What is it?

It's National Blog Posting Month!

Why the hell would I want to do that?

You started a blog to make yourself write more often?

NaBloPoMo is an alternative to November's NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, the program wherein you crank out a novel in thirty days.

Some of us lack the imagination, stamina, and self-destructive impulses required to write a novel that quickly, but, by Grabthar's Hammer, we can update our blogs every day for a month!

Rules

Post every day for the month of November. That's it. The deadline for getting your url on the participants list below is, oh, let's say November 1 at 11:59 p.m. Not that I'll be up that late, waiting, but that will be your last chance to get your first day's post in. No cheating and backdating posts, either. You're on your honor.
THE LIST IS NOW CLOSED. If I haven't put up your link yet, don't worry, it will be there soon. But if, despite my assurances, you're still going to worry about it, go ahead and send me a friendly, nonthreatening e-mail that includes your URL and blog name and then check back in a few days. Thank you for your patience during this extraordinary time.

Prizes!

Grand Prize

To be chosen by random drawing at the end of the month by Jessica at www.kerflop.com (formerly Very Mom):

* Six months free hosting with purchase of a full 12-month Economy Hosting plan - or, if the winner does not wish to change hosts, a Flickr Pro Account for one year

* One custom banner/masthead for your blog

If the winner is currently blogging on a hosted publishing platform (Blogger/blogspot, Livejournal, Typepad) and would like to take advantage of the six months free hosting, Jessica will install Wordpress and load a valid XHTML and valid CSS theme along with the custom banner/masthead.

Random Prize Drawings

1. Five lucky people with blog posting disorder will be chosen to receive either a hat or a mug (your choice) from the NaBloPoMo Shop at Cafe Press OR a Fussy t-shirt of their choice.

2. Maggie Mason herself is offering special prizes to two lucky obsessives who complete the NaBloPoMo challenge: one prize is a signed copy of her book (described below), and the other is a handsome "I Fuck Like a Girl" t-shirt (scroll down to see it).

3. Deb of 60 bugs is offering the prize of a grownup-size hand-embroidered t-shirt. Her tees are of the best to be found anywhere on the Internet and exact specifications will follow soon, I promise.

4. Erin will lovingly embroider a randomly-drawn winner's initials on a fine handkerchief! It may also have spangly aliens on it, just so you know.

5. Ree will send a randomly-drawn winner a $75.00 Border's gift card.

6. Margalit is giving away any t-shirt from her excellent Cafepress store.

7. Jeff, too, is offering a blog-compatible prize of the winner's choice from his lovely Cafepress store!

8. Matt Hooker is offering a startlingly generous custom 8 x 10 oil painting for the winning random blogger.

9. Heather Champ is offering a most excellent and useful one-year Flickr Pro account.

10. Mai Le is offering a sock monkey!

11. Stacey would like to offer up -- to a random participant who is using their LiveJournal for NaBloPoMo -- their choice of: 2 months of paid time, or 3 custom userpics. Nice!

12. Autumn is donating a really lovely tea sampler to help calm one lucky winner's nerves after all that posting.

13. Jenny Frazier is offering a 12 x 18 framed print of one of her astonishing photos.

14. Jim Kost is also a terrific photographer and he is generously donating a 12 x 18 print of one of his photos; you can choose a photo from his site or anything of sufficient resolution from his Flickr photostream.

15. Mombat (rhymes with "combat") is offering a fantastic free tee from her Cafepress shop.

16. Angela would like you to win either a Lia Sophia "Tribeca" necklace or a Cranberry Trio limited edition holiday set from the Body Shop.

17. Emily is offering one pound of homemade, gourmet dog treats to from her own "Doggie Bags" kitchen to the person who writes the best dog-related post. Ooh! A challenge!

18. Jay Allen is donating a Thrillville prize pack (includes candy!) from LucasArts. WAY better than a Yoda t-shirt.

19. Alana is offering a nice little $10 Borders gift card, if that's alright with you, and I think it is.

20. Lynnster would like two winners each to have a set of authentic Memphis barbecue sauce and dry rub rib seasoning from Memphis, Tennessee's famous Corky's BBQ. Each winner can have his or her choice of the regular/mild or the hot/spicy, and if the winners happen to be vegetarian she will substitute something just as Memphis-y but non-carnivorous.

21. Danielle is putting up an Equal Exchange gift basket that includes one 12oz bag of coffee (Organic Breakfast Blend in the winner's choice of drip grind or whole bean), one 8oz can of organic hot cocoa mix, three organic chocolate bars (dark chocolate with espresso bean, milk chocolate, and very dark chocolate), and one box of organic Rooibus tea (a naturally caffeine free tea from the Wupperthal Cooperative of farmers in South Africa).

22. Kerry will present a random winner with a $25.00 certificate from Thinkgeek.com.

23. Mocha will ship three bags of coffee to a winning blogger: Starbucks Sumatra, Peet's Sumatra (so you can do a little comparison between the two), and Hickory Farms Celebration Coffee.

24. Roo will make a winning blogger a CD full of nice and probably-new-to-you music, with or without banjo, you can work that out with her.

25. Jen will send one winner a pack of Shuffle Up playing cards. She says they're great for playing Texas Hold 'em.

26. Robin will send two 8-oz. jars of homemade jelly (one lavender, one spiced apple cider) which you can see in her Etsy shop.

27. Susan is knitting a scarf this month, the progress of which you'll be able to track through her blog, and at the end of the month someone will be drawn to win it! Excellent.

28. Chair does these fantastic illustrations of bugs and you can win one if you blog every day this month.

29. Javis Davis will send a custom-made crib set to the first blogger finds out she's pregnant during the month of November.

You must post every day to be entered into the prize drawings.

I Think I Can, I Think I Can

To improve your navel gazing you might try No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog by Maggie Mason. It contains exactly one hundred useful blogular directions for you to explore, it's amusingly written, and you will find yourself all set for posting every day in November, December, and part of January, too.

No matter what you post - pictures, poems, observations, critiques, or bald-faced lies -- the hope is that the act of putting something of yourself out for the world to see every single day will make writing become a more fluid, natural, and integral part of your day.

A personal blog is a mirror, and just for one month you'll be able to capture an image of yourself every day while creating a time capsule of the good, the bad, and that time you pissed off your mom by updating your blob during Thanksgiving dinner.

Plus, think how happy your regular readers will be, knowing they can get a reliable dose of your brilliance thirty days in a row. That means weekends, too, my friend.

No Fucking Way, Dude

If you don't want to participate as a NaBloPoMo blogger then your mission is simply to delurk and comment on one of the sites below, or another of your favorite blogs, once a day in the month of November as a show of support. This will also prove that you can read and that you think blogging is nice.

Participant buttons

If you want to use one of these buttons on your site, please upload it to your own server and link back to this url:

http://www.fussy.org/nablopomo.html