Ariel, Pacific NW poet

I’ve been looking forward to today.  It’s the start of two writing challenges – November’s Poem-A-Day Chapbook Challenge (NovPAD) & National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)!

I do both. In fact, overacheiver that I am, I usually do multiple PAD challenges. It started with Poetic Asides’ challenge hosted by Writer’s Digest’s own Robert Lee Brewer; it is now 10 years old and I’ve been doing it for all those 10 years. Seems longer! Didn’t realize I started it’s inaugeral year. And, over the years, other poets have tagged along adding their own take of a November PAD challenge. I think the most I have done was one year I was doing seven challenges a day.

But now April has taken over as National Poetry Month and most of the PAD Challenges have moved to that month. As I recall, I shared four of PAD challenges this past April.  So far for this month, I have only seen RLB’s Poetic Asides NovPAD – with the exception of Mia Botha’s monthly 30 day Writing Challenges on Pinterest.

So … NovPAD 2017’s Guidelines are here!

And  (drum-roll …) today’s NovPAD prompt is “a new day” … There are times I will share my daily poems but not always.

If I run across others this month, I will add their daily prompt’s in here! I hope to blog these in the morning Pacific Standard Time (I’m based in Oregon), however I do have some morning conflicts so I won’t always be timely with these. Plus, I’ll have to wait until Brewer posts his prompts …

I am also writing NaNoWriMo again this year – I believe I am on year 4 for my participation. I have learned some cool stateies in “winning” November’s challenge – the first being start planning early! August I started casting around for a plot with a hook for me. On our Labor Day road-trip, my son and I wandered upon it … a sign on highway 18 reading “Pie – 3  miles”.

“Everybody Likes Pie” will be the story of Pie, Oregon as it’s citizen’s wrestle with the current debates on racism.  I try to be a ‘plotter’  (writing out the plot  timeline before Nov 1) rather than a ‘pantser’ (writing by the seat of your pants) – due to health, this time around it’s gonna be a combination of both. Thankfully, I know I won’t be the only one. Of course, that’s the big plus to NaNoWriMO – all the struggles you go through during the month is also being experienced by the whole NaNo community, one big creative ad hoc team! I love it!!!

Wishing success and luck to those of you embarking on Novembers’ journeys with me.  As we say in my house …

Have fun storming the castle!