Okay, maybe I went a little overboard with the title of this post, but I was trying to demonstrate my growing weariness with the post-Internet alphabet soup that has become the English language. Nevertheless, I'm diving into that brew head-first this month. BlogHer, a major blog publisher that carries blogs written by women, addressed to women, about things that interest every possible kind of woman, issues a challenge to the blogging divas of the world each month--put up a post every day for a month without fail. In other words, if you want to be a writer, you have to constantly fine-tune your technique, so instead of getting bogged down in the minutiae of life, WRITE.
And this little gem of an idea, "National Blog Post Month," got chopped mercilessly down to NaBloPoMo. Like that even means anything. The original concept that sparked this ever-expanding set of challenges was the National Novel-Writing Month (NaNoWriMo--which really sounds like Mork's "Na-nu, na-nu," to me). Now there are similar quests for bloggers, poets and heaven only knows what else. I actually think it's a really cool idea--though I won't be trying to write a complete novel in one month any time soon, thank you--and am grateful to BlogHer for hosting it, so I signed on board this weekend. Nevertheless, I think the chop-and-splice approach to speaking English really needs to be denounced, with all its pomp and all its works. Unless someone with some influence in the Blogosphere asks my opinion on the subject, however, we must work within the confines we've been given. I love your spirit, NaBloPoMo, and so I shall embrace your siren song to blog daily, despite your most unfortunate name.
NaBloPoMo has a monthly theme, as well as daily prompt questions on said theme, in case a blogger is stumped for ideas. But we members of NaBloPoMo are allowed to blithely ignore this system whenever we feel like it, as long as we consistently post every day throughout the month, and I intend to do that very thing. Possibilities for learning some discipline in my writing not withstanding, I prefer to come up with my own topics, and I have certainly never been accused of running out of things to say. Just ask my kindergarten teacher; she'll back me up on that.
(I swear, that last comment is an almost word-for-word quote, and it's teacher-speak for, "How do I tell you politely that I really need your little girl to shut up in class?") And I really don't think I need to exercise the "gaining discipline in writing by working to a commission" muscle any more right now. I did AN ENTIRE CONSECUTIVE DECADE OF COLLEGE! Believe me, I've written enough term papers for which someone else set the topic to last me a life time. I am extremely grateful to BlogHer for giving all of us women bloggers this opportunity to meet, talk, and know there really are people reading us out there in the ether. Still, I'm enjoying the freedom of topic that blogging has given me too much to relinquish it yet.
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