Tag: ideas

Cozy Mystery, Public Speaker

Excited About My Writing

carolyncordon

If a writer isn’t at least a little bit excited about their writing, is their really any reason to write? I’m talking about those of us who write for pleasure, rather than people who write reports for a living. People who do that could well still get a buzz out of writing a good report, but it may not live up to the huge boost of the writer who sells their first book.

Getting published is a huge rush of excitemnt for sure. Sharing our words with other, interested people, is a boost too, though, one that I definitely find exciting even after having done it for many years.

This writing prompt thing for all of February though, that’s something else entirely, sharing my love of words, and assisting other writers to come up with now ideas, brand new pieces of writing. Fabulous February I’ve been calling it, and I’m havng a good time with it, giving the writing prompt every morning, and then I’ve been using the new prompt myself to being a new piece of writing into the world!

Well eventually I will, if not straight away. When a poet is working to put together a poetry collection they need all of the inspiration and writing prompts they can find! And I am that poet, for sure. My poetry collection has a title, and it has some poems, it just needs more of them!

I’ve begun putting some of my brand new poems into the collection, and I’ve been thrilled at the way some of my new words fit in with the words already there. By the end of February, may there be at least twently more poems, to go wih other poems I have to include.

I’ve been looking through various places I have around the house with bags and folders, all with poems, pieces of writing that haven’t made it into anything yet, for one reason or another. Some of them where needing a little more work, others simply were misfiled, to be found later, perhaps edited a bit, made better, and woohoo, more poems to go into my new collection!

I also have a different writing project going on at the moment, and this is something I’ve been thinking about since last year, and was working on, but disaster struck, in the form of a broken ankle. This led to a brand new book, more poetry, this time a small collection, in the form of a chapbook, with 21 poems all about my broken ankle.

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So writing these poems was what I worked on from early October, until the book was published and launched in December. The book launch was certainly a good time, selling copies of my brand new book. But that excitement’s done now, time to go back to what I was working on, when my focus suddenly and painfully changed.

And what that project was, was the writing of a series of Cosy Murder Mysteries, all set in a fictictious town, which is modelled slightly on a town I know quite well. For this project I’ve used the same town and characters of something else I was working on last year, something that wasn’t working the way I’d hoped.

That other piece of writing wasn’t giving me a real buzz, not all of it. Working with the characters was good, exploring the town was, it was more that the genre of that book wasn’t working for me, it wasn’t something I read much myself, if at all. I wasn’t excited by it.

The idea of writing a series of Cosy Murder Mysteries, that certainly floats my boat! I can see myself in twenty years time, the beloved writer nearly fifteen mysteries in the ‘At Talloola’ Series with sleuth, Meredith Webster. I’ll be 76 then, and still working my way through my list of book titles, and I hope giving talks and workshops all around Australia, an internationally too. Haha, you gotta have a dream cos if you don’t have a dream, how’re gonna have your dream come true. (clumsily plagarised lined from that movie, you know the one)

Anyway, by then, Meredith will be living with her adviser in police matters, Travis, who by then will be the Mayor of Talloola, and Meredith will still be coordinating the town of Talloola, but as a retired lady of leisure … as well as still doing her samateur sluthing thing …

So that’s my career as a writer sorted out, and Meredith’s career as a fictional amateur sleuth sorted out too. There will be lots of things going on in my life and hers, “At Talloola”!

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 prompts

Fab Feb Writing Prompts – Day Three

carolyncordon

Things are coming along well, with this writing prompt month, words are being written, some good some maybe not so good, but it doesn’t matter, does it, because as long as they’re written, they can be edited and made better!

I’m keeping up, and writing my own new poems too, and hoping for the words keep on happening, both mine and those of others.

For the challenge today, there’s something a little bit different, it will be a phrase, rather than a single word, I don’t know how that is going to go, but the only way to find out is to try it, is it?

I’m accustomed to responding with creative words, or to phrases – our writing group does that every week, for the writing exercise we do on the day, or for homework, or both. So I hope you will give it a go, read the given writing prompt, and respond with creative writing!

I don’t have anything written in response to this prompt yet, but you can be sure I’ll definitely be writing something for it later on in the day … I have an appointment, and maybe it the wait goes on for a while, I’ll have my chance to get it written! Waiting acround for something, is never a bad thing, when you have some writing you want to do!

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So enough of the idle chit chat, time for the prompt for this third day of the Fabulous February Writing Prompt challenge, and here it is:

                                   Maybe I will, or maybe not …

 

Have fun, and let me know how you feel about this, rather than a single word, if you have an opinion about it, one way or the other …

poetry, writing exercise, writing prompts

Today – Writing Prompts Begin!

carolyncordon

Today is the first day of February, and is the first day of the Fabulous February, Prompt of the Day fun! I hope you will join in, check out daily, what the prompt of the day is, and write something new, based on the prompt of the day.

I’m excited about this idea, and hope to have lots of people come along and get involved too! Sometimes all it takes is a random prompt and the words can begin to flow! So lets all have a Fabulous February, with the words Flowing Freely, every single day of February.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

And on that note, a poem, the first of many for February, I hope, an important poem, that tells you what the first prompt of this project is! So, take a look, read the poem, and go!

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The First Prompt for Fabulous February!

 

Excited by the fun, I jumped the gun – 

got mixed up with the days,

now, laughter at my silly ways.

 

All good now, and I humbly bow …

please settle for the start,

prepare to take part …

 

This month long task, a bit of an ask

but I’m good and ready

my resolve is steady

 

For Twenty-Twenty, I’ve Vision aplenty –

let’s have a ball, 

with poetry for all!

 

Switch the creative light on, what do you write on?

A secret, to hush?

No, the first prompt is – RUSH!

 

 

So there it is, I’m ready, and I hope your’re ready too, to get your writing happening, creaticely, for every day in February!

Yes, I’ve had a RUSH of ideas, and I hope it brings cheers!

 

poetry, writing prompts

Creative Writing Prompts, Soon!

carolyncordon

Yes it’s true, a month’s worth of Creative Writing Prompts are starting tomorrow, the 1st of February! I jumped the gun a little yesterday, and the first prompt, which I will be showing on this blog tomorrow, the 1st of February, very much is to blame for the previous post. I was very excited and got mixed up with my days, yesterday. Under control again now though!

I’m going to explain it in a poem, which I’ll post on this blog site, for the big announcement tomorrow morning! There are no special prizes offered by me, not financial ones anyway. Connecting with other writers who love to write, and who also love to help others to write, that is a prize worth having, I say!

I am that writer and an informal teacher, and the thougth that other poets and writers may write some fantastic work, if they take part in any or all of these writing prompt challenges geiven here this month excites me and fills me with joy! So, if you love to write, or think you’re love to, then please log in here every day, if you can, see what the writing prompt for the day is, and write!

If you can’t log in every day, you can still take a look later, see what you think, and write when you have the time, and inclination. I’m going to try to write something new, in response to the prompts, every single day, and I hope I can write some fine poetry!

I hope the same thing for anyone else who takes part in this month of Prompts – together lets all make February Fabulous!

If you think ypu’d like to take part in this Fabulous Fun February, why not leave a comment here, and we can get to know a little bit about each other, and what, if anything, we wish to achieve.

I’ll get things started:

I am Carolyn Cordon, President of Adelaide Plains Poets, who meet every Thursday afternoon for a writing meeting, in a particular hotel in Gawler.

I have written and published eight books, three of them poetry collections, and I wish to have another, bigger poetry collection, later this year, or next year. (My most recent poetry collection was a chap book, with only 21 poems in it, all on one subject matter, and I plan for a larger and more broad-ranging collection for my next one.

I wrote my first decent poem in my early years of high school, then poetry fell off mostly, until I had a huge life challenge,and needed poetry again. After that, poetry and creative writing have taken over more and more of my life, and I love it!

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Your turn know, please leave your own message, telling your poetry story!