Ever since I first heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I’ve always felt like I should be writing in November. Since I began my PhD journey in 2011, I haven’t been able to play with NaNoWriMo – however, I’ve looked at other options. It seems that every year there is a new form of it – tailored to different audiences. Either way, as the days get shorter in the northern hemisphere, I’m drawn to write more.
This year I’m going to be playing with the Digital writing month (#digiwrimo) and the National Blog Posting Month (#NaBloPoMo) folks. I’m not sure I’m going to be playing by the ‘rules’ for either of them specifically. Fortunately Maha Bali has already given me permission to ignore any of the #digiwrimo ‘rules’ and do my own thing.
“I like Michael Weller’s term of emergent goals, so there’s one thing of letting students or learners set their own goals, and then there’s another thing of allowing them to take the agency of emergent goals, so that even though maybe I start out Digital Writing Month planning to do something, that I allow myself to change those goals as I get exposed to something else and as I change and all that.” ~Maha Bali – HybridPod, Episode 7 – Collaboration
The first prompt from #DigiWriMo came a little early, suggesting the idea of writing an unofficial CV. This was in part influenced by my blog post challenging the traditional academic bio. Even though I am one that pushes to have F(un)bios – or bios that talk about who are as people, rather than who we are as employees/laborers, I am challenged in creating a meaningful one for myself. It means I need to really start to think about who I am? What defines me in this moment of time?
One area that I wanted to explore further was that of me as a blogger. For the last year or so, I have identified as I prolific blogger. I’ve used that on formal academic presentations! At some point in time I had come across BlogHer – an organization that helps amplify the voices of female bloggers. Since I’m a bit of a conference junkie (I love conferences), I had added to my bucket list attending a conference about blogging. I am, afterall, a prolific blogger. I should expect that I would find my tribe at a conference about blogging. That brought me to the BlogHer website, which in turn brought me to their annual conference, aptly titled “Experts Among Us“. This theme really resonated with me. It aligns with one of the things that I emphasize in the Should I Blog course, that is, that we are each experts in our own experiences. I think this links quite nicely with the idea of the unofficial CV. For me, it has me asking myself, what are the things in which I am an expert in?
After a little digging around on the BlogHer website, I found a link to NaBloPoMo. And so, I have signed myself up to write and post one blog post per day. Except that I signed up as both the academic Rebecca Hogue, and as the breast cancer survivor Becky. So I’m really committing to writing two blog posts a day … I think I might be just a little crazy. That being said, I feel like I have a whole bunch of things I want to say, so this just might be the kick in the butt that I needed.
The forks at NaBloPoMo have a digital badge for anyone participating:
Unfortunately, the folks at #digiwrimo don’t have one – yet – I’m reminded of Amy Collier’s session at #et4online where she talks about not-yet-ness. I hope someone with some graphics skills and creativity come up with some digital badges for #digiwrimo!
And with that I will end my first blog post – having not yet come to any conclusion as to what I would include in my unofficial CV, having not yet finished answering for myself, what am I an expert in?
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