NaNoWriMo | Perle Champion

Day 2 NaNoWriMo & NaBloPoMo

02 Nov 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Blogging, NaNoWriMo, Wadenhoe House

No words today on NaNo, so I’ll have to double up tomorrow. The Blog however is an easier write as it’s just a conversation to whoever out there cares to listen.

Once a week I take Mom anywhere and everywhere she wants to go, hence no time to write. Today we started off with the Von Maur grand opening at Riverchase Galleria. Gorgeous store – think Parisian’s squared and then some.

The president of Von Maur stores, while doing the ribbon cutting thought to endear himself to the Alabama crowd and ended his remarks with ‘Roll Tide’, to which several folks in the waiting crowd hollered out ‘War Eagle’. He looked confused but said ‘yeah that too’ but turning to one of his assistants soto voce said, ‘I have no idea what that means’. Bless his heart.

While Mom was in shoes, I stopped by to thank him for the roses, chocolates, etc. and to let him know that if he wanted to impress the crowd he had to give equal time to Auburn and Alabama.

Jaz red 3

We spent a good 2 hours in the store, then to Ruby Tuesdays for the appetizer platter and beer or two. Several more stores followed, ending at Mom’s by 6ish and I’m now home. Beyond posting this Blog which I promised myself I would do every day in November, I am going to curl up on the couch with Jazmine (cat) , a glass of wine and a book, and maybe PBS in the background – the young inspector Morse is on and I’ve only missed 30 minutes.

Manana y’all.

Day 1 NaNoWriMo & NaBloPoMo

01 Nov 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in NaNoWriMo, Wadenhoe House, Writing

As I do every year, I’m doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but I’m also going to attempt Blogher.com’s NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) which they’re running in tandem with NaNoWriMo.

Yep, I’m a glutton for punishment. I should have scheduled last night’s Blog to post today then I’d be ahead of this by one day. Sigh. What is it with the month of November, that everyone throws down these writing gauntlets at one of the busiest times of the year?

Looking at my calendar tells me I’m going to have to really punch it to reach 50,000 words and attend all the things I have scheduled.

I have a late Halloween party tonight at Daniel Day and Melody Musik’s Gallery. Saturday, I have lunch and shopping with Mom (it’s a weekly all day and into evening thing that she @80 and I @64 both enjoy), so we will probably drop by the 11th Annual Dia de los Muertos Alabama later that day. I really want to go in remembrance of a few dead friends.

The 7th, lunch with mom and later that evening the city of Homewood’s holiday open house. The 14th, PepperPlace has it’s holiday open house. I so hope that Magic City Face Art is there again. Getting my face painted is a rare and childish pleasure I look forward to. I was so dissapointed when they were not there last year.

Mom and Jane at Marks wake

There’s more, but the biggest is Thanksgiving of course, when the whole clan gathers at Mom’s for 4 days of cooking, eating, catching up. We seat 13 to 14.

Well the manuscript beckons, but it has to be 5 o’clock somewhere, and I’m going to make a beer and/or wine and possibly Vodka run. Maybe pick up some box food in case I forego the party tonight and decide to eat lean cuisine and get some more words on the page.

Mañana

I’m Ready for NaNoWriMo.

31 Oct 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in NaNoWriMo, Wadenhoe House, Writing Tags: Nanowrimo, Wadenhoe House

It’s all Hallow’s e’en; my altar’s candle is lit; the aroma of incense mixes oddly with aroma of dinner in the oven and wafts through the apartment and out to the warm Fall evening air.

There’s a moonless night beyond my aerie’s window, and I’ve written the title of my Book on page one of my notebook. That’s all I’m allowed to write before midnight by the rules for my NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writering Month).

Yes, I write all my first drafts stream-of-consciousness by hand on a 5×8 black spiral notebook (the same kind I journal on). I have refills ready for my favorite gold PC pen. Each notebook can hold roughly 28,000 words, so two should be sufficient (I have 4).

I may actually begin writing tonight at midnight:01, then again I may begin early tomorrow after my 5 a.m. walk.

I usually write early when the muse is fresh. I transcribe later in the day into msword. I find this process adds an extra hundred words or so to my daily word count and effortlessly produces a better second draft.

For now, the kitchen timer is telling me my dinner is ready. I’ll pour a glass of Cabernet and eat my dinner as I watch a rerun of Downton Abbey to get in an English mood for my NaNo Novel based in England.

More tomorrow as I’m also doing the odd spin off called NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and I’ll be posting a Blog a day. Yep, glutton for punishment here.

Night y’all.

How to Get Published from Your Journal

08 Oct 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Ebooks, Get Published, How to Journal, NaNoWriMo, Perle Champion

Well, I’ve hit the home stretch on my first eBook: How to Journal and How to publish from your journal.

Aside from my corporate writing, I’ve been publishing my personal writing since around 1990 in newspapers and magazines: Book reviews, Essays, Personal Remembrances, Poetry.

Last year at a writers group I joined for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org), I was asked how I got published.

I explained that most of what I’ve published comes straight from the pages of my Journal. I proceeded to explain how I journal everything and one day noticed that one of those journal entries had the makings of a personal essay/memoir.

I transcribed it into Word, edited it, polished it, rewrote it and submitted it to the Birmingham Arts Journal. It was accepted and published. Yay, found a goldmine of publishable ideas. I went back to my journals to look for more buried treasure, and I started journaling with an eye to what I was putting on the page.

After explaining this, I thought maybe others would like to know how to make then mine their journal for publishable material.

So here it is again, November looms and I find myself again at this year’s NaNoWriMo group. The same question came up about how to get published. This time I could not only tell them how, but that my eBook on the subject would be coming out on Amazon October 11, 2013.

Golden rain of leaves

23 Oct 2012 2 Comments

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, Haiku times 2, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, Poetry

aerie, eyrie, perch

leaves float on unseen breezes

I sit pen in hand

wanting to capture

it all on the page but words

cannot hold the wind

My aerie is my place on the second floor of a 4-plex located in a colorful Southside neighborhood. It is a small town within the larger town that is Birmingham. My balcony as well as my studio/office have a view of the street below.

I write here, paint here and yes sometimes I just watch the parade of life below. My desk sits in front of a window, so I can ignore the mess as I work and look out at the view. My view is a large tree whose branches are a stone’s throw away where birds come and stare at me as much as I stare at them. The street below is quiet with the occasional. Squirrels run from neighborhood cats; occasional joggers run by morning and evening, young children and university students come and go from school, cars leave for work in the morning and come home in the evening

From my aerie, I watched the leaves, a golden yellow rain fall in flurries from the tree out front. Nature parades past my window, seasons come and go, rain, snow, trees go from barren to green to a rain shimmering autumn leaves carried on the wind leaving them bare once again.

No words of mine can do them justice. Catch the rain and the wind, try without end.

I’m walking again

22 Oct 2012 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, Walt Whitman

9 days to NaNoWriMo.

“Why are there trees I never walk under, but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?”
-Walt Whitman – Song of the Open Road

Today is Monday and I’m grateful to be off on Mondays. I’ll have four 3-day weekends in November to write fast and furious to make up for the days I know I might fall short. I’ve no doubt I can make it to 50,00 words, but it’s hard to keep up momentum after a draining day at work.

That’s why I mostly write in the morning after my walk. Walk – Yes I’m finally back to walking in the mornings. Not the 5 miles that was my habit, but first 1 then 2 now 3. I didn’t think my knee would ever recover it’s previous strength after the meniscus surgery, but I’m back.

That fresh air fix on these newly brisk mornings of early Fall do amazing things for me and my writing. I carry a small pad and pen in my pocket, because Walt was right – ideas seem to fall from the trees.

NaNoWriMo Looms

21 Oct 2012 1 Comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, haiku, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month

ready or not, ’tis here

that 10-day panicked home stretch

to NaNoWriMo

Yes, I’m in again. November is National Novel Writing Month, and I’ve given it my best shot since 2004. The objective is to finish a decent draft of a novel – 50,000 words in 30 days, 1667 words a day.

I’ve done it before, I can do it again. Granted the first 6 years I spent literally rewriting 3 novels from scratch: 1) “The Fall”, a 2012 story leading up to and through the prophesied cataclysm of 2012 and how we survive thanks to the the planning of the wiccan community; 2) “Seti’s Chronicles”, the matriarch of a wiccan family’s history of the the aftermath of 2012 and our survival; and 3) “Murder is a Primary Color”, fast forward to a future world and witches in the main stream – sort of a ‘bewitched meets Sam Spade wanna be police detective and solve supernatural and other crimes.

The temptation is there to pull one of the old faithfuls out again, but not this time. I’m going to upload those to Amazon and put them on sale for $2.99 – NY didn’t want them, but who knows, someone might.

Meantime, I’m racking my brain for new ideas. A few come to mind, but I’ll probably decide at the 11th hour.

I write my first drafts by hand, so I’m loading up on my 5×8 Cambridge Limited black spiral notebooks, and refills for my favorite PC pen. Transcribing late at night to word, I find adds several hundred extra words and produces a second draft.

I need a title, a topic, something – I’m putting that to my subconscious for the next couple of nights.