Tag: Writing

Writing

A New Title for Proposed New Book

carolyncordon

I’m hoping for some feedback here, although I probably already know the answer to my query. I have a few books in progress at the moment, one a novel, and the beginnings of a picture book, and some bits and pieces for a 8-12 year old chapter book. The Novel has a title already, that I am more or less happy with at this stage, the children’s books are at very early stages and don’t need a title yet. One of the others is a book I’m working on, which I’ve put quite a bit of work into, regarding structure, is the one I’ve just thought of a new name for.

So what do other writers feel about titles for their work? Does it really matter anyway, until you’re going to send it to a publisher, or at least have a book well on the way to taht spot? Should I stick with the original at this point, and just keep on writing? Or if the new title feels better, in some way, should I run with that? Actually another point, am I merely procrastinating by starting this blog post? Procrastination, such a seductive alternative …

Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts about the things I’ve mentioned, please leave a comment. Another point, I am proud of myself for not looking at my Facebook page, which if I glance upward and to the right of my screen, I can see has two new messages. If I was smarter, I would shut off Facebook, and that is what I am going to do, right now! I find Facebook such a timewaster, I should know better and just not have it on, if I’m meant to be writing!

There, done. Goodbye Facebook! Oh how I love you Facebook, but oh how I loathe you too! I find it so easy to spend hours on Facebook, pretending I am actually doing useful things for my writing. I do get ideas for my writing from Facebook for sure, but I also get ideas for my writing by actually writing. Blogs are slightly better for my ‘Brand’ as a writer, but again, actually writing would be good for my Writer brand too, to actually have a new book to get published and promote!

Thoughts on these things are welcome too, again, just leave a comment. Now I’m going to take a look at my book that possibly needs that new title. I’ll put it on the document, and see how it feels, as I get on with the writing. This is a non-fiction book, a blend of memoir, thought, and essay kind of thing that is probably going to be easier to simply self publish rather than try to interest an actual publisher in it. Anyway, this is the book that is of the most interest to me at the moment, so that’s what I’m going to work on now, Bye!

Writing

My Novel is Back in Progress!

carolyncordon

Today I am proud to announce that my novel-in-progress is in fact pack in progress! I made a conscious decision and told myself I would turn off Facebook, which steals so much of my time, when I could, or even should, be writing my novel. I also told myself I would put a timer on and not go back on Facebook until I’d written more of my novel for at least one hour.

person holding turned on smartphone
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

It was easier than I thought it might be, in fact as soon as I got into the writing, I didn’t even think about time. I was there with my characters, flitting from spot to spot in my novel world, not my Facebook world, and bot did it feel good! I’ve added more to parts already written, about a thousand words, I think, and I’ve written up some of the pieces I’ve handwritten, with a note about where in the novel they will go.

I’ve also written a sex scene, which was a sudden surprise to me! I hadn’t had any thoughts of sex scenes in this book, but as I was writing, I could see it was entirely appropriate to write the brief scene. There will be more sex scenes too, the love interest is a sexy man, and my main character has many unchaste thoughts about him, to say the least!

This book is a political thriller of sorts, I feel, and in that kind of novel, sex goes with the genre … I have to admit that I’m blushing a little as I type these words! Fun? I thought it was! I’ve got the hots for young Travis, almost as much as Meredith has! I refuse to feel embarrassed about this, it is entirely for this particular novel!

I was startled to see that I began writing this novel in 2017, and it’s 2019 now. I hope to be finished and looking for a publisher before 2020. The working title for this book is “Green Dreams, Talloola Travails”. Wish me luck!

 

Writing

Thinking of New Year 2019

carolyncordon

There will be no New Years resolutions for me, and this is why:

Over the final month of 2018 I’ve been thinking about the meaning of words, and how actual meaning can be lost or muted over time, particularly through flippant overuse. New Years resolutions, where many of us put together a list of our worthy resolutions, only to ignore them or willingly break them early in the New Year is one of those words.
A resolution is an intention, something we aim or plan to do. But no matter how worthy this intention or resolution may be, so many of us easily and quickly throw that New Years idea to the winds, and just go back to our bad habits of previous times. We eat, drink, smoke, work, too much even though we’d resolved not to, or we don’t do the  exercise or good works we had written down as a New Years resolution.
Is the problem one of semantics perhaps, and maybe stripping it back to bare basics might be better, is what I’ve decided. Some circumstances demand that you drink more than usual, or have another smoke, or don’t do that exercise program. Life can be a problem, trying to fit in or take out various things, and worthy pursuits we had resolved to do, go undone.
This is a shame, but hey, that’s what life is sometimes, isn’t it?
That’s why this year, I’m going to do it differently. This year I won’t have a list of intentions, or resolutions. This year, this year I won’t resolve to itdo anything anything, and then not do it, there’s it’s happened many other years. Instead, this year I simply declare this. This year I WILL BE the BEST person I can be.
It’s as simple as that, it’s as widespread as that. In everything I do, every decision, action, or choice I make, will be the BEST I can do!
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This will be dependant on how I am feeling, and what I am doing, but I am promising right here, to anyone visiting this blog, that everything I do in 2019 WILL BE the BEST person I can be. I will write the best words I can, I will be a caring and useful community member. I will give my all to every thing I do. My life will be a shining example of the the Best I can do, at every given moment.
There will be times when my BEST may not measure up to much, but it will truthfully be the BEST I am able to do at that time. I am not a super person, I am living with a chronic illness, but I am also well looked after, and have great family and friends. I have no excuses for not doing my BEST I can, and I therefore WILL DO MY BEST!
I will do my best writing, I hope to publish at least two books in 2019 (or at least have them written and ready to be published in that year). These books are a children’s picture book, a chapter book for middle to upper primary school level, a chap book if not a poetry collection, and the next book in the Buster the Dog series, which will be a book written with my friend and fellow writer Janette Menhennet, who is writing with McTavish the Cat! Fun times for sure, and I’m looking forward to getting this book ready and seeing any illustrations that will be done by my usual illustrator, Ally Hean!
2019 will be my BEST year ever, in many ways, and I look forward to putting out information about my writing in 2019, to keep everyone up to date!
Writing

History of My Writing Life

carolyncordon

A relevant Facebook post from today, here.

My writing career is made up of many parts, some lonely, some joyful and many stages in between. The Facebook post talks about the beginning of my writing, back at Primary School, and brings you into the right now. It is a good life, it brings me much joy, and great friendships.

And sometimes it brings me money. The book I speak of in the Facebook piece is “My Dog”, read it, and see how teachers may use it in the classroom here! It’s easy to see that dogs have played an important part of my writing life, as well as my ‘at home’ life. I love the way dogs fir into my words and my world so well, may it always be so!

section1My Books

Writing

Which Story To Write?

carolyncordon

I have a friend, a member of my weekly writing group, who is working on, I think she said, ten novels at the same time. She is a dedicated writer, and I am so impressed by her output, in both quality and quantity. She writes historical fiction, and more contemporary fiction, as well as a smaller amount of non-fiction. I am in awe of her, I’m not sure is she realises that …

I can’t imagine having that many ‘works in progress’, going at the same time. I work at a crazy mixed up, slap-dash kind of pace, and feel unable to commit myself, and my concentrated time, in the same way as my friend. That being said though, I have managed to write and either publish, or have published, seven books since my first one, about fourteen years ago.

My most recently published book “Dog Buddha’s Thoughts”, which I self-published last year, is the last in a series of three books, written in the point of view of a made up dog, Buster the Dog, and I don’t think I am going to write another book in that series. I feel like that book from last year said all I had to say. But the thing about books and writing, is that inspiration can come from a wide variety of places, so really, who knows?

At the moment though, I don’t feel at all committed to writing another “Buster the Dog” book, but Buster is always there somewhere in my head, so who knows. I keep my mind open to new ideas, always! I have other, more sensible ideas for stories that may become books though, and I am much more interested in those. One is a book for the 10-14 year old reader, and it involves, amongst other things, unicorns.

Unicorns have been in my life since I was around the same age as my imagined readers for this book, and I’m certainly excited about getting that book out. It’s a positive book, about a young girl growing up and learning about herself, what she is capable of, and how her life may be as she gets older. It is set in a district based in part on the region where I live, which is also the region of a made up place, I have set another book I’m currently working on.

This particular book is a novel, with intrigue, murder, politics, and is a bit of a love story. It is slowly creeping into existence, with me adding another paragraph or two every week. As I said, ‘slowly creeping’! I don’t know if I’m going to ever finish this one. I know it will need to be at least 65,000 pages, but at the moment, after a couple of years since I began it, there are perhaps 12,000 words.

With this book, I have paragraphs in notebooks, and devices all over the place, and I don’t know whether I’ll actually be able to even find everything I’ve already written of this book-in-progress. I think if I was really committed to this particular novel, I would have got far more organised with it by now, but haven’t really done much about it at all. I think that tells me the truth about it. I still have my main characters in my head, but not so much on the page. I suspect Meredith may never come out into the world …

I’ve enjoyed writing the snippets I’ve written in response to prompts from someone in my writing group, and I definitely feel that all writing is good practice. So, if that’s true, I’m not wasting my time with this novel-in-progress, I’m in fact learning more about how to write a novel, so that when a novel I feel I must write comes along, I will be ready to do it justice.

I hope anyone reading this has found it interesting, and I would love to read about your own writing process! Feel free to leave a comment here!