Category: Writing

Writing

The Actual Book Is Taking Shape

carolyncordon

A book is made up of words, words placed in particular places, with particular purpose. For every book you need a title, if it’s an anthology you need a list of the contents inside the book, and the names of the writers of each piece inside. You may well have a foreword (written by someone other than the person writing the book), and an introduction (written by the author of the book).

And you need a front cover, something relevant and eye-catching. You also need a back blurb, that is short, and interesting enough to encourage potential readers to get the book, and read it. As the person editing this anthology, I have an idea for a possible front cover, and I may have a go at producing a photograph that will suit. (but I may not be able to get a good enough photo, it needs to be clear and sharp for the best result). I do, however have friends who are excellent photographers, wait and see what we might be able to come up with.

I spoke with one of my friends, at my writing group meeting (which are now happening online), and she is certainly keen on being involved, in fact also wishes to submit non fiction to this Anthology, as do some of the other group members. This is an exciting time for me, and I’m thrilled I have friends coming along with me!

I have another friend, who has written a blurb for me in the past, and I’m hoping he may well do the same again, when I ask him, which I’ll be doing soon. (I asked, and he said yes, yay!). What else does a book need? Well obviously, a book needs content, lots and lots of content. At the moment the draft copy of the book has the introduction, a few poems, and one piece of prose (the Introduction). It needs a lot more than just that. I have a vision of a book with at least around 76 to 80 pages, and hopefully more than that.

But for this to happen, I need other people to write on this compelling subject of this Coronavirus pandemic. There is much being written on Social Media, but that isn’t any good to me, I need things sent to me, if they’re to be printed in this book. I have a few things on offer from other people, and have had some encouragement about the need for a book like this, so that keeps me hopeful.

If you are interested in taking part in this exciting writing opportunity, please send your submission to kittycordo@gmail.com. The guidelines are:
3 poems (up to thirty lines each poem), and/or prose (up to three pieces, with total word count for the prose of 2,000 words).

Send you work as an attachment of an email, with the subject heading of – ‘Plague Invasion submission (your name)’

I know this is going to be a challenge, and will take time. But I have the time, and the determination, and so, it will happen, I will make sure of it! So keep an eye out for “Plague Invasion – Creative Writing Responses to Covid-19”.

This will NOT be the front cover image of the Anthology!

Cozy Mystery, Uncategorized, Writing

Locked In or Reaching Out?

carolyncordon

Even as we are (most of us anyway) in Locked in mode, keeping ourselves and others safe, by staying at home, most of the time. Many are bemoaning these scaled back quiet times, and they’re worried about not being able to work.

Not me though, and not many of my friends. A locked in life can feel like bliss, nothing you have to go out and do, the days are yours, to explore your writing options. The projects that had been put on hold, waiting for a time, when you actually had time, and suddenly, that time is now!

While many businesses have closed down, many publishers, especially small ones, are still very much at work, and they are able to go on doing their publishing thing, calling for submissions, receiving them, putting anthologies or other books together, then sending them off to be printed.

This is great news for many of us, and many of my friends are getting published, and we celebrate the good news with them, when they post the news on blogs, or on Social Media. But the sad part is there won’t be any Book Launches, where everyone comes together in the same room, words are read out, and hugs are given, food and drinks are consumed, and much chat happens.

No more. It is possible to still hold a book launch, one online, but many of the best elements are missing. There are no hugs, the purchaser is unable to watch as the writer of the book signs the new copy the purchaser has handed money over for. If books are purchased, it happens online, and there are definitely no hugs.

Personally, I’ve had two poems accepted by two different publishers, I’ve entered a short story in a competition, and I’ve written some more (but not enough) of my bigger work in progress. That work in (slow) progress is a Cosy Murder Mystery series. I have characters, and a setting, as well as many book titles and slight notes on what each book will be about. There are I think twenty books in the series. If I ever get them written, I expect I will be in my late seventies … This is not a bad thing necessarily, many authors of such books are more mature, they’ve lived lives, and know much about people, it’s all fine!

But the rate my writing of this series, I’m likely to be more like in my nineties. I sincerely hope the writing of Murder books helps to ward off dementia, because otherwise I’ll have no chance of making my way to the end of my list! Whether poetry, or mystery books, or anything else really, being locked in makes it all easier, with so much time available. Sadly, more time can also mean more things to procrastinate about.

And this crazy Covid 19 time, when there is non stop media about death rates, recovery rates, things to do, meals to make, cleaning to do, decades old boxes of ‘stuff’ to sort through, the dog to walk and feed, gardening to do, and so on. So tasks you’ve never had on your list of things to do may appear, and all of those things can stop the writing happening …

With no sense of routine, things can just drift away, things happen, but they don’t amount to much, and little or no writing is done. Where does the time go? It goes down the drain, and even though your house is clean, and dishes are done, with different recipes tried out now that time is there, sourcing ingredients might take more time than usual, and you may not be able to get those ingredients, so you have to find a different idea.

And no writing gets done … I’ve been able to get some sort of sense to things happening, by moving from breakfast table to laptop every morning, Emails read and dealt with, and then writing happens, most of the time. The writing might be a poem, a bit more of that novel, a blog post, something for the monthly community newsletter I edit, but writing. Words happen every day, and I am still a writer, just a locked down one.

My Locked in view …

If you have a plan that works for you at the moment, I’d love to read about your ideas, please leave a comment, and we can perhaps all get better at managing our time, and get some great writing done!

Cozy Mystery, Writing

Life Experience

carolyncordon

Fiction writers write fiction, there’s no doubt about that. But that fiction it it’s going to be read and appreciated, has to contain some kind of ‘truth’. If you have a character who has a certain job, for instance, you, as the writer, has to know enough about that job to make it seem ‘real’.

So learning about things, gaining a broad range of different life experience, it seems to me, is an important thing for the writer to do. Having an open mind, seeing various different points of view on many matters, these are important things as well. Remaining open to what life is all about, this is a good way for a writer to be, in my opinion.

What do you think I was up to in this photo? I was getting ideas to write about!

In my fiction, I plan to be writing about a small town, and things that happen in that small town. One of the important places in the Talloola, the town, is, or at least used to be, the bowling club. The Talloola Bowling Club is now the Talloola Bocce Club, and there was a lot of small town politics that happened there.

Small towns have many stories, and I intend having fun with Talloola, exploring all of the incidents that go on, those small town political things … My main character, Meredith, is new in town, and she and I will be learning all about what makes a town like Talloola tick. Oh, and there will be murders …

Hmm, what happened here?

I’m writing in the genre of ‘Cosy Murder Mysteries’, so of course people will be killed, and the killers be brought to justice. Meredith will be the person to do that, assisted by her sidekicks, Gert (the oldest person in Talloola), Travis (the deputy mayor), and various dogs around town.

Meredith has a special connection with dogs, an eerie understanding and connection. Dogs know and trust Meredith, she knows and trust them. Dogs are great at helping to sniff out clues, dig for evidence, and bring down those who would runaway from justice!

Don’t worry, the cops are onto it! Or are they?

Writing these books will draw on my experiences gained in my almost 57 years, about small towns, and bowling clubs, dogs, and people, as well as a great many other things that happen in a well rounded and open minded life … I’m looking forward to getting stuck into this series of books – I have many titles and short descriptions written down, as well as around 10,000 words written.

I’ll need a lot more words than that though, so getting stuck into it will have to happen, if I’m to meet my goal of becoming known as the writing of excellent Cosy Murder Mysteries!

If you love this genre, please leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!

Writing, writing exercise, writing prompts

Fab Feb Writing Prompts – Day Five

carolyncordon

As they say in the James Bond movie – Never Say Never!

Actually, feel free to say Never, say the word, and write about it! Today is the day for it, because the word NEVER is the writing prompt for today, the fifth day of February. It’s a trick word, never. We may say, in our earlier lives would never do this or that or the other, in our lives. But we grow up, see things, like things, accept things, and our thoughts  grow, and change, as we get older, living, leaning, losing, lazing about!

As youngsters, we have we may have declared, ‘I’ll never ever do that!’, only to realise, as you’ve aged, you’d be quite happy to do that thing now, because you can see the wisdom of doing that very thing, whatever it is.

For me, my personal most unfavoured food that I now love to eat, is mushrooms. I hadn’t self-declared as a no mushroom eater, when I was a child, as such, I simply never ate them, if and when, they appeared on my dinner plate. Then pizzas came into the world (or at least my pre-teen world) and I discovered that mushrooms are actually quite tasty!

food wood kitchen cutting board
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

So I went from never eating mushrooms, to eating these tasty and healthy foods quite often. So much for that word, never! 

Is there anything you never do, or never have done? Personally, I’ve never bungie jumped. I’m not saying I’ll never done it, and it’s difficult to see any circumstances occuring where I’ll have the opportunity to do it, but who knows, I might well give it a go!

Last year, I certainly learnt a lesson in using that word Never. My mother and I were chatting at our usual Friday catch up, about how neither of us had ever broken a bone, even though there were certainly times when we could have. And then, the next day, what did I do? I fell over and broke my ankle – in fact two bones in my ankle!
(If you want to, you can read more about it here, at another of my blogs.) That blog post, and many of the ones that follow are about my ankle, it was my major focus for the three months that followed. I’m going to be more careful about using this bog word, Never, in the future!

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ouch, my poor ankle! But hey, I’m a writer, and I wrote about my ankle, and had a book published with the poems I wrote when I was laid up, with instructions to not put any weight on my right foot! And here it is, my beautiful little book!

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If there’s anything you’ve never done, or would never do, are you sure about that? Never vote for ? or never have a ? as a pet? You never really know what might happen, how circumstances might change, and how your knowledge about things may change too, based on further relevant information. 

 

So today’s prompt, is ************** NEVER************ 

 

You could write a list poem, containing all of the things you would or wouldn’t ever do. 

Or you could write a list of ‘Never Do This’ things, make it sensible, or funny, give examples, save lives or make people giggle, take this any way you want. I would say ‘Never break your ankle!’

Or you could do something else entirely, based on your thoughts about that word, ‘Never’.

Writing

Why I Love Writing

carolyncordon

One of the reasons I really, really love being a writer, is the way an idea will suddenly burst out of my head, scattering metaphorical sparkling insight glitter over my day! It doesn’t happen every day, week, or even every month, but when it does, BANG my whole day is suddenly magical with the new idea!

I’m so thankful when these ideas come, and I try to make a note of them, so they don’t float away, like the clouds that promise rain, but take their precious moisture to somewhere else, and we miss out. I had an idea like this yesterday, and yes, I wrote it down, and I’m so glad I did.

The idea I wrote down is in relation to one of my writing projects, the biggest and most challenging idea I’ve had yet. This idea is the writing of a series of Cosy Murder Mysteries, many of them … This new idea I had today may mean a new book, when I already have titles and brief notes for nineteen different books … This is going to take me a long time to write, so I really should get started on writing the series, I think …

I don’t actually know if I’m going to write all of the books I have titles for, but I’m enjoying the whole idea of it, and I’ve written part of the first draft of the first two books. I feel like I’ve messed up a bit, though, and have to step away from the second book, and complete the first one, first, so I can set the tone for the entire series, but with hints and clues that there may be possible changes to come …

Moving from being a poet, to being a Cosy Murder Mystery writer isn’t that much of a change, words are the tools for both of these genre, and I’m a keen community member, and observer of people. The little town where these murder mysteries take place is a made up town, not a real one, but it bears a resemblance to another town I know quite well, not naming any names, though …

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The knowledge that I can go from poetry to murders, and enjoy them both, as well as the other things I write, non fiction, short stories, as well as blogging, what fun it is, keeping me connected with the literary world!