Tag: writing themes

New Ideas, Story Ideas, Uncategorized, Writing

Themes in a Writing Life

carolyncordon

I have been ‘a writer’ for perhaps twenty years. Over my time as a writer, I have written about a variety of different things. I tend to write about what my mind is connecting with, at the time, and I think about many things.

An early theme was Sexual Abuse, which resulted in both a poetry collection, and a blog. Another theme has been Dogs, and that has so far resulted in three books with at least one more book in the same series to be published perhaps next year. Since I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2010, I have published a book about it, and again, have a blog regarding that theme.

My current theme, one I have also begun a new blog about, is living a Stoic life. I began thinking about stoicism around two years ago, and I based much of my early thought around a book I received for my birthday last year (or it may have been a Christmas present). It is the book “How to be a Stoic” by Massimo Pigliucci, a well written book and very informative.

I am enjoying looking at my life, and considering it in regards to Stoicism. I wrote a blog post on my Stoic blog this morning, which shows this, I would love you to go there and read it, it tells a bit about me and how I live my life!

Being a writer means you have to have things to write about, and living a life made up of many different things means the range of your writing can be a diverse one. And exploring different genre means you have more options and avenues for your words. I am a writer, as I have said, and I write different things.

I am currently working on an adult novel, I have an idea for a Young Adult novella, I am a poet, I am a blogger, and I’ve written short stories too. I also have a memoir, which was the book mentioned previously, about multiple sclerosis. I am also the editor of a newsletter for the people living in the town closest to where I live, Mallala. This newsletter comes out monthly, and I enjoy putting it together, with my own writing, and the articles sent to me for it.

My life is one of writing, and also of working with and for my various communities. It is a good, simple, and Stoic life, and I love it!

poetry

A Happy Coincidence

carolyncordon

Today was a pretty full on day, with weather that acted against doing too much. I have a chronic illness that means I am particularly badly affected by being too hot, and the summer we’re having at the moment in my part of South Australia is hot, perhaps the hottest ever, or at least since Australia was settled by white people.

When you know what your limitations are, you learn how to deal with them , so that’s what I did, I spent a minimum of time outside in the heat, staying inside as much as possible, where it was nowhere near as hot, then drove, in my air-conditioned car, to

Anyway, I got to the usual writing group venue in plenty of time, but I hadn’t had time at home to write my poem for the day, the final poem for the #poemadayfeb I have been doing for all of this month, even though, I’d looked up what the word for today and so knew it was ‘yourself’.

Others arrived at the meeting, we went through the usual items, telling of our writing related activities for the previous week, talking about some relevant issues relating to several events we will be involved in, for the coming months, and then doing our writing exercise.

The writing prompt for today was ‘night’, and I eventually settled down to do my writing, based on that them, but without any real idea on what I was going to write. In the back of my brain, I had my poetry prompt, as mentioned, and together with that was the writing prompt from today’s meeting.

So, ‘yourself’, and ‘dark’, were possibly travelling around in the back of my brain, what would happen? As it turned out, a lovely small poem happened.  This unexpected poem is a senryu, another Japanese poetry form, similar to the haiku, but about people, rather than nature.

I’m relatively happy with this small poem, and the others at the writing group though it was a good one too. I love the people in this group, we share our words with each other, but there is so much more to it. We may have begun as people who write, but we have become friends, ones who care about each other. If you have a writing group too, I hope you have such lovely experiences.

Anyway, this is my senryu:

 

Every night leads

to a new day, a new chance

to be yourself.