Alright, so that title may be misleading, but there isn’t a way to encapsulate what I want to say.
Why aren’t more dad bloggers participating in NaBloPoMo? Heck, many of the ones I’ve talked with recently didn’t know about it. Some have heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month – basically writing a book) but that was, from what I understand, an offshoot (if this were television it would be a spin-off) of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month).
When I started blogging back in January of 2009 (such as it was) there weren’t a lot of dad bloggers out there. Sure, there were a few, but the mom blogs were (virtually) everywhere and organized. This is where NaBloPoMo came from, as a blogging tool to get people to keep writing during one of the months that sees a significant drop in the number of posts created.
Over the years dad bloggers have become more commonplace, thankfully. Even in the last year or so they have begun to get organized. Even so, the lack of awareness of NaBloPoMo is startling. Has it really faded away into obscurity?
No, I think the dad bloggers I talk to are so focused on their own work and the (relatively small) community of dad bloggers (there isn’t even a stand-alone website for the “group”) hasn’t really in large part taken a lot of time to look beyond their direct influences and immediate peers. When I started blogging I read so many different blogs and drew inspiration from several sources.
I’m not saying that I’m better than the dad bloggers that have recently started out. I just reread my first blog post. I’ve shown little to no improvement in my writing. I’m not a great writer by any stretch of the imagination. It’s more of an observation of the newer crop of dad bloggers seem to be more insular, the community (and subsequent outreach) smaller.
So they don’t know about NaBloPoMo. This is a shame. I’m participating in it to give myself a creative kick in the rear, something to hopefully make myself a better writer. Last time around 2 years ago I was just trying to create content. Now I’m genuinely trying to create better content.
I’d like to see more dad bloggers do the same.