking up a lot of my attention, when I’m not writing on Medium.

And what is that important thing? It is a new poetry collection, written by me, and to be published by Ginninderra Press. Woo hoo! Yay me! I feel this may be my best poetry collection yet, and I hope lots of people get themselves a copy, and love it too! And the title of this one is something that may attract the interest many, whether poetry lovers or not. The book’s title is also the title of the first poem in the collection, and I think it’s a fine poem too!

Yes, I am excited about this collection, in case you were wondering. And I’m thrilled that it will probably be launched at the Prince Albert Hotel on 29 May 2022, and I will also be the Guest poet there for the Gawler Poets At The Pub event, with the book launch taking the place of the usual workshop, then people can get some lunch and then will be the poetry reading, with me there as the guest poet. Fun times!

So yes, I am still writing here on this blog on WordPress, because I have people here who also follow me, and my words. Mix and match, and share the words, that’s what it’s all about. The more connections made, the bigger and better, things can be.

I love my writing world – I received the annual royalty payment I get for a book I wrote what feels like another life ago, but wasn’t really all that far back. I love royalties, and I love PLRs and ELRs as well, and I might be getting those later on in the year. Who says you can’t make money from being a writer?

Well, I don’t say that, I just say, don’t expect to be able to pay off your home loan with the money earned with your words, necessarily … Some people do manage to do it, in a variety of ways, break through into the big money, but the numbers for that are lower than the syllable count of a haiku poem! That’s seventeen syllables, in case you didn’t know …

Anyway, feel free to continue reading my words here or check out Medium. Maybe you’d like to join Medium, after you check it out, who knows. By the way, if you do read my articles on Medium as well as the one I’m writing about here, you’ll see at the end of each article, my other articles, somewhere to click to get email notification of my having written a new article, and also, super bonus, the spot where you can sign up to become a writer for Medium too! And I write super bonus, because if you sign up there, I will get money too, if you sign up and earn money!

Friends sharing the love! Haha. Or ignore all of that and keep on doing what you want to do, all good! It’s about the words, not the money!

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Will This Novel Ever Be Written?

carolyncordon

I have a title, a genre, characters, a setting, and some ideas. And at the moment I have something like 30,000 words written. So, I’m writing words, in fits and starts, with Thursdays being when the most of this novel gets written.

Thursday is when my writing group happens, and I use prompts for our writing exercise during the writing group, and the prompt for homework to be presented at the group meeting the following week.

So I read the prompt and I think about how this new prompt will fit into the novel I’m writing. Slowly …

This is certainly not the method of a writer who wants to write a book in six months, it’s probably going to take the rest of my life to get it done, at the rate I’m going. I thought it would be easy, writing a Cosy Murder Mystery. And the actual story comes easy enough.

Sort of, anyway. The plot points needed for this particular genre aren’t natural to the way I write, I think that may be my problem. I love the characters and the setting, and some of the ideas I’ve had. It’s just difficult getting all of the things that have to happen, actually happening …

But I still feel I could get it moving, if only … If only I had a month, where the only thing I had to do was write this novel. But there are always other things that feel more compelling to me, than the writing of this novel …

The fact that I already have people wanting to read this novel, you’d think that would be enough. But there are always other things to think, and do. Some are must do things, others want to do things.

So I’m not guaranteeing anything, I’m just hoping it will happen. Sometime. This year? Next year? When I’m sixty-four? Who knows? I sure don’t. The idea of being a Cosy Murder Mystery writer was so appealing, and I thought it would be easy.

But it is nowhere near as easy as I thought it would be. And I’m more a poet and short article kind of writer, and my longer books have been not genres with well known rules that the readers of them expect from the author. I can do that kind of book.

But I’ve tried romance writing, and just couldn’t write that, is murder mystery going to end in the same way, with me saying no, I can’t write that? I have written more murder mystery than I ever did of the romance writing style, and there is a bit of romance in this Cosy Murder Mystery I’m writing …

But if I never finish this novel, at least I’ve given it a go, and the world won’t end because I don’t get it written, and published … I’m getting my new poetry collection published later this year, and that is definitely a book I feel I can be proud of!

So maybe I should just stick to writing poetry? But I love the characters in my novel, and I want to know what happens, so … Who knows?

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Being A Writing Mentor …

carolyncordon

I’ve had a variety of people in my writing life who could be looked on as my ‘mentor’, two of them officially, others more informal mentors. These people have all helped in a variety of different ways.

And at the moment, I’m looking at the ins and outs of being a writing mentor for someone else, who asked me about taking on that role. I was glad to have been asked, and said yes. I feel I will be able to assist that writer in different ways, as I have to other people in the past

Now I’m thinking about the more practical aspects of taking on such a role. There is the question of how formal the mentor/mentee relationship might be, whether there needs to be any insurance, or other kinds of paperwork, and so on.

At the moment, I’m leaning towards informal, but with an agreement signed by us both … Insurance is a tricky thing, and expensive, if it is even possible to get it organised … I’ve done this role in an informal way in the past, but not for payment.

I’m looking forward to seeing what might come of the upcoming mentor position in the offing. Words will come of it, that is certain.

An Update On How Things Are Going

This mentor thing hasn’t begun as yet, we are still thinking about the how and what aspects, but we both definitely don’t want something formal. The mentee will share work, the mentor will give opinions. The mentor may also offer useful information about upcoming events, and perhaps ideas about possible publication options.

So basically, the update is that it is still a thing that will happen, but not quite yet. We were both at an event put on by my writing group on Sunday just past, and both felt it was an excellent event – a writing related workshop, and then a poetry reading.

I was able to give feedback about how I felt about a person in my mentee’s non-writing life who had said stupid and wrong things to them about their writing. My proposed mentee has definite talent with words, but a medical person told them they had no such talent.

Pretty well everybody at the event said that person was an idiot, and was wrong, and they have lots of talent!

But it has been postponed until after SA Writers Week, which my mentee is attending, but I am not, so nothing will happen until after that week is over. And if standing up for another writer is part of what a mentor is all about, I will gladly do that!

I have no idea why that person said what they said, which was that my mentee was delusional, if they thought their writing was any good, or something along those lines. It was an amazingly unhelpful thing to say, and ignorant, because this person is talented, for sure.

I will not be surprised if she produces a fine poetry collection, and gets it published, at the end of being mentored by me. I know things about the various processes involved in such things, and am more than happy to share my knowledge with other poets/writers.

The world is a big thing and there is always room for another book!