Missed it by that much.

This NaBloPoMo posting-every-day thing proved difficult. Some ideas for posts required reading books and reviewing them. (Required is a strong word. This was fun.) Some involved greater questions about 'craft' beer in general. (Is this really important?) There also were a few posts on wine, a whiskey post, a cheese post, a vegetarian post, and a 'guest' post.

But, by the Friday evening following Thanksgiving, the third-to-last evening of the month, my thoughts were trending more toward enjoying beer than critiquing it.

And, I forgot to post.

Missed it by that much.

NaBloPoMo 2014 ... or bust!

I did this thing, intentionally, in 2012 and 2011, and, before that, accidentally, in 2008 and 2007. That is, I posted once per day during the entire month of November, participating in NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month.

The whole thing started off as a goof based on National Novel Writing Month, the challenge of which is to try to write an entire novel during the month November. Not everyone can commit to an endeavor of such magnitude, though, and so National Blog Posting Month was born. However, after doing a November NaBlo for a couple of years in a row it seemed that a lot of people had found their momentum and wanted to keep going into December and beyond. So now NaBloPoMo is something you can drop into any month of the year, though November is still the biggest month, and is the only month when members donate prizes that are then given out randomly to other members who posted every day in November.

I have to be honest here. Tweets don't count, so, if I were to do this again, excluding two 'cheating' entries —this one, announcing a tentative start, and, then, maybe one declaring a triumphal end-of-month victory— that would be twenty-eight greater-than-140-characters posts. Quality over quantity? Yes, of course. Why do you ask?

Maybe by engaging in this tomfoolery, successfully or just-short, I might re-hone and re-whet the blogging edge. Or, maybe raging against the challenge itself will be its own reward. After all, I'm not writing a novel.

Here, I go.

On your mark; get set; go NaBloPoMo 2012!

National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo, is a month long writing exercise intended to occur annually in November. The first NaBloPoMo occurred in November of 2006, and was the brainchild of M. Kennedy, an American blogger. Kennedy was inspired by National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which also happens every November, and thought that there should be a blogging counterpart. NaBloPoMo took off, thanks to the extensive information distribution network between bloggers, with hundreds of participants entered in the first NaBloPoMo.


NaNoWriMo was founded in 1999 by 21 authors in the San Francisco Bay Area who wanted to motivate themselves into producing more written work. The challenge requires authors to produce a 50,000 word novel within one month.

The rules of NaBloPoMo are simple, although the challenge is set up on an honor system. Participants are required to publish one post on their personal website or blog every day. There is no length requirement, with some posters writing long essays every day and others posting photographs and brief captions.

WiseGEEK.com

Here at YFGF, I was able to successfully complete in 2011, but not so in in 2010. I'll make the attempt again this month. Quality over quantity makes the exercise challenging. At the least, the writing chops may become 'embiggened.'



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• This year, as for several years, NaBloPoMo is moderated by Melissa Ford, at BlogHer: Life Well Said.
• More information, and the blogroll of participants, is available here. YFGF is blog no. 130.
• A blogger in Nevada is writing a haiku a day during November. Read Six Blocks From the City, by Carol Cizauskas (my sister!).