Blog 365 Challenge | Perle Champion

Blue skies, Grey skies

03 Feb 2013 3 Comments

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, haiku, Poetry

whether stormy grey
deepest blue or clouded scudded
each day is a gift

Rituals ground us

01 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge

I’ve lit the candles

one in each room of my home

Imbolc tradition

Rituals are important in life. They can be elaborate or as simple as lighting candles for Imbolc or Candlemas to celebrate the first signs of spring and the return of the sun.

The increased daylight is obvious now. The ancients celebrated days throughout the year that were markers for the turning of the year’s wheel of life.

This year the rituals will have more import. I’m no longer just a passenger, I’m at the wheel. Spring fever – I can feel it to my very marrow.

Writing is easy, editing is a pain

31 Jan 2013 1 Comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, e-book, Journaling

Took a sick day to keep from spreading my cold cooties around the workplace. Worked on the the Journaling e-book some this morning, but it’s slow going since I’ve begun the editing process.

Writing it was easy, but this going back and editing, formatting, expanding the thin parts, adding explanations where needed, compiling examples, zeroing in on helpful links and books for the recommended reading is tedious and seemingly endless.

I always like to hear how others do something I love to do. I’m not just telling how I have published and been paid for stories I got from the pages of my personal journal, but showing what famous authors have to say about the value of a journal.

I think best with a pen in my hand, so I write alot on the pages of my journal for this ebook. The handwritten pages become the first draft, because as I transcribe them into word, I edit, add, change, expand. It’s a way to edit that is more palatable that sitting over a manuscript with a red pen.

Books that light the way

29 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge

The challenge to each human is creation. Will you create with reverence, or with neglect? – Gary Zukav

That is a valid question. In my quest to reach escape velocity, I need to understand the life I’m creating and do it with care for the person I am as well as the one I aspire to be.

To do lists are not enough. I’ve taken to re-reading books that open the mind to infinite possibilities and help with drawing my own road map.

Rilke’s Book of Hours, Zukav’s Seat of the Soul, Campbell’s Power of Myth and Heroe’s Journey, Estes’ Women Who Run with the Wolves, Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, Brechnact’s Simple Abundance, The Secret and more.

Books hold so many ideas, cosmic thoughts to mull and ponder. Just as each teacher will appear as needed, so will the ideas coalesce and the path clear a little at a time so I can enjoy the journey and not rush to the end too quickly.

I’m counting down – 62 days to go.

28 Jan 2013 1 Comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, Poetry, Retirement, Uncategorized

I’m retiring from my day job March 30, 2013, and I’m counting the days.
—-
Oh, The Places you’ll go! You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
—– Seuss

We all do it; we put all our hopes on the destination. You know the litany: When I graduate; When I have money; When the kids are grown; When I retire… Don’t deny it, we’ve all done it – still do.

Well, I have 61 days until I retire. That’s 1,464 hours; 87,840 minutes, 5,270,400 seconds.

I wonder how many of those things I plan to do when I retire, I can get a head start on between now and then. I have a list, and here are just a few.

Publish my e-books (I have 5 in varying stages of completion, but I always start editing them again when I decide to upload them to Amazon).
Publish my NaNoWriMo novel this year. (I’ve participated in and written 50,000 words for ‘national novel writing month’ every November since 2004, but have never edited, rewritten or published any of them.)
Start sending out query a week, instead of every now and them. (Follow-up on the submission to Victoria Magazine – haven’t heard back from my last query a few months ago. Last published with them in 2008.)
Hang a photography show at a local gallery: (Two galleries are interested, but although I have the slides picked out, I have yet to get them digitized, printed, matted…)
Ditto Art show (I’ve been painting and drawing again, but not as much as I can.)
Start back to yoga classes (it’s been 5 years of gonna, and I’m still pretty limber.

There are more, but this is the enough to start with.

This list ends with ‘Move to Some Beach Some Where’. I’ll have to add – visit some beaches between now and then so I can make an informed decision. I’m leaning toward Virginia Beach so I can visit the ARE library on a regular basis. – tick, tick, tick…

Spring fever

27 Jan 2013 1 Comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, haiku, Poetry

Persephone preens
impatient to climb the stair
to sunshine and air

I’m ready, too. The lengthening days tease me with the promise of green growing things.

Camus can have his endless summer; give me Spring.

63 Days & Counting

26 Jan 2013 1 Comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, follow your bliss, Poetry

my future rides the night wind

ruffles curtains, caresses skin

whispers promises at the edge of dream

leaving traces of something almost seen

I wrote this poem, long before this journey began in earnest. I

knew then, that I wasn’t following full time, my bliss. Pulled in so many directions by an exceptional (modern terminology for lots of problems) child. It was necessary to have the best job with great insurance and live in the best neighborhood with the best schools with special education programs. After that, a husband with cancer…I won’t belabor the point – I’m sure you get it and I’m not the only one that works the 8-5 and then some to provide for family.

Well those days are long gone and I somehow stayed in that rut.

No more. It is so time to move on.

I planned this once before (the poem above was written in 2007), but somehow I got sidetracked – not this time. I’m exploring the dreams that still whisper in my ear, and giving them form, so it is no longer ephemeral. I’m making ‘real’ plan for the real change that once ‘rode the night wind’.

64 Days & Counting

25 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, haiku, Poetry

here’s looking forward
never back to undone things
spring waits in the wings

I recently remarked that my Poetry e-book would be a ‘piece of cake’. It’s written I said, it’s just a matter of uploading and book.

Well no, such is not the case. While I continue to post poetry to my other Blog on a daily basis, it’s not posted by category.

So, I’ll be printing all my posts out and sorting them by categories such as nature, life lessons, etc. I also need to strip them of photographs and save them as text so I can upload to the e-book software I bought.

What a pain. Patience is not my forte, but I will follow through – I must.

My pen My wand

24 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, Blogging from A to Z, haiku

my pen casts words cross
pale blue lines creating worlds
oh my pen my wand

I love the feel of my pen on the page. I’ve always written by hand. Is it my age? I think not. I’m not alone in this. The pen is gaining on iPad, laptop, desktop for the writer on the run, who scribbles their first ideas, outlines, characterizations on a notebook in their pocket, a napkin…

I carry my journal everywhere and currently am jotting down character traits, locations, ideas, possible plots for my wip.

The beauty of writing first drafts by hand, is when I type it up later – voila – second draft. Gotta love it.

66 days and counting

23 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, haiku, Retirement

my aerie a perch
to watch comings and goings
leaves grow fade fall

This old 4-plex was built in the 30’s or 40’s with big sprawling rooms, windows everywhere. Actually it’s bigger than I need, but the only place that met all my criteria after losing my last home to fire on 2/12/11.

The little bistro in one corner of the screened in balcony is perfect for me, my coffee, and laptop. One chair for me the other for cat Jazmine.

The loveseat on the opposite side is for reading, relaxing, editing, journaling or just patting Jazmine and watching the street below.

I’ve covered the screen with plastic to keep winter cold at bay.

J called and reminded me to get cracking on the Journaling e-book. I do need someone to crack the whip, I seem to be coasting as if I had all time time in the world. But at 66 days and counting before i retire, I need to get on the stick. I have to get these income streams into place to supplement my ssa.