Tag: community

poetry

Real Friends Help Out

carolyncordon

When things go pear-shaped, life makes a strange turn, and life is suddenly nowhere near as rosy as you’d like it to be, that’s when you might discover new things about people you’ve known, but not really known, for a long time.

This was certainly true of the person in this poem, both of us knowing each other through our children, and our children’s primary school years. The friendship there, always, but not deep, until the sudden need, brought on by my accidental fall, and ensuing incarceration in my own home, unable to get outside of the house by myself.

Sharon stepped up, willingly, and ably assisted me, using her work skills in a far less formal setting, and I am very grateful to her for what she has done for me, and further, for what she has indicated she will be happy to do, whenever its needed in the future. That’s what friends are, people who step forward and say, yep, I can help with that, no worries.

In small communities there are many people like this, sharing stories, helping out, swapping garden tips and cuttings, sitting together for coffee and chat, or sight seeing the town looking at the flowers. There will always be someone who’ll say, ‘I can help you with that,’ and connections strengthen, bringing good things to everyone involved. Life is good, even with a broken ankle!

 

 

Female Friends – for Sharon

Speaking of my breasts to my friend

a natural progression of our conversation

nothing tawdry, or lewd, merely an odd thing

a symptom of something, and not a sex thing … 

Apparently being overmuch at rest, skin on skin, 

causes such things, red rash, no itch, but odd.

‘I’m putting something on it’ I say, cortisone

she nods her approval, conversation drifts 

and we both agree that we really should 

do coffee and chat more often, whether or not

my ankle is broken, and I’m in need of company,

keeping sadness at bay – depression known to us both.

Friends with knowledge of life, of nursing, of what

things really are all about, they’re the best thing

a woman can have, when times are troubled

and you need a lift, in the car and in spirit.

© 2019 Carolyn Cordon

Cozy Mystery, meaning in life

From Poet to Writer of Cozy Mysteries?

carolyncordon

OK, so I’m relatively well known, in certain circles, as a poet, with two published poetry collections, and single poems published in various places, as well as a good many unpublished poems written. I like writing poetry!

I also have a first draft of a novel for children, that may never go anywhere, which is a little sad, I think, but not sad enough for me to actually do anything about it, not at the moment, anyway. I also have an unfinished novel, a thriller, that I have decided, just a few days ago, that will never ever be sent to a publisher, and I am not unhappy about that, not at all.

I love my main character (Meredith Webster) from that unfinished novel, and I love my other characters, and I absolutely adore the setting. I just don’t feel the ‘thriller’ genre is one that will work for me, it’s a little bit too much for me, getting the thriller aspects written. It isn’t a genre I’m drawn to as a reader, so the idea of doing it as a writer was probably not a great idea.

I do like murder mysteries though, to read. I started my serious reading life as an eleven or twelve year old lover of Agatha Christie’s cozy murder mysteries, but never thought of writing anything in that genre, until just the other day, when I had a brilliant thought. What about, I thought, I have Meredith, my main character in my thriller, as an amateur detective, solving murders that happen in her little town of Talloola? This feels to me like I have a new meaning in my life!

I did a little bit of study (ie, googled it) and discovered the name of the ideal genre for this, “Cozy Mystery”, and BANG! I had my answer on what to do with my failed wannabee Thriller, and all of the work I’ve already done with it. I have thousands of words written with my main character, other characters, and my setting, and if I can find ways to use them, I won’t have been wasting my time, I’ve simply been exploring my options.

So, at the beginning of this week, I began my proposed new career as a writer of Cozy Mysteries! I’ve got a list of over ten books, with ideas for most of them, and the order of publication organised for the first few books already. I’ve even begun writing the first two books, have planned how many words there will be for each book, how many chapters and how many words in each chapter. This feels like it’s going to work, and I’m excited!

I’ve been an avid reader of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series of books, and I’m looking forward to becoming known as Carolyn Cordon, with my series of Meredith Webster books, set in the fictional town of Talloola in the mid north region of South Australia. If this sounds exciting to you, it feels a gazillion times more exciting to me!

I love doing this writing, it flows along easily, and I am so much enjoying my writing of this. I loved doing the little pieces I’ve been doing at my weekly writing group, my friends there were always interested to hear what I was writing using the prompts given at the group, that I would write about, thinking on how they could relate to my thriller main character, and others in that unfinished book.

So now I can think about possible cozy mystery ideas and Meredith from now on, and it will be an easy way to get bits of writing done, with stories fleshed out, and new ideas played with. I’ve change the point of view too – the thriller was in Third Person POV, the cozy thrillers are in First Person POV. I’m very much enjoying pretending I’m an amateur sleuth!

dog pet cute
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Some of Meredith is like me, some isn’t, but she’s someone I can imagine being friends with. We both love dogs, although she’s never actually had one of her own. She has  special way with them though, and that is an asset in her mystery solving, at times. It also means she has someone to talk through her ideas with, which means the reader, as well as the dog currently with her, can follow her thought processes too, as she works on finding out who done it!

poetry, Writing

Festival Fun!

carolyncordon

The Adelaide Plains Poets writing group, has been running a ‘Festival of Words’ for the past 5 years. This is certainly a thing to be proud of, and the fact we have made a profit every year, gives us one more thing to be proud of.

This year, 2019, we are going to have a Festival over 5 nights and days, and venturing into new events and new venues, as well as the usual ones. It is getting close to Festival time, and I am proud to present our program, here:

http://festivalofwords.info/programme.html

This Festival is put on by a small writing group, but a group that is not afraid to take on challenges. We have a sub-committee who are doing great things, to make this Festival one that brings an exciting mix of word related events, written, spoken, with writing workshops, writing exercises, a Keynote Speaker of note, and a fun train journey!

And throughout the festival, friendship and food feature, at various venues in the Greater Adelaide Plains region. The event will be opened by the Mayor of Gawler, Karen Redmond, who has been extremely supportive of our group, and especially of this Festival.

The theme of this Festival is Location, and it is an interesting one again. We pride ourselves of the interesting themes we have for our Festivals. One of the important things our writing group does is to run a national poetry competition, which has the same theme as the Festival. The winners of the Poetry Competition are announced on the final day of the Festival, with the winning poems being read at the Gawler Poets at the Pub, with will be the final event for the Festival.

This Gawler Poets at the Pub event began more than twenty years ago, and is still going strong. There isn’t always a large number of attendees, but the quality of the poetry read is always high.

If you’re anywhere near Gawler toward the end of July this year, make sure you check out the Program, and find something interesting to do, you’ll be glad you did!

 

 

Writing

What Community Means To Me

carolyncordon

Community is one of the overarching important things in my life, and perhaps in your life too. The idea of ‘community’ is about, being there and helping others, getting together to get things done, enjoying good times, cleaning up messes when things go wrong.

A good community will be made up of many people who are always happy to get involved. Volunteers, and organisations and businesses to help those volunteers get their volunteer work done, whatever it is.

20190405_102110-STYLE
Canna, given to us by a neighbour

I live near a small town Mallala that has an aging population, but with many, many volunteers. These people are members of various groups, filling committees and giving their best, with no expectation of anything, beyond good feelings for how it makes them fee, when they are doing their volunteer duties.

imag0226_1Mallala has various community groups, all of them ‘watched over’ by Council, with a very light hand most of the time. This is a relatively new thing, having Council closely involved, but it seems to go well enough.

We have a Museum in Mallala, that is very well regarded, and has many bus tours coming along to see the great collection they’ve put together there. Our Bowling Club does well, when events are held there, the various other sports seem to be well run too. When the community gets organised, they can go on, doing bigger and better things, or doing the small things exceptionally well. That is my town, that is the Mallala community!

 

Gawler is my community too. The writing group I’m involved in meets in a hotel in Gawler every Thursday. This hotel, the Prince Albert Hotel, is also home to the monthly poetry ready we hold on the last Sunday of every month, and we sometimes use the Gawler Community House to record pod casts to the Gawler Broadcasting Association, where we talk about what we’ve been doing, and other interesting things in relation to writing.

imag0049I feel at home in Gawler too, it’s good to be with people who know me and want to be friends with me! So I have a few places near where I live, where I feel I can get on with doing the things that interest me the most, and where my abilities are recognised as being useful to my community. These are surely necessary things, these are needed things, to help a person feel like they are worthy members of the community.

 

 

Writing

Branding -What Is My Main Focus?

carolyncordon

When a writer wishes to tell others what their writing is all about, it can sometimes seem they are a little bit of this, and that, a smidge of something else, and a morsel of something else. That’s not a useful description to be used for ‘Branding’ yourself in regards to your writing.

While it may be true, that you do a little of many things, it isn’t something a potential agent or publisher necessarily wants to hear. They may appreciate having a writer who can speak on many subjects, but they also want someone they can easily bundle up and present to the book buying public.

They want to be able to say something like: “Here is Author X, she writes brilliant thrillers,” for instance. But you might write thrillers, but also some romance, and haiku poetry, as well as some articles about your hang gliding adventures over the Murray River. How will they wrap up that oddly shaped and bulky package?

Perhaps a better way to look at “who you are” as a writer, could be to find a common thread that goes through all of your writing. So, yes you write all of those things, but you perhaps concentrate most, on finding the essence of the community, in all of the places you are writing about.

I suspect that would be my take on this subject, if I were to label my writing. I am focused on understanding how communities fit together, to get things happening. Communities such as where I live, the things I am interested in and the groups I deal with regarding those interests.

I write often about my life circumstances, in my various blogs, and there I find more community related things happening. My chronic illness, interest in dogs, gardening, and the sadder issue of sexual abuse, all of these things have connections with the overarching idea of ‘community’.

And of course the thing that takes up much of my time, is certainly intimately connected to community, and that is being the Editor of the Mallala Crossroad Chronicle. This newsletter is all about the community of Mallala, the biggest town close to where I live. I am writing a novel based on a town very much like Mallala, but with some differences to meet with various plot requirements.

My main character in that novel-to-be, works with council, and is working hard to get the best understanding on this new community she has moved to and is working with. The mythical town of “Talloola” is a community that is taking up much of my thinking, it being the town where that novel on its way is set in. Talloola is a bit like Mallala, a bit not like Mallala, but it is an important community to me, for sure.

So I happily and truly brand myself as “A writer with a strong focus on Community”.