Creativity – June Paisa Perkins

September Seasons

What a month! I had to complete 5 assessments for my Masters. This was achieved Friday! It has been a super intense 10 weeks. (I did sneak out to watch Wild Robot!, more on that another time).

I connected with 10 people for a study on Innovation in Education, and was so intrigued by their stories. I used Quirkos for the first time to do analysis of qualitative word data.

Another life long dream project is progressing well. I have found potential collaborators and backers who seem to be on the same wave length. I can’t say too much more yet. It definitely feels like this project is going to reach its goals! It has been a life long quest.

I have lovely compassionate online learning advisors. They helped me keep motivated to get those final assessments in. We had a few interesting discussion board dialogues. I also had one of my best ever online collegial assignment teams. Thanks so much to Travis and Amethyst. You are going to be awesome teachers.

It was wonderful studying leadership. Some of the cool tools I learnt about were Johari windows, the Skill Wills Matrix and the leadership tools and videos in AITSL.

This quarter I found out about super principals in Australia and globally, and how good leaders can be made and need not just be born.

It has been such a fulfilling time, where my passion for education, and access to education for all, has become my heart. I especially love the role that the arts, storytelling, music and dance can play in that.

In the midst of studies I was able to take a little bit of time off to attend a PNG independence day event. Next year is the 50th! Mum is heading up here for that one. I saw and spoke with some dancers from West Mekeo. They were kindly posing for photographs with everyone who came and asked for them.

Create, edit, submit, submit… publish

So it’s been a while since I sent out submissions.

I took some extensive time out from submitting works to do the hard yards on my craft.

Also, I wanted to more mindfully make sure I was sending it to the right spaces – that suited what I was creating and the directions I wish to go in.

The strange thing was when I stopped submitting so much and went inwards, and left my blog and online publications of video recorded poems etc, people invited me to submit works.

They found me online, and said would you like to send us something not published before. We like your work. I did – and yes some of that work was published.

Some is still under consideration.

I attended development workshops, zoom discussions, and was heartened by people hearing, reading, listening – pieces shared in various online spaces.

I attended conferences, concerts and meetings, and wrote about them.

I researched, wrote and delivered talks, and chaired a panels.

I attended zooms to listen to stories.

I kept my journal, and filed in it lines I loved – ideas with potential.

I went walking.

Watched tv shows that made me laugh, feel uplifted and inspired.

I went deep diving and excavating lots of my earlier drafts of work, that I had quite forgotten about and read with fresh eyes, and began to see what I could do to shape them.

Now I am ready to send works out again.

Now I am sending them out!

I continue to work on long form pieces, novels, biography and am working on finding a routine that will take me to finish lines with these works.

Now I am playing the waiting game, and may send some of the recent works to multiple places. In most cases multiple submissions are okay, as long as you tell them if it is accepted somewhere and withdraw it.

All the best to those in the midst of this cycle, create, edit, submit… and may we all find our spaces to share, and be heard.

I hope that the seeds and saplings of my work, become mighty trees – just like this one!

In Times of Trouble . . .

Today I will be thinking as, an artist, writer, storyteller, of all the positive things I can do during this time of the Corona Virus pandemic!

I feel calm and resilient, but protective of the vulnerable, but unlike Cyclone Yasi, which our family went through and recovered from, we don’t know when this particular situation ends and many sadly don’t seem to fully understand the gravity or enormity (even with Italy, Spain, Belgium, France etc…) of the situation facing us … or some panic so much, they are treating it like the end of the world.

Someone said to me yesterday,’well the footy is still on, so it must be okay’, but you know what, one hour later the AFL competition was suspended for 60 days, and borders across Australia became quarantined in several states, and I wonder now if that person will take it all just a little bit more seriously.

Please if you can STAY HOME and think of all the vulnerable people we need to protect and physically distance (we are not socially and emotionally having to be apart at all, just physically.)

Spare a thought for doctors, nurses, cure researchers, teachers, and all those who will be keeping our community functioning as we batten down the hatches, and don’t go and attack people who are using Faith to get through this time.

Today powerless to do much else, I am certainly saying prayers for doctors, nurses, teachers, delivery people etc. supermarket workers. It felt so surreal to be in a supermarket very briefly for supplies and to see the markers for the distance people had to stand apart, still no toilet paper on the shelves, and also hear announcements about social distancing needing to be adhered to on the loud speakers.

Ah is this not a time to treasure and value, calm, and beauty whereever we can find it and create it? Okay off to think of all those positive things. Like the power of music! Power of art! Power of story!

[ PS we did buy a voucher for a future date to a cafe/restaurants to help a business]

Much Love to All, from June and Family!

Finding strength in family, friends, community!

Submissions Week

The world in and outside the window – June Perkins

This was a watershed week of submissions for me.

I have spent most of the year reworking and editing a number of promising writing pieces, and working out whether some earlier projects are short stories, picture books or novels. Sometimes I don’t know in the early drafts what the final form will be.

Each piece chooses its destiny, as I write and rewrite. I play, experiment and do radical things when it just doesn’t seem to be working but the story tells me it must be told.

Then there are some other tips I have picked up during the year like to, remove telling not showing from my work through avoiding ‘thought verbs.’

The other thing that’s happened is now that so many rules have been absorbed about writing I pick and choose which ones to follow. This is based on which ones improve my writing. Sometimes I even reverse a rule. I will share more about that one day.

The most enjoyable part of editing is reading my pieces loud to find the musicality and poetry. I realise I love things that have a beautiful sounding and flowing sentence, but it must also be purposeful. My family often hear me in my room doing this and wonder who I am talking to. ‘Just editing’ I say afterwards.

So with all of these things now happening, I reworked some stories I have always wanted to tell, and sent three completed pieces off. All three were reworked pieces that I have filed away to keep working on and had rediscovered.

If they don’t place in the competitions, and even if they do, I will then begin submitting to other places like publishers. There are so many competitions and not all of them result in publication. The stories feel just right to me. They still make me laugh or cry.

When I write I go looking for magic sentences, engaging characters, and use setting as a character when I can.

Now onto some much longer pieces, to apply the same process!

As well as editing and reworking, I do keep on writing new pieces. But my patience for the time a work might take to come to fruition has grown. Especially when the difficulties with it that niggle at me feel solved!

Over and out, off to do more writing.

The days of porridge – draft1#

I am setting myself a challenge of working on a piece over the week and sharing the drafting to redraft process. I thought I’d apply this to pieces posted on my memory /memoir blog.

Following the Crow Song

Rocks for Art and Dreams – June Perkins

The first draft of this piece is the outflow of the emotion of memory. Next I want to write it more in a way that shows not tells. In this draft I like the way the porridge motif works and will think about metaphors and myths around magic porridge pots perhaps.

Remember the days when we survived on porridge and rice

and friends sometimes bought us groceries unasked

to make sure we didn’t go hungry

both of us students

with young children

striving for our qualifications

to move ahead with our lives

under thirty we were.

We even spent short stints living with friends

and family

as we searched for affordable accomodation

who only asked that one day

when we were better off

that we passed it along

and shared that they had once

lived in the days of surviving…

View original post 330 more words