Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

My Next Poetry Book

carolyncordon

So, the collection I have put together about breaking my ankle is going to be published, and I am happy about that. Even if it wasn’t going to be published, I’m still happy to have written the 24 pages of poetry needed for a chapbook.

Ginninderra Press are going to publish my book “Angles on Ankles”, and are currently working to fit in the poems I have sent to them for the book. It’s been an interesting process, still underway. When I’ve looked at some poems, I’m always finding useless words that can be cut away, without losing anything in the sense of meaning and worth to the poem.

When you have an idea of how small a space you have, if you want your work to be published, that is a great incentive to put on your editor hat and get cutting! The two processes, poet to write the poems, then editor to make them publishable, that’s how good poetry books can be created!

This small collection has been therapeutic for me, making me feel like a worthwhile person, and thinking more about what my life is at the moment, as I currently not supposed to put any weight on my right leg, which I fractured at the end of September, and was operated on, on the first of October.

Zero weight bearing has been my way of life since the fracture, and I’m very much looking forward to trying partial weight bear, starting next week. Then I’ll get another x-ray, before seeing the surgeon who operated on my ankle to ‘fix’ it.

It’s been a tedious time in some ways, but the poetry writing has been a huge help, giving me something important to do as I wait. And now, of course there are the things needed to further edit this collection, to make it fit the strictures given by the publisher. I have 24 pages only, and small pages at that.

In the end this little book which will be titled “Angles on Ankles” will tell the story of what I’ve been through, and what I think about it all, having my first ever bone fractured. I’m glad about it in one way, because I’ve never before been able to find a small but important theme for such a book.

I wouldn’t recommend fracturing your ankle though, just to get a poetry collection published! But it it had to happen, I couldn’t ask for a better project to have, to help keep my mind away from the boredom, and the discomfort of it all.

I couldn’t ask for a better carer than my husband either, he has been awesome! I’m doing all I can, but it’s so much easier for Graham to get something, than it is for me to struggle up onto my Knee Walker, and make my way around the furniture. I’m so looking forward to being able to get up and just walk!

Joy in the simple things! The sofa I’ve been spending most of my time at, has a view of the front road, and of a small patch of the front yard. And with the back door open, I can hear some of the birds out there. This has been a quiet time, of sitting, struggling, and doing little things as I can.

If you’ve ever experienced anything like this, I’d love to read about it, please leave a comment!

 

 

 

 

 

poetry, Uncategorized

Some Poetic Forms

carolyncordon

There are many different ways to write poetry, or ‘poetic forms’. Here are a few you may have heard of, but never tried to write, or have written in the traditional form, but not in a new, stripped back form.

I like playing with different poetic forms, and am always happy to try something new, when it comes to my attention. My poetic attempts may interest others, or maybe they won’t it doesn’t matter. Trying these things out, using my own knowledge in different ways is good for my brain!

Give some of these forms a try yourself, and see whether your own brain feels pleasantly stretched in new ways! Firstly, I love sonnets, short poems of fourteen lines. They are distinguished by very strict rhyming schemes, in several different styles, as below:

  • Spenserian sonnet. 3 quatrains and a couplet – “abab bcbc cdcd ee”
  • english(shakespearean) sonnet. 3 quatrains of “abab cdcd efef” followed by a single couplet.
  • italian(petrarchan) sonnet. octave of “abba abba” then a sestet of “cdc cdc”

I have written in these three styles, having had some of my poems published in books, and online, and am proud of my work in the form. But today, I found a brand new form of the sonnet, and I hurriedly ‘gave it a go’!

This new form is the Monosyllabic Sonnet. I found it in an email, sent by a poetic friend, with details of his own poetry blog, https://playground.poetry.blog/ I strongly suggest you go there and explore the many poetic forms Paul has on display on his blog. I have a few of my own attempts at the forms Paul talks about, and encourage you to have a go too, and get involved in what Paul is doing, sharing poetry with the world!

So with the Monosyllabic Sonnet, the poet is to stick to the rhyming schemes for sonnets, as I have put above, but instead of writing in iambic pentametre, you are to write just one word of one syllable only, for each line, instead of longer lines of far more syllables for each line. You are also free to use the title of your poem to fill in more meaning to the poem, by indicating what it is about to aid with clarity.

Here is a new poem I have written to demonstrate what is meant:

On bringing meaning, by sharing your wisdom.

 

We

live, 

free 

give.

 

 

Wonder

much,

ponder 

such …

 

You 

know?

Do 

so!

 

Yell!

Tell!

 

If you like this poetic form please feel free to say so! If you wish, you can share your own attempt at writing a Monosyllabic Sonnet of your own.

 

Now a look at the short Japanese poems. The Haiku is the best know form of Japanese Poems. In the Western world, Haiku are often presented as being written in three lines, with five syllables in the first and final lines, and seven syllables in the middle line. This though is not quite what the Haiku is in its ‘native’ world, where the Haiku is an exceptionally short poem, usually of fewer characters than the English form indicates.

For this blog though, I am going to talk about a related poetry form, the Senryu. Where Haiku relates to poems written about Nature, and referring to the season, the Senryu is written about people, and can more than Haiku, be a funny poem, talking about perhaps a comical part of human nature.

The Senryu has the same form as Haiku, being a short poem, usually of three lines, short, long, short, as with the Haiku. I have written a new poem in this form, and hope you enjoy my words. Again, feel free to comment, and have a go yourself, if you feel so inspired! I love comments on this blog.

 

My Senryu:

 

Wisdom is

saying very little,

or staying mute …

 

 

 

 

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!

 

Uncategorized

My Writing Group

carolyncordon

I firmly believe that being a member of a writing group can give a writer a huge boost. When times seem to drag a writer down, when nothing seems to be working for you, being a member of a writing group means there’ll be people with you who truly do understand.

And when your writing feels flat then your writing group may give you some feedback, or a new idea, that leads you and your writing to a fresh and exciting place. My writing group is certainly that group for me. The Adelaide Plains Poets is the group I began, with some other writers, and I’m proud and happy that group is still going, around fifteen years later.

The members of the group have changed, some move further away, some lose interest and move only other things. This is fine, the nature of groups is they change and grow, or scale back in size, or change focus. My group has increased in scope of what we do, and the group size is just right for the place we usually hold our meetings.

The reason for meeting at my place is because I can’t attend meetings at the moment, because I’ve fractured my right ankle, and can’t put any weight on that foot. I also can’t drive, not for at least a month or so from now, at the earliest. So I’ve had some time in hospital, to have an operation on the ankle, and now I’m resting and rehabilitating. I keep my right foot up a lot of the time during the day.

20191022_104035

This could have been a totally boring time, so I was thrilled to learn that the group wanted to meet at my place, once a fortnight, so I didn’t miss out completely. (The group meets every Thursday afternoon). So I do my homework every week, and get to read it out to the other group members, if I want to. This is a great way to keep on writing, in a creative way.

I could have been writing more of my current work in progress, of course, but at the moment, but head doesn’t seem to be thinking that way. I hope to get back on my cozy mystery series sometime again, but while I’m stuck at home, with Facebook and Twitter close at hand, they take up lots of time …

When my head finally decides it’s time to get back to my mysteries, I hope I can really get going with it! Do you have times like that too, when the time doesn’t seem right for a particular project? I’d love to know how it went for you, please feel free to leave a comment here!

 

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!