I've never done NaBloPoMo before, but being unqualified to offer advice has never stopped me before. Why should it now? In that spirit, here is some advice from me on how to meet your NaBloPoMo goal of posting at least one blog per day through the entire month of November:
1. Take notes. You know when you're sitting on the bus on the way to work, and the bus driver lets out a heinous fart, and you cringe and laugh and think, "Yeah, that's going on my blog," but by the time you've gone through a whole day of brain-tenderizing data entry, gotten on the bus again, and finally get home, you've forgotten about it? If you take notes, you won't forget. More notes = more blog fodder.
2. Brag. Tell all your friends your project. Give them your blog URL. If you brag, it's harder to back down, because now you'll be facing the ridicule of your friends on top of your own self-loathing, should you FAIL. (Self-loathing is all well and good, but you get immune to it after a while, kind of like heroin. Not that I would know, but see above re: being unqualified to offer advice.)
3. Ramble. If you are a preacher, rambling is bad. If you are a blogger, bring it on. Ramble to your little heart's content. Titles? We don't need no stinkin' titles. Topics? Bah. If it helps to start with a topic in mind, more power to you, but if something brilliant pops into your head and you push it aside to focus on your topic, you've lost blog fodder. If you don't ramble, at least take notes on those brilliant things popping into your head at inappropriate moments.
4. Delve into your childhood. I always forget who says this, but someone out there says, "If you've lived through childhood, you have enough material to work with," or something to that effect. Tell stories from when you were a kid. Not those ones that everyone expects you to tell. Tell the weird ones that probably only you remember. Tell about the time you colored on the wall and you didn't do it because you wanted to be bad, you did it because you just loved the texture of that red-orange crayon and wanted to feel how it would move against the smooth paint of the wall. Smooth on smooth. And then you blamed it on your brother. Who was 2 at the time. And couldn't figure out how to suck his thumb, let alone hold a crayon. But your mom just gave you the hairy eyeball and let it go, because dammit, she was tired. There, see how easy that was?
5. Consider your audience. Who reads your blog? Is your mom the only one? That's ok, but think of what your mom might like to read. If your mom is the only person who reads your blog, you'd probably better save your gritty commentary on the emotional wreckage left behind in the wake of losing your virginity for another forum because I guarantee your mom doesn't want to read that. By the same token, if you've told all your friends about your project and everyone you know is reading your blog, consider how much you want to tell them. Blog entries are like toothpaste: You can't put it back once it's out there. Consider carefully which things you'd like to squirt out of the toothpaste tube of your soul. (Yeah, none of you can have that "toothpaste tube of your soul" metaphor. It's mine. I call dibs.)
Ok, so that's what not to write. But you can also consider your audience for ideas of what to write. Let's just say that you're my husband and you decide to start a blog and share it with everyone at work. Everyone at work is a tech geek. No, seriously. They all go out on Fridays and call it Geek Beer. I mean it. So now you know that everyone who reads your blog is a tech geek. So what should you write about? Tech geek things, of course. Looking for a forum for your thesis on server naming conventions? Your blog is the perfect place, buddy. And that's at least one day's worth of blogging taken care of. Tada!
6. Toss that quality thing out the window. We're going for quantity here, people, not quality. Don't have anything interesting to relate to the world at large? Relate something boring. Just relate something. This also takes the pressure off and you might find that when you sit down and give yourself permission to write crap, you end up with a lot of crap, and a few little diamonds-in-the-crap that might actually be kind of smart/funny/usable. (That diamonds-in-the-crap thing is mine too, people. Double dibs.)
7. If time is the major obstacle for you, carve out little pieces of time. Use those few minutes standing in line at Taco Bell to jot down a few notes. Steal a few minutes at work to pull up your draft post and bang away at it. (What, you deserve a 15 minute break now and then.) Bring your laptop to the john with you. I'm serious, that's like at least 10 minutes of time that would otherwise be wasted reading smutty magazines or counting the tiles on the floor.
8. If you're completely at a loss for blog fodder, steal someone else's idea. Respond to another blogger's post. Yoink a topic. Unapologetically make off with your friend's original idea. Just be sure to backlink. In all likelihood, the original blogger will be flattered. If they're not, eh, they're dumb, don't listen to em. Heh.
9. If you're completely completely at a loss for blog fodder, do a meme. They're the lamest of lame excuses for blog entries, but they give you a wordcount.
10. Have fun! Diddy might come get you if you join his Vote or Die campaign and then don't vote, but I doubt anyone will come get you if you FAIL NaBloPoMo. Besides, you know, your own self-loathing.
Tomorrow, I'll grace you all with my NaNoWriMo wisdom. After I hit my wordcount goal.
Last Year In The Life Of Sonja: NaNoWriMo Begins/Trick-or-Treat Commentary
Technorati tags: National Blog Posting Month
1. Take notes. You know when you're sitting on the bus on the way to work, and the bus driver lets out a heinous fart, and you cringe and laugh and think, "Yeah, that's going on my blog," but by the time you've gone through a whole day of brain-tenderizing data entry, gotten on the bus again, and finally get home, you've forgotten about it? If you take notes, you won't forget. More notes = more blog fodder.
2. Brag. Tell all your friends your project. Give them your blog URL. If you brag, it's harder to back down, because now you'll be facing the ridicule of your friends on top of your own self-loathing, should you FAIL. (Self-loathing is all well and good, but you get immune to it after a while, kind of like heroin. Not that I would know, but see above re: being unqualified to offer advice.)
3. Ramble. If you are a preacher, rambling is bad. If you are a blogger, bring it on. Ramble to your little heart's content. Titles? We don't need no stinkin' titles. Topics? Bah. If it helps to start with a topic in mind, more power to you, but if something brilliant pops into your head and you push it aside to focus on your topic, you've lost blog fodder. If you don't ramble, at least take notes on those brilliant things popping into your head at inappropriate moments.
4. Delve into your childhood. I always forget who says this, but someone out there says, "If you've lived through childhood, you have enough material to work with," or something to that effect. Tell stories from when you were a kid. Not those ones that everyone expects you to tell. Tell the weird ones that probably only you remember. Tell about the time you colored on the wall and you didn't do it because you wanted to be bad, you did it because you just loved the texture of that red-orange crayon and wanted to feel how it would move against the smooth paint of the wall. Smooth on smooth. And then you blamed it on your brother. Who was 2 at the time. And couldn't figure out how to suck his thumb, let alone hold a crayon. But your mom just gave you the hairy eyeball and let it go, because dammit, she was tired. There, see how easy that was?
5. Consider your audience. Who reads your blog? Is your mom the only one? That's ok, but think of what your mom might like to read. If your mom is the only person who reads your blog, you'd probably better save your gritty commentary on the emotional wreckage left behind in the wake of losing your virginity for another forum because I guarantee your mom doesn't want to read that. By the same token, if you've told all your friends about your project and everyone you know is reading your blog, consider how much you want to tell them. Blog entries are like toothpaste: You can't put it back once it's out there. Consider carefully which things you'd like to squirt out of the toothpaste tube of your soul. (Yeah, none of you can have that "toothpaste tube of your soul" metaphor. It's mine. I call dibs.)
Ok, so that's what not to write. But you can also consider your audience for ideas of what to write. Let's just say that you're my husband and you decide to start a blog and share it with everyone at work. Everyone at work is a tech geek. No, seriously. They all go out on Fridays and call it Geek Beer. I mean it. So now you know that everyone who reads your blog is a tech geek. So what should you write about? Tech geek things, of course. Looking for a forum for your thesis on server naming conventions? Your blog is the perfect place, buddy. And that's at least one day's worth of blogging taken care of. Tada!
6. Toss that quality thing out the window. We're going for quantity here, people, not quality. Don't have anything interesting to relate to the world at large? Relate something boring. Just relate something. This also takes the pressure off and you might find that when you sit down and give yourself permission to write crap, you end up with a lot of crap, and a few little diamonds-in-the-crap that might actually be kind of smart/funny/usable. (That diamonds-in-the-crap thing is mine too, people. Double dibs.)
7. If time is the major obstacle for you, carve out little pieces of time. Use those few minutes standing in line at Taco Bell to jot down a few notes. Steal a few minutes at work to pull up your draft post and bang away at it. (What, you deserve a 15 minute break now and then.) Bring your laptop to the john with you. I'm serious, that's like at least 10 minutes of time that would otherwise be wasted reading smutty magazines or counting the tiles on the floor.
8. If you're completely at a loss for blog fodder, steal someone else's idea. Respond to another blogger's post. Yoink a topic. Unapologetically make off with your friend's original idea. Just be sure to backlink. In all likelihood, the original blogger will be flattered. If they're not, eh, they're dumb, don't listen to em. Heh.
9. If you're completely completely at a loss for blog fodder, do a meme. They're the lamest of lame excuses for blog entries, but they give you a wordcount.
10. Have fun! Diddy might come get you if you join his Vote or Die campaign and then don't vote, but I doubt anyone will come get you if you FAIL NaBloPoMo. Besides, you know, your own self-loathing.
Tomorrow, I'll grace you all with my NaNoWriMo wisdom. After I hit my wordcount goal.
Last Year In The Life Of Sonja: NaNoWriMo Begins/Trick-or-Treat Commentary
Technorati tags: National Blog Posting Month
-
mommyguilt