NaNoWriMo Gets a TED Shoutout!

Saw this interesting video today (thanks to Karl from the Startup Daily for sharing).

If you've never seen a TED talk before, you're in for a treat. The tagline is "ideas worth spreading," and I've found this to be true for all of the videos I've seen there so far. Whether you've got Bill Gates releasing mosquitoes into the audience or two scantily-clad dancers from the group Pilobolus performing an acrobatic, interpretive dance while bathed in blue light, you'll find your mind being blown in ways you never expected.

The premise of this video is great for what it is. I'm a huge believer in the idea that small changes are more likely to stick. And I'm interested in becoming more formal about 30-day challenges. But most of all, I love that Matt Cutts gives a shoutout to something near and dear to my heart - NaNoWriMo!

Never heard of NaNo before? Gasp! Well, in short, it's a challenge that charges writers with writing 50,000 words during the month of November. Click here to read more about last year's NaNo.

Looking for Guest Humor Bloggers on You Amuse Me

Interested in bringing more attention to your humor writing? Then you should definitely write a guest post for my humor blog, You Amuse Me!

What we're looking for: Anything funny and original. List-based humor tends to be pretty popular. Funny pictures are also welcome. We're always open to new format ideas.

What you get: Kudos, endless love and devotion, your work in front of a quickly growing audience, a link to your website/blog/Facebook Page/Twitter account/smoke signal generator.

How to apply: Send an email to emma (at) youamuseme (dot) com with a link to some of your humor blog, a humor writing article, and/or a short sample (at least 250 words) of your writing.

Thoughts on Setting Writing Goals and July 2011 Update

I was thinking earlier about the writing goals that I set for myself in June. I was frustrated that I hadn't done as well as I'd hoped, and I was trying to figure out why I was having trouble. Although I did manage to write all my Trail's Edge blog posts, and I blogged even more than I said I would over at You Amuse Me, I fell short with Weird Worm articles (seven instead of eighteen), didn't start my mystery blog, and didn't read The Happiness Project. Out of all of them, the Weird Worm goal bugged me the most.

Later in the day, I went for a swim (trust me, this is an important part of the story). My goal was to swim for at least fifteen minutes.I didn't have much more time than that to spend, because I had to get back to work. So why was it that I felt so frustrated after a fourteen minute swim? It was surely close enough to my goal to make the difference not matter. It bothered me that after all the work of getting ready to swim, going to the pool, and actually doing the deed, I still didn't feel like I'd done a good enough job.