November is writing month. Before I started my PhD, I participated in NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. I sat down every morning and wrote stories relating to our Going East trip. The process itself was rewarding, but I have yet to go back to that writing and turn it into anything. Every November, I am reminded of NaNoWriMo and often reflect on that experience.

This year, I have signed up for two different spin offs of NaNoWriMo – DigiWriMo (Digital Writing Month) and NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I was drawn to DigiWriMo by my friends who are involved in hosting it – however, I’m not that interested in exploring alternative media for posting. I’d really like to focus more on writing. This is what drew me to NaBloPoMo. It is run by a group that I’ve been aware of for some time – BlogHer – an organization that was founded to help amplify the voices of women bloggers.

So this November I’m going to look at NaBloPoMo. The initial message for the first week is the idea that “we are all experts”.  This is actually an important message that I emphasize in the Should I Blog course that I created. From an illness blogging perspective, everyone is an expert in their own bodies. Everyone is an expert in their personal lived experience. I just love that message!

So with this post, I am officially launching my NaBloPoMo experience. I will likely not follow the daily prompts unless I get stuck. I feel like I have a backlog of things to write about, so hopefully that will keep me on track to create a blog post for each day in November.

I had some trouble decided on which blog I would use for NaBloPoMo. In the end (with the twitter encouragement from @blogher), I’ve listed both of my regular blogs – this one and my academic blog. My posts will be different for each blog most of the time  – so I’m making a double commitment to write two posts per day! I do reserve the right to post the same content on both blogs when the content is appropriate for both (like this post).

And as this is my official launch of NaBloPoMo, I’m including the Badge: