Tag: Writing

Uncategorized

Being Back on the Radio

carolyncordon

I loved being back at PBA FM, after being away from there for so long! Formerly, I’d been there as one of the presenters of the ‘WORDS OUT LOUD’ Program (I’m fairly sure that was the name of the show). Today I was there as a guest for Nick and Beth, on their program, Short and Sweet Spoken Word.

The three of us talked about what I’ve been doing word-wise lately, so I jumped at the chance to talk about some of what I’ve been up to. So of course I jumped at the chance!

Talking on the radio is something I’m quite good at, as it turns out. I’m not any use at the mastering the panel thing – I know I was trained in it quite a few years ago, but my brain said, nup, don’t wanna do that, so the lesson fell though.

That didn’t matter, because Nick and Beth were there, managing that part, and they kept it all going nicely! I was able to speak about my writing, poetry, blogging, editing of a newsletter, and creation of an Art Installation.

The presenters had a copy of that newsletter, so could see what I was doing with that, and that led nicely on to the RUST & FOUND Art Installation – because after Beth had got that newsletter up on her screen, she could see some of the pictures of found objects that have become a part of that Art Installation.

So we spoke about that, and also the recent event Beth and I were both at, in Gawler, the Gawler MAP event, where the Governeor of South Australia was recently a guest, and did a fine job of it.

And once we’d finished talking aobut me and my writing, Beth had a kind of quiz, for Nick and I to think on, and answer. She had a list with two versions of particular words (one correct way to say the word, and the other incorrect way, and we had to choose which was the correct pronunciation.

And because this was radio, Beth read out the two versions of the words, because just showing us the words would make ‘dead air’, instead of fine radio! It was fun.

Being on the radio is something I’m happily do more of, if and when I can! Just don’t ask me to ‘man’ the panel, because I just can’t do it!

And being able to talk about the Art Installation was an awesome opportunity! While the Art Installation has now been largely created (on and along my front fence!), there are still spaces to be filled!

And my walking of our dog and looking for (and finding) rusty items of interest (to me and viewers of this Installation too, I hope), well this is keeping the dog exercised, and me too, so we’re both keeping fit and healthy!

And the curation part of the Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation is keeping my brain healthy as well, and I consider the various aspects of what I’m doing – the placement of objects, whether or not items are and aren’t relevant for this installation …

I don’t think the Installation isn’t ever going to be completely finished, for as long as I go on walking, which I hope to do at least four or more times a week! And putting it together and considering the placement of pieces is only a part of it, because there’s the promotion aspects too, as this Radio session was to some extent.

And of course the Mallala Crossroad Chronicle, the newsletter I edit is a perfect avenue for me to talk about what I’m doing with our front fence! And the even more exciting part of that is that the Adelaide Plains Mayor is going to Open the Art Installation for me!

And not only is he going to open it, he will be speaking about a particular rust item form his own place (and I hope), giving it to me to be put on display as a part of the Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation!

And if it turns out he’s only showing it to us for the purpose of his talk, and he takes it home with him again that will be fine too. After all, there are over four hundred individual items on and along our fence and front gate! And that number is growing, every time I head outside!

In fact this morning, I and my support worker/Installation assistant placed out a much larger item, a nice big rusty Exercise Bike, that had been left idle on our front veranda for goodness knows how many years. It’s now got a proper role in life!

I think I’ll have to write a poem about that! I’m going to write a book, a non fiction book, with the working title of “Rust & Found – the Making of the Redbanks Art Installation’. The book will have some poems about this project, including some poetry about some of the items.

I suspect the work on that book will be a lot more ‘on the way’ than it is right now whn the Installation is Opened, but it won’t be published then, it will be quite a bit later.. The Opening of Installation is happening on 5 May this year, which is only a couple of months away …

Another relevant time to have a book out might be for the Gawler & Adelaide Plains Festival of Words – Scenes, which is happening at the end of July this year … But I think it’s not going to be ready then either. Festival 2025 – that may be the time to launch that book. It gives me a deadline that is reasonable, and do-able.

And when that book comes out, you can bet I’ll be looking for more opportunities to go on the radio again then!

Uncategorized

Life Is What You Make It!

carolyncordon

Apparently Eleanor Roosevelt said that. And itsn’t that so true? You sit back and laze, never lifting a finger to do for than you absolutely, and you life comes to not that much at all, but if you do as much as you can at your job, or sport, or whatever it is that lights you up with hope and thoughts of what you can achieve, you’re much more likely to make an excellent life for yourself.

If you have ideas, run with them you can succeed, maybe not hte first time, but it you learn from what didn’t work the first time, and try something else, and better, until it works, woohoo, you’ve made it, you hero!

At the moment, I’m living a great life and I’m doing my very best to go on living a great life! I’m active, both physically and mentally, and in my community. I make plans and work on them, some of them go better than others do, but they’re all things that keep me positive, and doing ‘stuff’!

Sitting around doing nothing? Well it may look like I’m doing that sometimes, but often the reality is that I’m giving myself some ‘ME’ time, to refresh myself, ready for the next thing I’m going to do. Sure I have a novel I’m ‘writing’ that looks like it may never be published, but I’m thinking about it, on some of those ‘ME’ times, and I do in fact write a bit more of it regularly.

Just because ‘regularly’ means once a week, for twenty minutes, well, so be it. My favoured genres for writing are for short pieces, not novels. And every time I write something, anything, and send it out into the world, I can improve what I do, in terms of quality, audience reach, money making (haha what a joke miniscule amounts!), and enjoyment for myself as well.

I love to write, I’ve been doing it for some of my childhood and much of my adult life. I have in fact written a novel, which may one day be brushed off, edited and sent off to a publisher! That’s not one of the items of things to do this year, but next year, maybe it will make that list!

This year I decided to begin something possibly bigger than I’ve done before, in terms of public events and community connection. I decided I was going to create an Art Installation! Me! What did I know about such things? Not a thing, I don’t even have an Arts degree!

But I do have a creative mind, and I have many, many thoughts building into ideas. And the ‘Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation’ is one such thought that turned into an idea, and is now an Art Installation being created! In fact I’ve more or less finished the main part of the creation aspect of this Installation, and I’m getting more into the curation side of things.

This morning I do some of that curation aspect – I had some more items to be put out on display, so I went to the Art Installation (which is actually my Rusty front fence), to place those items on display. While I was there, I decided to move some previously place items to better display them, in less cramped spaces.

Then I completed some work I’d begun during the week, to better display one particular small type of piece (beer bottle caps). I continued looking at what I’d alreadty done over the months since this project started, and realised one item I’m quite proud of having on display, wasn’t in a good enough space, so I moved it so it could attract more attention.

And now, much of hte space that this Art Installation is in, is more or less filled, in that there is something on display, at least every two metres along the front fence. That areas around each item will continue to be filled, not to crowding, but in ways to show what is there, possibly for the rest of my life!

You see, these display items, yes they were found, most of them, and mostly found while walking our dog! So this Art Installation is keeping both my body and my mind active. And the really exciting part is that this Art Installation is going to have it’s Official Opening on the 5th of May this year, by the Adelaide Plains Mayor!

Redbanks, where I live, and so where this Art Installation is, is a part of the Adeliade Plains Council region. There not a lot goin gon there, not that can be seen by others, there are no open shops and the only public building is the Redbanks Hall, which has fallen into disrepair.

If I can draw attention to this township via the Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation, perhaps that might bring the Redbanks Community together, and be a further impetus to get that old hall (built in 1935, I think), back up and going as a regular meeting place for the residents of Redbanks, and others from around the place!

It may be not all people living here would be as keen on this idea as I am, but it may be that some of theme definitely are! I’m going to put out a notice in letterboxes in the township soon looking for responses concerning all of this, and we’ll see what happens. It may fall flat, and not have anyone else interested in it, there may be people who hate the idea, and want a quiet like, not people from elsewhere looking around here.

But it may become a thing the residents of the township of Redbanks can be proud of, and it could be the thing that finally brings us all together, and the whole of our township reaches out, and becomes more than just somewhere to go home to after work, and more or less ignoring anyone else living there.

There are already a couple of other places in Redbanks that have displays in their front yards, and they look great, I would love it if other Redbanks residents may be keen to put on more of a show as well, and we could all one day get together to look around at what others have done that they’re proud to show off to others!

At the moment, Redbanks is a township, but it doesn’t feel like a community. I want it to be a great community that cares about making all of our township shine with pride of our achievements! An Anzac day display in the front yard – that’s fantastic, a front yard display of old farming equipment, wonderful! An Art Installation made up of Rusty and Found objects, great!

Getting together and doing things, that’s what makes community. I hope I can help get this kind of thing happening again in Redbanks, starting when all of the township, and others, will be invited to the Grand Opening of the Redbanks Rust & Found Art Installation!

Uncategorized

Enjoying Helping Others!

carolyncordon

When I took on the role of teaching creative writing at a local, I didn’t realise how much fun I would have doing it! Some of the people who came along to learn already knew a bit about creative writing, others hadn’t written anything like that since their school years, many, many years in the past.

Seeing the happiness this writing brought to these people made it all feel worthwhile, and even if these people never get anything published, it won’t matter, because they’ve done something they never thought they could do!

So I’m not just teaching creative writing, I’m helping to increase the self esteem of people who never had any thoughts that they were actually good at writing. I helped them learn that, and that is such a fine thing to have done!

I’m not interested in cleaning other people’s houses, serving people in a shop, or driving them to do their shopping, I have my own difficulties with some of those things, but creative writing? Oh yes please, I’m excited to assist others with doing this!

When a person gets an understanding of what they can actually do, when they thought they were a bit dumb, or at least not capable of creating good poems, or interesting short stories, for instance, what a buzz that gives them and what a buzz that gives me too, when they can see they’re actually quite good at doing this!

If I could go on helping other people learn to trust themselves with their ideas, and to bring out their ideas and turn them into something bigger and better, whoo hoo, I love it! When people learn to trust themselves, and to fashion their thoughts into something other people will enjoy reading every bit as much as they enjoyed writing it, what a buzz that is for them!

In my life, I’ve had assistance from a great many good writers, those who know what I now know too, that helping others to write is a fine thing to do. I could become a counsellor, but that would take up too much of my time, when I have many other things I want to accomplish. But giving an hour of my life once a week, helping others with creative writing, that is more than enough, at this time in my life.

Helping others to reach into themselves, learning the power of their words, and the way other people can enjoy hearing, or reading those words, what a fine thing it is. I could go on doing that for the rest of my life, squeezing it into my week, in between whatever else was also there for me to do.

Enjoying doing what I’m doing, helping others to do the writing that brings me a buzz, so they get that too, how awesome it is! If you like to write, and if you’re here reading this, I assume you’re a bit keen on writing too, wel lif you like it, you know how it is, the feeling when you write something good! It doesn’t happen every time, but when you get it, wow!

Helping other people, sharing what you’re good at doing and helping others to do it too, what an awesome thing. Whether it’s writing, or some other kind of thing, painting, knitting, gardening, or learning how to fix a car so it goes better, what great things these all are. Helping others, helps yourself too, and don’t we all need a bit of extra help every now and then? You bet!

So think about what you’re good at, and find those who’d like to learn how to do that too, and help them, you’ll all love it, the learner, and the teacher as well.

Uncategorized

Novel or Short Story? Why not Both!

carolyncordon

OK, so I am a writer, a user and sender of words out to the world. One of my ways is via blog posts, another is the monthly newsletter I have printed and I distribute it to my nearest town (and other readers online. And I am a writer and poet, sharing my words through my published books.

At the moment though, I am being a novelist, writing a new book, I hope the first in a whole series of books. I have written about that on this site previously. I created a town (based in part on that town I produce the newsletter for). And I created characters, and some potential book titles and plot ideas.

I am slowly getting for of this first novel written (many more words to go though). But I had an idea about a way to garner more interest in my novel, might be to produce an anthology with short stories using that same setting, and same characters as are in my novel-in-progress.

To that end I have written a few short stories so far, including one that I sent off for a competition, and I enjoyed that process so much, I may well do the same thing next month and many months after that. (the competition is Furious Fiction, an Australian Writers’ Centre one, where they give several words, and rules, and 50 hours to write a piece of flack fiction (fewer than 500 words) with a prize of $500 for the winner.

It happens on the first weekend of every month, and when I saw the writing prompts, a story idea came to me, and I started writing my story, edited it down to meet the word limit, and sent it off. It was an easy process and enjoyable, so why not combine both my writing of this novel, as well as the writing of short stories about the town of Talloola, where my novel is set, and with the people I have already created for the novel?

So writing a novel, and looking at possible marketing of my ideas and the actual novel series are happening at the same time, and even though I have no idea if that first book in the series is likely to be picked up by a publisher, I’m having fun with this whole process, and having fun, hey, there’s nothing wrong with that!

So writing, and thinking about marketing are important things for the writer, and I am working at getting better and better about these aspects of my writing life. I’m also keen to talk about my writing, and to give workshops and presentations about writing in many forms.

writing prompts

Second Weekly Writing Prompt for March

carolyncordon

So after my Fabulous February month, of a brand new writing prompt every single day, things have calmed down a bit, and I can rest some more. Unfortunately though, as I am resting, other people are resting too, and the numbers of visitors to this blog have also calmed down and not in a wanted way.

I want lots of people to come along to my writer site, to show off what I’ve done, and what I can and will do! So if you come here, take a look around, check out what I’ve written before, maybe take on some of the writing prompts from the previous month, after all, there were 29 of them there for the taking!

And if you like what you see here, or think something else might be interesting, tell me! I will respond to whatever you might write, in an intelligent and friendly way. Unless I think what you’ve written is spam in which case I will delete it. I’m not friendly to mindless spam.

So, March … there is a new writing prompt today, and that prompt is this –

Unfamiliar places

So write about places that are unfamiliar to you, that you may like to explore perhaps, or write about places very familiar to you, but unknown to many others. Write about weird and wonderful places from yesteryear, from science fiction – books, TV, film, just write!

What unfamiliar place has this fellow been to?
Photo by Lenin Estrada on Pexel
I’ve certainly never been there, nor would I want to be, I don’t think!
Photo by Suliman Sallehi on Pexels.com

So there are two ideas about unfamiliar places, but others might be homes that you would never live in – up in a tree, or down in an ant’s nest …

Oh, up a tree, how cool would that be? Unfamiliar to me in my adult years, but I’ve been up a few trees as a kid, for sure!
Photo by Jozef Fehu00e9r on Pexels.com
You can’t actually see them in this photo, but there are ants there. The round holes are entries to the ant nest.
my photo

So there are a few ideas, and here are some more ways to consider the writing prompt. I’ve never been to Darwin, but my husband has been, and he’s never been to Alice Springs, but I have been. I’ve never been to a sauna, or to a church during a normal service, only for weddings or funerals. I’ve been to Beijing and walked on the Great Wall of China, as well as walking around Tiananmen Square, that felt like very unfamiliar territory to us Westerners, for sure.

Writing prompts are only prompt ideas and thoughts, you don’t have to slavishly follow what the prompts are, the brain likes to wander off along quite different paths at times, and that is fine. It’s all a part of the creative process, to consider as many different options as you have time for. If creative writing isn’t like that, if it is constrained by many rules and boundaries, then it stops being creative, doesn’t it?

Now that’s possibly a thought for another blog post! I’ve been looking at and writing about creative writing earlier today, and was enjoying the process very much. Thinking about writing creatively. Is it a worthwhile thing, or is it yet another way to procrastinate instead of write, I wonder … I suppose it depends on whether or not the thinking actually leads to words being written, and put ‘out there’, which surely is the main role of a writer, in whatever kind of writing they do.

Writing kept only in a notebook, and never shared in any way, or leading to things that can be shared, hmm, that’s not very useful. No-one ever sold a scribble in a notebook, unless they have lots and lots of actual books written and sold!

So the prompt for this week is Unfamiliar Places, and there will be another writing prompt next week, out on the Monday, and my plan is to go on with that for the rest of the year, a new prompt every Monday morning. Unless, of course, something happens to stop it happening …


Leave me a message, let me know what I’m writing is worth reading