The Art of Retirement

      Ok the big day has come and gone. It seems that the last few months became unbearable. Once you give yourself permission to stop being in the work world you are not. Several years before deciding to retire my wife, Kathy, set up this blog for me for when I retire. She has always supported my writing mindset. My editor, confidant, critic, and fan Kathy has always encouraged my writing. I would not have a book on Amazon nor would I be writing under the name of Write My Fire. I am fortunate to have gotten the girl!
     The question now about retirement is where do you go from here. Is writing just for pleasure? Should I try to make money or publish a product? The need being is to supplement my income so that we can travel to do the things that we enjoy and also gather the experiences to draw future writing from. The natural thing for me is to do what I know. I have been told before to write about what you know. However I have never wanted to write a Plumbing and Heating blog nor have I ever wanted to write about pipes. The answer to the question may be to reinvent yourself. Is this what Grandma Moses did? Don't know what she did before picking up a paintbrush!
     What it really appears to be to me is an opportunity. There are many things in my life that I have left unfinished. Writing projects started but no completed. If you were to go back and look at all of my blogs from the beginning you would see that there are stories and thoughts that were begun but not pursued. A Historical novel that I have an outline, first chapter and notes for as well as a first act of a screen play. I even enrolled in a screenwriting workshop in Aspen when I was living there. Then there is a novel about writers estranged wishing to write with one another that is almost complete. It lacks a better beginning and a couple middle chapters in order to be complete. I wrote the book by writing separate short stories with the same characters designed to be linked together into a novel. Completion is not that far away.
     The answer is in the list. Like writing an outline, a list of half started works and ideas could be fleshed out and completed and turned into finished works. Not to mention many ideas and short stories that have been begun like blogs started and sitting in my blog sphere with the big red label of Draft on them. Yes there is also all of my poetry that was not included in Of Mountains and Men. Finish what you start!

Letting Your Inner Hippie Out!

 I have always been a Hippie as long as I can remember. Through out my life I have tried to suppress the hippie in me at various stages and times when it wasn't convenient for a job, life or whatever. It never worked the hippie always came back. For me I think the the hippie surged in eleventh grade in high school with my English teacher Mr. Cocker. I wore these really sharp leather moccasins, made by Quoddy Moccasins on upstate New York, and jeans and flannel shirts. I sat on top of my desk in the back of the class with my legs crossed Indian style and wrote poems instead of my assignments. The great thing about the teacher is that he graded us on our writing and encouraged us to continue. He actually celebrated our individuality. Rare for 1970 Public School where conformity was the general rule. He would often bring in his guitar and play music for us. It seemed so counter culture.

   My hippiedom only increased the more I pursued skiing in my youth. I became more anti-societal and way more earthy. Rejecting the norms of my time and being fortunate to be the first year in the draft lottery and drawing a high number insured my freedom to pursue my dreams, mountain dreams. It seemed perfectly normal to me to take a year off from college to pursue my ski bumming dream. What I did not for see at the time is that I would find myself 40 years later living in Western Colorado getting ready to retire and pursuing my writing dreams after a lifetime of sunsets, snowflakes and mountain sides.

   Has it been a rough an rocky road? Yes. Would I wish to change it and have become and Industrial Engineer and have developed Industry in third world countries as was my young man business goals. Nope not really. The life of the open road was my calling. I think that it still may be. I am not sure that I will not always wonder what lies just beyond the horizon and over the hill. Even now that I have a wonderful home, with a great work shop and am assured of a decent retirement, I think of the ocean and walking on the beach with my wife Kathy my best friend and better half, and talking about my stories and their plots and of sunsets and ocean tides. Instead of white powder and steep slopes I think of ebooks and stealing little children from secure careers as doctors and lawyers and setting their feet upon the road.
Let your inner hippie out!

Pearl Jam, Release (HQ Audio)

Mr. Mister - Kyrie

Zen and Now

Zen and Now

Hi! my name is Pete and I write a blog.
You can catch me at petesplayhouse.com
I write stories, poems and share video's. I'm a DJ also. Enjoy  the music.
Pete

Everything But The Girl - Time After Time

Voice Of Truth - Casting Crowns