Day 2, 2013--Off to a Great Start

Looks like we're off to a great start--at least writing-wise.  I'll be working on getting the prompts up after the Biscuit goes to school and then getting a list of writers together.  Please be patient, as NaBloWriMo, while dear to my heart and good for my soul, is about 236th on my list today.  ;)

I haven't been able to read everybody's stuff, but I'll be trying to as the day goes on, as well.  It's so much fun to get to know everybody and to catch up on what's happened over the last year.  Soooo many changes for some of you!

I'll be posting every day on FB, so if you want to put a link on the page when you get your daily post up, try to comment on that day's post.  This keeps me marginally more organized.

Marginally.

In the margins.

Have fantastic days, my loves!

Day 1, 2013--Welcome and Some Info

Let me be honest.  Writing a blog post every day for a month was not a priority for me this year.  I am slammed by work, buried under the load of laundry I face every day, feeling worn out, blah, and lacking any creative spark whatsoever.

Blah.

Blaaaah, I say.

But...

Here I am.  Here WE are.  Blogging.  Every day for a month.

Today is a weird day for America.  We are divided and conquered by our own government.  We are stressed and worried and angry.

Today is an awful day for my hometown.  One of my childhood friends lost his daughter yesterday and we are reeling from it and anxious because he is so far away and the pain he must be feeling is hard to bear for some of us.

There are a million tragedies and losses and little worries and big frustrations and assorted blechs in this world.  If we let them soak into us, they fester and burn, and they need to be let out.

We can write them out.

There are also, thank whatever god you feel like, a million hopes and triumphs and joys and little smiles and moments of rest that should be celebrated.  If we spread them around the world, maybe they'll multiply.

We can write them into the world.

NaBloWriMo is, for me, a time to start again.  To reconnect with my writing self, to reconnect with my blog friends.  It is a time for me to make new blog friends, to explore different paths.

The basics are simple:  you write a blog post every day for the month of October.  Your posts can be long or short.  They can have pictures or not.  You can tuck in your favorite poems, sayings, and assorted nonsense.

If you do write a blog post, share it with us on our Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/NaBloWriMo/203905936342372

There will be a list of bloggers on this site as soon as I can get it up.  I'll also have a few buttons ready.

I'm collating a list of topics, but if you are stymied, one good one to start with is:  Why are you participating in NaBloWriMo?

What else?  (The girl child is getting ready in the background and I'm worried about the state of her hair.)  Oh!  If you haven't signed up and would like to write with us, visit the Facebook page and sign up.  Then blog.

This month is going to be...good.   Can't wait to read what you write.

Day 14--Let Go of The Guilt

I've seen a few of you talk about how you've been lazy bloggers or bad bloggers because you've missed a day or two.  Or three.  Or, you know, seven.

I'm here to tell you to let go of the guilt.  It's hard to blog every day.  It's CHALLENGING.  It is interrupted by crying children, sick spouses, demanding bosses, fascinating documentaries, nail-biting football games.  Don't feel guilty for missing a day (or seven.)

Just try your best.  WRITE your best.  You can do it.  We're almost halfway through.

Hope you're all reaching out to your fellow bloggers and making new friends.

Love ya.  Mean it.

Day Four, 2012--How We Doin'?

I'm fighting allergies/a cold and feel a little bit like cold poo, but I managed to scrape together a post about a favorite new product.  Posts about new products you've tried or your favorite items are great for quick posts when you feel like cold poo.   Just a little tip for you.  I'm FULL of them.

How are you doing so far?  Are you keeping yourself hydrated?  Energized?  Visiting other blogs?  Learning more about yourself from blogging than you ever thought possible?

Can Emergen-C make you high?

Just wondering.

Have a good night, sweetumses!

Day Three, 2012---While You Are Out

The point (the official one) of NaBloWriMo is that you write a post every day of October.  This is all well and good and should be easy, especially if you are an on the ball kind of person like I am.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAA!

Sorry.

I couldn't help myself.

Anyway, this can be difficult, what with life interrupting your blogging and everything.  I'm facing one of these issues myself in a few days, when the family and I head off to Disneyworld.  While I'm cavorting with cartoon characters and sweating my way through the crowds, the wind will be whistling down the streets of my blog. *cue the tumbleweeds and crickets*

So what does a NaBloWriMo-er do during vacation times?  A few things spring to mind:

Carry a computer, iPad, or even a phone with camera options with you and share snapshots or thoughts on the road.  You don't have to get all philosophical or deep.  Just get a few words on the screen and go.

Write a few posts ahead of time and schedule them to post while you're gone.  Both Blogger and Wordpress have this feature, although I'm not sure about other blogging platforms.

Go back in time and repost a few of your favorite older posts.  These can be posts you think best exemplify YOU or your blog or your crazy life.

Let it go.  No, really.  You're on vacation.  Do not allow blogging to stress you out, because then it becomes a chore and a mountain you have to climb.  We won't hate you if you miss a few days.  

(Translate that last sentence to read:  Don't hate me if I miss a few days...)

Day Two--2012...What About Your Friends?

I've spent the whole day thinking about friends:  how much I love mine and how much I'd like to squeeze some of them although they are far away and I have never actually squeezed them in person.  How I've drifted away from some and reconnected with others.  How I wouldn't be the person I am without them.

I'm going to tell you a truth about NaBloWriMo:  you will make a new friend this month.  I'm telling you this because it's been the case for me every year and looking over your blogs, I can't imagine that it won't be true this year.

Please go and visit the other bloggers in the blog roll.  Even if their blogs don't look like your cup of tea, even if they write about something you find baffling, read them.  Make a friend.

I promise you it's going to be worth it.

Hope your second days have gone spiffily!

Day One, 2012--Hi, My Name is Heather

Good morning, lovies!

Just a few quick notes before we get things started today:

• I'm still making my list and checking it twice, but there should be a list of participating blogs up by this afternoon.  Yes, there is still time to add new blogs, and frankly, I've added new blogs up until the middle of the month before.  We're easy like Sunday morning around here.
• Blog buttons--There's a new one up on the Grab a Button Page.  I'll have a couple more finished by the end of the day.
• Prompts--The list is almost done, and I'll have it up by the end of the day.  For today, I'll be posting a "Who Am I" entry at I'm Not Hannah AND at the Heather Ray Photography blog.  (Yes.  I have one of those.  I am a woefully under-achieving business blogger.  Sigh.)  I suggest all of y'all do an introduction entry today.  A:  They're easy and B:  Lots of us don't know who you are.  (I mean that literally and spiritually.  We're all just bumbling around in this world.)  (Early morning makes me philosophical.)
• About that posting every day thing:  Last year, I failed at this.  I was new at the hospital job, I was stressed by Jeffrey's school year, and I had a spot of unpleasantness on the interwebs that left me feeling a little flat.  UNDERSTAND:  This isn't a competition.  This isn't a sprint to the end of October.  This is meant to be fun.  I will undoubtedly forget to post until midnight and I will TOTALLY go back and retro-date it.  I might forget to add a prompt or a blogger or a button.  You might get vomited on by a child or pet and not be up to posting that day.  Y'all.  A meteor could fall right on all of our heads and we aren't able to blog that day. It's okay.  October is a slow, chilly, spicy, slide into the holiday season for a lot of us.  Get a cup of tea or cocoa or mulled rum and a spice cookie or a scone or a tuna salad sandwich and enjoy yourself.  Okay?  Okay.

BLOG ON, MY FRIENDS.

Blog on.

EDTA:  Still getting lots of responses and that's awesome!  I'll be responding to emails ASAP and putting up prompts and the new roll.  Busy, busy, busy...

Tomorrow is October!

Happy Day Before October!

I'm working again today, but I will be uploading blog prompts, scheduling ideas, more buttons, et cetera later on today!  Huzzah.

Be sure to send me an email or message me on the NaBloWriMo FB page to get onboard.

Wait. It's 2012 Already?

Hey, lovies!  It's the Ides of September, and you know what that means:  time to think about NaBloWriMo again!

I'm ahead of the game so far in terms of buttons--there are already two new ones up on the button page.  I'll be gathering prompts in the next few days so that we'll have a nice fat list.

If you're interested in participating again, shoot me an email (nothannah@comsouth.net) with your name and your blog's name and url.  Deadline for sign up is, as always, October 1.

You can also beebop over to the Facebook page found here:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/NaBloWriMo/203905936342372 and let me know you're on board, but keep in mind that I'll need all of the above info PLUS your email address.  Feel free to FB PM me.  Whheee!

Spread the word, duckies!

Day 25

Hi, duckies.  Thanks for staying with us despite my slipping out for a few days of brain recuperation.  The prompt for today is:  Who is your favorite author?  Or What is your favorite book?  Or possibly:  Do you find yourself thinking like the characters in the last book you read talk?  Is that just me?  It's totally just me, isn't it?

One More Week! Sort of!

We only have one week to go in our blogging challenge! Sort of! One week and one day--that's a week, right?

What have you learned from this experience, if anything? What are your greatest challenges? What are your successes?

Day 17 -- Writing Prompt

Today's prompt is not sexy, but it works for me: Write and report on your favorite fall recipe. For example, last night I made peanut butter cookies and thought about grandma.

You can do better than I just did right there, can't you?

Day 16 -- Roll call!

So? Who's been blogging every day? I'll start:


Me! Meeee! I have!


And it's a freaking miracle. Although, I have been enjoying it. Since I'm trying to remain focused on small craft business, now everything I see turns into a business post. I throw in some personal stuff, too, because I suspect people like that, but mostly it's focused.


How about you? 


~Amy (originator of this nonsense)

Day 9--And Now I'm Back From Outer Space

Hi, turnips!  It's been a few days since I've touched base here, but I've been swamped like a swampy person since Day 5.  How're you doing?  How's the family?  Any problems?  Any triumphs?  Does anybody know why Derek Dooley wears those awful pants?

Today's prompt is:  Given that Autumn is busting out all over, which is your favorite season and why?  Alternately, which is your LEAST favorite season and, of course, why?


Hope everybody's writing away like little writing bugs.  Or ferrets.  Or whatever industrious animal would be a good writer.  Is that a bad metaphor?

Day 5---WAS There a Day 5?

I spent today busily happy (or happily busy) with Will and the kidlets, and that's why the prompt is going up right now, with one hour and twenty minutes left in the day.  Prompt:  What is your favorite way to spend time with your family?


Each year, I learn something from NaBloWriMo and what I've learned this year is that waiting til 10 o'clock at night is NOT what I should be doing in order to get a good post in at I'm Not Hannah.  So tomorrow, I'll be posting around six in the morning, which is my usual wake up time.

What have you learned so far?

Day 4--Now With Less Bitterness

Today's prompt:  What advice would you give your fifteen-year-old self?

Whew!  So, yesterday was a grump day for me, complete with grousing and grimacing and snarking.  I wasn't particularly angry, just grumpy and when it got to the end of the day and I hadn't posted my NaBloWriMo post for the day, I really just let it all hang out.  Insanely.  Honestly, it was like I was a crazy person.  

For the record:

• I do not feel stressed out by NaBloWriMo.  Having almost EIGHTY folks to hang out with is awesome and while, yes, I wish we had new buttons, I'm not wigging out over the fact that we don't.  I'll get to them.
• I'm not overdoing it.  My tendency is actually to UNDERdo it, so having NaBloWriMo as the frames of my day (prompt in the morning, post in the evening) actually spurs me to do stuff.  Wish I could make fiction writing my frame.  (This might be a light bulb moment.  I'll keep you posted.)
• You all, with your support and defenses and soothing words, are so cool.  
• The blog feed thing is making me nuts.  A, it lost Selma, which is absolutely not okay.  And B, it won't recognize my Mama, which makes me crazy.  I still don't have any reasons why.  I suggested to my Mama and now suggest to everybody else, to post links to your posts to the Facebook page if you're having problems with this.  

Okay.  Go have good days and stop worrying about me.  I've already cleaned the bathroom, which I was amused to discover is better than being awakened by a nine-year-old weirdo at four o'clock any day.  So I'm all good.

Day 3--Chugging Right Along

Prompt for Monday, October 3:  Many people have lucky socks or shirts or stones or pens.  Is there an object you own that you consider lucky?  If so, why?


List.  Because it's early, Jeffrey's been up since 4 (WHAT??) and my brain hurts.

1. Still haven't figured out the feed thing.  From various sites I've found, this is a fairly common thing on Blogger blog lists, but there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to it, nor an easy fix.  Yay.  So just keep writing.  I know it must be frustrating to those of you who ARE writing not to see your post on the list, but I'll try to keep an eye on the guys at the bottom (anybody want to join me in that?) and visit and comment on your blogs.  Apparently, sometimes the "fix" is just to not to anything.  Technology.
2. I know, I know, believe me I know that y'all are craving some updated buttons.  I, too, would enjoy getting rid of the old buttons and am in the process of designing three that I think are Teh Cool.  (Spooky, Steam-Punky, and Elegant) Unfortunately, I also have to do things like take care of my sick babies, repair the damage my dog keeps doing to my garden, go to work, eat, clean my house, and sleep.  Today I go to work and hopefully there won't be twenty babies waiting on me to be photographed so that I can get home and do the buttons, but if there ARE twenty babies, that puts me home late and then there's still taekwando lessons to be shuttling the Bug to and supper to cook and all of the other Mama-related stuff that has to get tackled.  So. Yes to the new buttons, but patience is required.  If anybody else designs buttons and would like to do so, feel free to do so and share them with us.  That would be Teh Cool, as well.
3. I'm usually not so grumpy, but FOUR O'CLOCK.  WITH LOUDNESS.  AND CHANTING.  AND DEMANDS TO PLAY THE DS.  
4. Ahem
5. The deadline for late entries will be the 6th, which is Thursday.  (This is also my personal deadline for buttons, a prompt list, and a list of prizes and their dates.)  I am LOVING all of the late entries, loving the diversity, loving it all, but after that date, no new blogs will be added.  Unless chocolate is involved.  Then...I might be influenced.
6. Am I too grumpy this morning?  
7. I'm sorry.  Just call me Grumples McButthead.  I'll try to be more perky after I've had seven or eight mugs of chai.
8. I really do love you.  Promise.

Weird Update Thingamabob

So chickadeedles, I've come to realize that some folks are updating, but it's not showing up on the feed.  I don't know if this is an issue with just Blogger blogs.  If so, I suspect it has something to do with Firefox, because I keep getting messages when I log onto Blogger in Firefox that Firefox and Blogger have broken up and they aren't speaking and anything that they used to have in common is now so much ashes and dust.

What?

I don't know.  Try doing your stuff in Chrome.  If anybody else is having problems, let me know and I will. ..I don't know.  Kick somebody's arse or something.

Today's prompt comes from Julianna and goes "If you could live the life of any heroine or hero from one of your favorite books, which one would it be?"  I'm doing a spin on it, but I'll be writing something like that in a few minutes (or hours...whichever.)  I want to make sure that y'all know you don't HAVE to use the prompt, nor do you have to use it on the day I post it.  In fact, you can post today's prompt on the 17th.  There are few rules around here, my friends.

River's fever took a sharp left turn toward barfing and the chills last night, so I didn't get all of the prompts or the buttons up.  All apologies, my loves.  Got a few more entries last night (and this morning), as well, so I'll be adding those in a few moments. If you added last night or early this morning, you probably aren't on the list, but if you added yesterday, you SHOULD be (even if my Excel suddenly and inexplicably developed a problem somehow related to Frontpage and exploded...sigh.)  If you don't see yourself up there, let me know!

You'll note that I linked to Julianna's blog, "In the Playpen," above in the prompt.  I encourage you to visit as many of the blogs on the list as you can.  Not every blog will interest you, but even a friendly "hi" can make a fledgling (or experienced) feel good.

Happy writing!

Happy October!!!

Aaaaaand....we're off!

While I'm still busy cataloging entries and prizes and prompts and trying to get a button made, I wanted to go ahead and say, "Good luck!"  And "You rock!"  And "Yes, we're all crazy!" and "Wheee!"

The blog prompt for today is "Why do you blog?"  You don't HAVE to write about this.  Most of your readers already know.  BUT--you're probably new to a lot of us, so that's what we're going for today.  I'll have a full list later on in the day.

I wish you all happy, stress-free writing and I hope you have a great time.  Thanks so much for joining us!  I look forward to getting to know all of you a little better.

BTW, if you didn't send me an email with your name and info, it's possible that you aren't on the list yet.  So if you just signed up on the Facebook page or on a comment and don't see your name on the 2011 list, shoot me an email so I can make sure we're all accounted for?

Okay?

Okay.

Yay!

UPDATE 1:  I've started to add the bloggers.  If you don't see your blog up by the end of the day, please email me.  No doubt Excel ate the part of my brain where your entry was lodged.

UPDATE 2:  Back at adding bloggers after the soccer game during which I yelled at River for not showing any hustle only to get her back home and find she has a fever.  AWESOME MOM OF THE YEAR AWARD!!!  Anyway, we've got some more entries, so it's going slow.  Not that I'm complaining.  This is excccceeeellllent.

UPDATE 3:  So the kidlet's fever kept going up, so I took her to the after hours clinic and now she's curled up all hot and uggy on my lap while I type around her.  I WILL get you all on here (you, too, WT...and you can sing if you want), but it's gonna take a bit.  Buttons will come, too.  Promise.