Category: Writing

inspiration, New Ideas, Writing, writing prompts

Thoughts? Or Writing Ideas?

carolyncordon

Promises are dreams whose time is yet to arrive.

If it is said, that doesn’t mean it can be done. Or does it?

Celebrations – a person is born, another person dies.

Cloudy skies may bring rain, rain brings life to plants, and death too, to some.

If all dreams came true, that would create a crazy mixed up life wound up with paradoxes.

One hair. It can mean and do so many things. How many can you think of?

Flowers, beautiful, yes? But in picking them, we hasten their death.

A hound running free is a beautiful sight. Unless it’s your dog, and it’s supposed to be inside.

So many great inventions can lead to death of the user. Why don’t we ban inventions?

Should dumb people be required to be treated with extra kindness, or laughed at?

If you found that previous one offensive, write about the reason/s why.

How many items in the image can you name?

If you can name them, what would you do with them, in a piece of writing?

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I came up with this semi-random set of writing prompts today, and if I ever run out of things to write about, I know I can look at this list, and there will be something to write about. Surely if I can do this in about half an hour, which includes the time it took to prepare my lunch of bits and pieces that are in that bowl, then I can always finbd things to write about.

If I can do this, can you do it too? How do you find things to write about? Do you struggle with that idea, or is it easy? I’d love to know your answer to the question, please leave your answer in the comments!

Uncategorized, Writing

Considering Options …

carolyncordon

Having options, thinking about them, talking about them with others who’ve done the same kind of thing before, these are always good things to do, no matter how you feel about how things are going. But even if you think about it and discuss it, but stay with the same mindset, it’s still a good thing.

If the thing you are thinking about doing in the same way as usual, still seems like the easiest way, and especially if it already something you know how to do, and have done successfully in the past, then, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? I think so. And because I think how I’m looking at doing things a particular in the future, because they’ve worked in the past, then I’m staying with that.

Thinking about it is a good thing. Thinking is a good thing. Doing things the same way, always with never any further consideration about other methods, that isn’t a good thing at all. I’m a writer, I write things, and work to have them published, in various ways. I’ve self-published, I’ve been published by professional publishers. I’ve made money in both of these ways.

One of the methods is simpler in many ways, put together a collection of my poetry, send it to a poetry publisher and wait. Simple. Or write something else entirely, put it together into a book format, or as close as I can get to that, have a friend do illustrations, wait while they happen, put the illustrations into the proposed book, look at it, make it as good as i can, take it to the printer, work with them, get it printed.

I’ve used both of these methods. The ‘do it myself’ version was early on in my writing career, and it went so well, I went on to do two more books in a series, with another book being thought about, and will happen, at a later stage. This Covid-19 pause in our lives has slowed the progress on that, and so has the other project I’m working on, which is actually Covid-19 related.

Self-publishing means self-promoting as well, and at the moment, self-promoting for me is limited to doing things on Social Media, and I’m doing that, to some extent. I’m not selling thousands of books, constantly, but apart from my most recent outlay, I’m well in front with money going out and money coming in, for my self-publishing endeavours.

With my own books, I have very small print runs, so I don’t end up burdened with lots of boxes filled with thousands of books. Instead, I order a hundred if I have a bigger event to attend, and fifty if I’m only ‘topping up’ what I have left. I usually have copies of my books with me if I go out anywhere I might have an opportunity to find a book buyer. In my self-published books, I cover a range of topics, from serious, to amusing – sexual abuse, chronic illness, and most recently, my broken ankle at the serious side, to various angles on dogs being dogs, at the amusing side.

In my published by trade publishers, I have a children’s school reader, and two poetry collections, one about the animals I come across in my life, the most recent, about my broken ankle. Both of these books are available from me, and from Ginninderra Press.

So given that my books are ‘out there’ and available, and bearing in mind that my printer of choice is in a town I visit at least once a week, I am extremely content with my chosen path with my self-publishing endeavours, and with Ginninderra Press, with the two books of mine they have published – Tense and Still, and Angles on Ankles.

But talking with my friend the other day about some of these issues was a pleasant lunch time meeting up, with lovely food bought from a sweet little cafe in a lovely town not too far away from my home. Freeling was the town, and even though I live relatively close to that town, I certainly don’t know it very well. I saw more of it than I have at any other time, mostly because I forgot to bring my mobile phone, and neglected to check the details of my friend’s address.

I thought I knew her address, but even though I had the street name correct, I got the number wrong initially, I had remembered to bring my laptop with me so was able to check the correct number and I found her place then. All was well. Getting the address correct is a good thing, if you need to find where you want to go!

The road I was looking for is the main road in Freeling, Hanson Road, and because it’s the main road, there are no signs telling the ignorant visitor that is the road they’re driving on. So even though I was moderately confident I was on the ‘right track’, it was still a little unnerving to be out without my phone and a little bit unsure of where I was and where I was going … Not lost, but unnerved for sure. It all turned out fine though.

Have you ever had that kind of experience? I actually knocked on a couple of doors, to perhaps get some help, but no-one answered my knocking. I’m glad that didn’t matter. Why not tell me your horror ‘lost’ story, I’d love to commiserate with you!

Writing

I Love the English Language, but …

carolyncordon

Yes, as a writer, I adore our language, the way it changes, and grows, taking bits from here and there, and using them in sometimes different ways. And the sounds of words, too, when they fill the mouth with the essence of the meaning of a word, accidentally, perhaps, or maybe on purpose.

The word SCRATCH, for instance, compared to the word MAMA. One of those words is painful and nasty, the other word feels like a warm hug from a beloved parent. Do you agree? Of course, knowing the meanings might taint my attitude, but even so, say the words out loud, and you’ll get what I’m saying, I’m sure. Words have power beyond their meaning …

Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash

And speaking of meaning, I had the most weirdly interesting use (misuse?) of a word. It’s one I’ve never encountered before, and suspect I may not ever again, unless it were to take off amongst a certain group of writers, Spammers. I was checking the spam on my website/blog, and came across a sentence, and had to share it with my writing friends here. Is it a brave attempt to reshape a word, or is it simply misuse of a word by a person whose first language isn’t English?

This is the sentence, picked out of the spam post, and copied, just before I deleted the spam. “I did however expertise several technical issues using this web site, as I experienced to
reload the website many times previous to I could get it to load properly.”

It’s an awkward sentence for sure, but really, a brave attempt, I suppose to make a person want to use the spammer’s expertise to fix a problem. But they’ve confused two words, using ‘expertise’ when they obviously meant ‘experience’, and then they use ‘experienced’ incorrectly when ‘tried’ would have been a better word for what they meant. And then they made a mish-mash of the final part of the sentence. With ‘previous’ instead of ‘before’ and ‘to’ instead of ‘so’.

I’m not laughing at this person, or trying not to. If I had to write anything in a language other than English, my attempts would be equally as dodgy, I suspect. But if this person had stuck to smaller words, they may have been more successful. Short words, when used correctly, have far more gravitas than longer words used incorrectly.

I’d love to have some comments about this from my writing friends here, lets have some fun with words. Who has a favourite word they’d like to share? I like the word softly, said in a gently voice, with the ‘s’ extended, like a blanket, and the ‘of’ sound, a person snuggling down and the ‘tly’ sound the blanket being tucked in …

Tell me about your favourite word, I’d love to hear about it!

meaning in life, Uncategorized, Writing

Finding Meaning …

carolyncordon

I’m finding some sense of control, as I work through putting together this anthology “Plague Invasion – Creative Writing Responses to Covid-19”. I can do this one thing, and I can stay at home to do it, and that’s what I know how to do, staying home and putting words into order.

my view if I get off my bum and look … part of our front yard

It helps me to do this, and I hope it’s helping those who are getting working on it with me, writing their own story about how their life is right now. These are not good times. Stay safe, maintain your social distance with other people, wash your hands …

And if you write anything that relates to Covid-19, and would like to share your words with others, please consider submitting it to me!

My view out in the front yard again. I love these lovely tall pine trees, that the Galahs also love, when it’s time to check out the pine cones in the trees, to eat pine nuts.

As in the image just above, the creatures are going on with things, finding food and shelter where they can, and they’re not having to thing about this pandemic that humans are having to think about, and deal with. Animals have their own things to worry about, and that road just outside of our driveway, has often been a sad scene, when the Galahs are eating the pine nuts, from cones knocked down onto the road, and fall victim to a car. Life and death, right there …

It saddens me to see that, but well, we have to die from something, and chowing down on food you enjoy eating, would be a good enough time to die. It would be quick, and so painless, I hope. I wouldn’t want to die that way, and really, can’t see any point in thinking about how I may eventually die. I just hope it doesn’t happen for a long, long time.

But back to more positive thoughts. I hope we can get through this together, doing the best we can. And I want to catch up with friends again, and share hugs with them!

inspiration, Writing

Do Writers Need to be Good at Waiting?

carolyncordon

When you’re writer, there are many times you might have to wait. You wait for the Muse to visit, you wait to find the time to write, you wait to hear back for feedback, you wait to hear whether your submission was accepted.

Then if your work is accepted, you wait for the publisher to do their bits and pieces, until the book is printed. Then it may be that waiting stops, and you are in full-mode marketing of your book, or maybe not. Either way, a part of you will be waiting to get back to your next writing project.

Every star has a story!

And then, when you actually get back to that next project, the wait for your Muse, and the ideas, and then the feedback, etc, etc, comes again. This could be tedious, but if you’re a clever writer, you have a secret weapon. And that secret weapon is that you never actually stop thinking about writing! Yay to that!

Well, actually, calm down a bit … It’s probably a good idea, rather than always be thinking about writing, actually living a life worth writing about, could be the best thing ever. If you can do that, you will be living such a good life, that there is no room for anything tedious. And how do you manage to live that good life?

Living a life, gathering ideas, getting ready to write!

Do the things that interest you, amuse or enthrall you, that confuse you, intrigue you, irritate or bemuse you. Live a life that brings puzzles to be solved, reasons to be bold, challenges, triumphs, but losses too, so that you understand the points of view of everyone who may ever be found in something you might write about.

Books, whether fiction or non fiction, work best if there are winners and losers, heroes and villians, loves lost, loves found. These things make the world of your writing go around, living, and breathing, and above all, worth writing and definitely worth reading!

Well, have you ever thought about why you write? If you have, but don’t know the answer, that’s fine. If you haven’t, because you think the answer doesn’t matter, that’s fine too. The reality of it is that most writers write because it’s the thing that brings them the most joy, than means the most to them, that is the thing that makes them feel like they’re doing the thing that matters the most to them.

If you’re one of those people who writes, a writer, then everything you do is really a gathering of more material, to use when you can next get your words written down, so there isn’t really any ‘waiting’ as such, you just need to be good at using time in the best way you can, to add the most to your writing.

The time in between shouldn’t be considered useless waiting time, but useful gathering time, living your best life, thinking about it, and putting what you have gathered into what you are currently writing. And if you aren’t actually writing anything, are you sure about that? Maybe there’s a spot at the back of your mind that’s busily putting X and Y together, and coming up with story Z!

Getting story Z written should be you most important thing, you know that, don’t you? Your mind had done the work behind the scenes, but you need to drag it from the back of your mind, into the forefront of your mind, so you can look at what you have, and write that story, book, poem, article, whatever your next thing is.

So make the time, give that next writing thing what it deserves, your attention. Whether you work full time, part time, or not at all, but have this or that, in other commitments, realise what you most need to do to do the best you can for yourself, and give yourself time to write. Don’t wait for the time, make the time. It’s your life, and you are a writer, so don’t wait for the best time, the best time is right now, so write!