It is October!  Perhaps one of the greatest months of the year that start with the letter O!

Last year, Michael told me about this challenge, where bloggers were to write a post every day in the month of October.  He told me about it on October 2nd, so I was already behind.  But I like challenges, so I launched into it, and posted twice on the 31st.  I achieved the goal in spirit.

It’s not actually called Blog-tober, of course.  It’s called…

That seems a bit wordy, though.  I like Blog-tober, better.

The Ultimate Blog Challenge is basically a marketing thing, and the purpose for the participants is to get more readers.  I assume that the people that put on the challenge get email addresses to use for evil purposes.  I’m not sure.  I haven’t looked at it that closely.

I’m not doing this to get more readers.  Sure, it would be pretty neat to get more than 4 or 5 people reading what I post here.  I would find that flattering.  It’s not what I expect out of this, and it won’t break my heart if my hit counters don’t go up.

The real reason I’m doing this is because it gears me up for NaNoWriMo.  The exercise of writing something every day for a month is perfect just before a month of furious writing activity.  I think the reason I was successful November last year was because I spent so much time writing blog posts in October.

Last year, my posts were somewhat random.  I didn’t go into it with any sort of plan, and there were a few days where I had to scramble for something to write about.

This year, I have plans.  I opened up notepad and jotted down 15 topics.  All of them pertain to writing.

I may write some fiction for some of the posts this month.  I haven’t made up my mind on that, yet.  On the one hand, it’s good exercise, leading into November.  On the other, it feels pretentious posting first-draft fiction on my blog, as though all of my dabbling is worthy of public display.  I don’t know.  Maybe I shouldn’t worry so much, and just post whatever the hell I want.  That’s kind of the idea in the first place, isn’t it?

It does touch on something I’ve questioned for some time, though.  What is my blog for?  What purpose does it serve?  Am I trying to educate or entertain?  Is this a crutch, or is it therapy?

Regardless of this blog’s purpose, there will be a whole lot more of it this month.  Put on your safety helmets and buckle your seat belts.  Blog-tober begins.