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!
Words, they’re our tools, aren’t they, for us writers? We wield them, wave, them, weave with them, making our message, our thoughts and ideas come forward in a way others can read, hear, understand, and if needed, action.
I am a writer, and poet, I write fiction and non fiction, some of my words are published, some not, or not yet. The words I write, or put together, from others, that give me the most satisfaction though, are the words inside a newsletter, the Mallala Crossroad Chronicle. I’ve been the sole editor of this for over ten years, spreading the news of Mallala around the town, and beyond.
Mallala is the closest town to where I live, only 6 km away, and I am glad to be doing this appreciated task for everyone. The Chronicle is also a fund-raiser for my writing group, and helps to pay the prizes for the winners of our national poetry competition. I’m also pleased that I am able to give writers I know, the opportunity to write articles for the Chronicle each month. Sharing in this way makes it easier for me, and better for them!
They don’t get paid for their articles, but they have the knowledge that the words they write, will be read by a willing audience. And isn’t that why we right? To have our words read? Getting those thoughts out of our heads and onto the page or screen that’s important too, but writers who don’t wish to have an audience for what they write are in the minority, I feel. Some writing can be written as ‘narrative therapy’ at first, but even if we never intended those particular words to ever be read by someone else, they so often have our strongest, and most compelling words.
This narrative therapy writing can help a writer to connect with a new community, a community of people who know the truth of what you were writing about, because they are suffering in the same ways you are. True connections made, and friendships can happen too, because sharing personal truth with another person, isn’t that what the best friendships have, deep down. They might wander off to coffee and cakes, but at the beginning are those true stories you’ve shared wither each other …
Coffee and churros, I was there with a true friend …
And now, speaking of true stories, takes me to the other reason I am writing this blog post. At the moment, in late April 2020, the world is largely in lock down, and working from home, unless their work is considered to be ‘essential’. Covid-19 is a virus that is more deadly than the flu, and has killed many people around the world. I had the idea that this was an important time, and the things, and ideas written at this time, would become historically important.
And so began “Plague Invasion – Creative Writing Responses To Covid-19”. I began asking for writers and poets to submit their words about this, on this blog with this post, and things have gone on from there. I was just reading through my blog posts, looking for that one that I just put the link up too, and it was interesting reading them all. I was hovering on the edge of pausing my other writing project, not really wanting to get stuck properly into it, and then, Bang, the anthology took over.
That’s how it feels. This Plague Invasion anthology idea has taken over my life. Normal things are no longer possible, not in this lock down phase, but I can call for submission of creative writing relating to Covid-19, for sure. It seems to have stepped up as the most important thing I can do write now. Writers are those who have a need to write, and editors are the people who work to help writers to get their words ‘out there’.
So if you’re a writer, with things you want, or need to share with others, please consider the Anthology I’m working on. It will become a book. I have a strong passion to make that happen, I have enough money to make it happen, it will happen. I hope you want to help, and will send in your poetry or prose concerning Covid-19, and we can make the book happen together.
I don’t know how long it will take to have this anthology put together and printed. I’ve written on this blog that I will go on accepting work until the end of July this year. So that will mean it won’t be ready to be published, and have copies of the book available until closer to the end of this year … Will the Covid-19 thing all be over and forgotten about by then? I don’t think so. I think it will still be very much with us. And books such as this one I will produce will be there, to remind us about this time, so the truth of it is never lost, hidden by the ‘official’ story.
write it down, get it out!
So write your own true Covid-19 words, and know you are helping to record history, for yourself, for your community, and for us all.
For some people their family,and caring for them gives a meaning to their life, for others it’s their job, or the work they do when they’re home from work – volunteers. For parents raising their child or children brings meaning to their life …
At various times in our lives we would answer this question differently, and all of those answers could be true, for that particular time. But what does ‘having a meaning’ actually mean? And what does Life mean? Making it to work five days a week, for as long as we have a particular job, is that a life with meaning? Is work an overarching worthy thing for a person to do? Yes, for sure, for some people, with some jobs, that could be true.
For others, work is merely the thing that pays for the important things in their live the things that mean the most to them, the things that bring meaning to their lives. We are all alive, but for some, truly living a life is a dream, and they are merely existing, rather than living. I’ve had a full time job early in my life. I worked as a clerical assistant, going straight from finishing high school, to working in an office in a government department.
At that time, I certainly didn’t feel it gave a meaning to my life. I liked the money, I liked the friends I made at work, but it was only a job, it didn’t feel like it was giving me a meaning in my life. I was existing, and I was learning how to be an adult. The meaning there for me, was to move from child to grown up, and do my work as best I could. No overarching meaning that felt overwhelmingly important.
Then I met the man who became my husband, and we began showing dogs together. For many people, being involved in the dog show world, and breeding dogs gives their life a meaning. They give their all to their dogs, and working their way to the top of the ladder, in Dog Show terms. Becoming a judge, travelling the world to judge the dogs of others, becomes a greater meaning for them. That was never a thing that felt like a thing I wanted to give my all too, and so wasn’t worried when we gave that world away.
Dog showing for some years was a fun thing to do, we made some friends, won ribbons, bred dogs, became friends with some of the people who bought dogs from us, but it wasn’t a thing with meaning for my husband and I. It was fun for a while, but we weren’t upset to give it all away. We had a son, we had other things that were or more interest to us than winning ribbons with our dogs was. Our son, being parents to him, gave us a far more overwhelming meaning to our lives.
Our son has grown up now, and is living his own life. Being a parent is now a different thing, not an overwhelmingly important thing. We succeeded in raising him to be a good person, and he is his own person now, a friend, as well as our son, but not again, not an overwhelming thing in my life, not anymore. Being his mother when he was young certainly was, but is no longer. I’m his mum we love each other, and that’s good, but not huge.
I have other things I do, now, and my writing life grows ever larger for me. Writing, bringing new books into the world, and being involved with others who do the same, that brings meaning to my life. Sharing my words, though my writing, that feels like the meaningful life for me, for sure. Connecting with other people who care about thoughts, and sharing their thoughts through their words, these things feel good, very important things.
And writing now, through this blog, has now stepped up another mark. In the light of the coronavirus, in the shape of Covid-19, we are all now living different lives, lives in Lock Down, or in essential services, when any connection may bring the virus and its consequences into our lives. Having a chronic illness that could potentially mean I may face bigger danger than others, perhaps, has meant I’m taking this isolation seriously, for sure.
But in my isolation, I’ve had more time to think about the important things in life, in my life, and in my thinking, I realised their was a thing I could do, a big thing, that could bring more meaning to my life. I love my life, but is there big thing there, a thing I do that brings greater meaning to my life? Perhaps not, but now, this new thing, could be that thing.
I came up with a phrase, it lit up my brain, and so began my current obsession, that of producing an anthology that looks at the locked in lives and the possibility of being sick from, or dying from Covid-19. The phrase was ‘plague invasion’, and so started this book – “Plague Invasion – Creative Writing Responses to Covid-19”.
But an Anthology needs words, many more than an idea, and a title, and so began my call to the world – send me your words, in the form of poetry and/or prose, and I will consider your words, and make this now book, an exciting relevant and important look at an historic time in the lives of us all, one that will go down in history, to be remembered, and written about further, perhaps referring to the Anthology I will produce and publish.
So if you’d like to become a part of the written history of this time, check out the details about this book here, and we’ll make history together!
These Lock Down times are leading many, many of us to think hard about what we are doing, and ways we could be doing it better. We may be stressing about things, worried about our health, and health of others. We may be having to work and not liking to, or working and wishing we weren’t.
Times at the moment are different for all of us in Western Nations. Things are scaled back, and we are missing out on many things. Some of those things, we may have realised, weren’t as necessary as we’d thought, and we’re learning to manage in other ways. Other things may still feel necessary, and we feel we’re missing out, because we can’t get them.
It may be a time to look at how our pets manage their days. I look at my dog, and from what I’ve seen, her life is more or less the same as it was before Covid-19 came into our lives. The main difference, is that my husband and I are home even more than we were previously. We are both retired from work though, so that’s not that surprising.
At this time of year, my husband would usually be out all afternoon on a Saturday, playing Lawn Bowls, and I would be out on Thursday afternoon at my writing group. We are both now home, instead. And from a dog’s point of view, having the humans at home is always a good thing. Humans mean pats, and food, and the door opened to go out, and then to come back in again.
Missy isn’t that keen on her new ‘friend’, we think it’s cute though!
There will be a time though, when sports happen again, and catching up to have a meeting in a hotel will be allowed. My writing group have been meeting online, and have discovered some interesting differences in how we do our meetings when together in person, rather than together online, some of which are better. There are some troublesome aspects of the online meeting, though, or if not troublesome, then definitely very different.
One thing I feel many of us are missing though, the friendly touches, the hugs, the pat on the shoulder, the smiles and the silly things. You can’t do these things in a virtual world. And if you can’t see each other, you miss out on many nuances of what is happening in a conversation.
Shopping, that’s been a strange thing too. Having supermarkets run out of necessary goods, that was definitely a new, and very much unwanted thing. Will 2020 be remembered as the year we ran out of toilet paper, and couldn’t get any more?
Some of my ‘stash’
My feelings about this time, are that many of use realised the importance of being together with friends, and looking out for each other. And it’s been a time of valuing and appreciating the small things others do for us, when they can. Life is different, and in some ways, the new way of things is better, less impatient, more forgiving, more thoughtful. I think time spent ‘locked in’ at home, without a job to go to, has given us both permission and time, to finally do things we’ve wanted to try in the past, but couldn’t.
Being able to finally do these things, is definitely a positive thing. Personally, I have begun working on an Anthology, based around the creative writing responses of writers to “Covid-19”. It feel as though this time has been waiting for me to do something big, and I feel like I must do this. At the moment, I have only only ten or so pieces for this Anthology, but I can feel there is a great upswell of thoughts and ideas, creative writing, that can, and will fill, the pages of this Anthology.
As soon as I came up with the title, I know I had to do this. “Plague Invasion” was the phrase that hit me, and I’ve now taken it up as definitely the title of my new word-related thing. I’ve since expanded the title to “Plague Invasion – Creative Writing in Response to Covid-19”, to make it clear what the work is all about. But the responses I’ve received so far, and my own written responses, are different, as our lives and responses to these times are also different.
I’ve read comments that these times are an introvert’s version of perfect times, and an extrovert’s version of hell, and I suppose there’s truth to that idea, but introverts don’t hate people, most of them, they just like alone time, more than extroverts do. Extroverts like to talk, to discuss things, all things, and to get ides from others and what is happening all around them. These, of course are generalisations, as is my thought that introverts are more like cats, and extroverts dogs, particularly happy bouncing ones, bounding constantly from one thing to the next.
Cats would be troubled perhaps by having so many people in the house, when they were used to many ‘alone’ times, and dogs happy to have their humans with them so much more … When (if) things change, who will be grateful for the change, and will things actually to back to how they were before, I wonder? What caused this? Could it have been stopped? Is mankind in some way to blame, or at least a little complicit. These are questions that will go on being considered, written about, and discussed for a long time. That’s what I think.
And for those who feel these current troubles have hidden away concerns about Global Climate change, I suspect the two things are far more connected than many realise, and those things that tie the two together will be subject to many more discussions and ideas. Times are achanging that’s for sure, can they ever really go back to how they were? And if they can, who really wants that? Do you? I don’t, not entirely. We have the chance to hold onto what we’re now learning about ourselves, and the world and new and better futures for ourselves and our planet. Are you up for the challenge of it?
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!
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 