{"id":408,"date":"2014-10-01T20:09:41","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T03:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=408"},"modified":"2014-10-01T20:09:41","modified_gmt":"2014-10-02T03:09:41","slug":"blog-tober-2014-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=408","title":{"rendered":"Blog-tober 2014 Begins!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is October! \u00a0Perhaps one of the greatest months of the year that start with the letter O!<\/p>\n

Last year, Michael told me about this challenge, where bloggers were to write a post every day in the month of October. \u00a0He told me about it on October 2nd, so I was already behind. \u00a0But I like challenges, so I launched into it, and posted twice on the 31st. \u00a0I achieved the goal in spirit.<\/p>\n

It’s not actually called Blog-tober, of course. \u00a0It’s called…<\/p>\n

\"ultimateblogchallenge1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That seems a bit wordy, though. \u00a0I like Blog-tober, better.<\/p>\n

The Ultimate Blog Challenge is basically a marketing thing, and the purpose for the participants is to get more readers. \u00a0I assume that the people that put on the challenge get email addresses to use for evil purposes. \u00a0I’m not sure. \u00a0I haven’t looked at it that closely.<\/p>\n

I’m not doing this to get more readers. \u00a0Sure, it would be pretty neat to get more than 4 or 5 people reading what I post here. \u00a0I would find that flattering. \u00a0It’s not what I expect out of this, and it won’t break my heart if my hit counters don’t go up.<\/p>\n

The real reason I’m doing this is because it gears me up for NaNoWriMo. \u00a0The exercise of writing something every day for a month is perfect just before a month of furious writing activity. \u00a0I think the reason I was successful November\u00a0last year was because I spent so much time writing blog posts in October.<\/p>\n

Last year, my posts were somewhat random. \u00a0I 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.<\/p>\n

This year, I have plans. \u00a0I opened up notepad and jotted down 15 topics. \u00a0All of them pertain to writing.<\/p>\n

I may write some fiction for some of the posts this month. \u00a0I haven’t made up my mind on that, yet. \u00a0On the one hand, it’s good exercise, leading into November. \u00a0On the other, it feels pretentious posting first-draft fiction on my blog, as though all of my dabbling is worthy of public display. \u00a0I don’t know. \u00a0Maybe I shouldn’t worry so much, and just post whatever the hell I want. \u00a0That’s kind of the idea in the first place, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

It does touch on something I’ve questioned for some time, though. \u00a0What is my blog for? \u00a0What purpose does it serve? \u00a0Am I trying to educate or entertain? \u00a0Is this a crutch, or is it therapy?<\/p>\n

Regardless of this blog’s purpose, there will be a whole lot more of it this month. \u00a0Put on your safety helmets and buckle your seat belts. \u00a0Blog-tober begins.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is October! \u00a0Perhaps 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. \u00a0He told me about it on October 2nd, so I was already behind. \u00a0But I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":410,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions\/410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}