Thirty Dark And Stormy Nights

Right off the bat, you can see what challenges await bloggers who're considering taking part in National Novel Writing Month: They (and its organizers) are calling it NaNoWriMo. (It's our no. 8 top link today.) Now, when you're turning out highly perishable, hyperlink-flecked paragraphs several times a day, as is the case for the 16.8 million bloggers we monitor, coming up with a shorter name for the November writing event may seem natural, but it's the wrong way to think when you have to produce 50,000 words in 30 days. In the site FAQs, though, the organizers concede they ain't lookin' for The Sound and the Fury, and returning writers have been mentioning that a lot of what they turn out is pretty much claptrap. (Bloggers turning out claptrap? Heavens!) (Speaking of which, read this post.) Don't believe us? This Metachat poster says the contest draws out some "supremely bad writing." Still, some people are looking forward to the experience, like this blogger, who's nonetheless concerned about " trailing off into blathering." Bloggers and blather? Heavens!

Posted by Philip Ewing at October 3, 2005 11:23 AM

Category: The Dead-Tree Scene