Month of MAYhem Blogging Challenge™

well, people seem to like being told what to write on their blogs. here's my whack at it. if you don't like my challenge, why don't you write your own ideas on your own blog every. damn. day?

all righty. so for those of you looking for guidance, you can either follow the steps in the order they are given, or you can print out the schedule, cut each day out into a little slip of paper and put them in a hat from which you can draw randomly.

wouldn't that be fun?

prologue: blog every day about how the Month of MAYhem Blogging Challenge™ is coming up. be sure to encourage everybody you know to join. some of the exercises require advance preparation, so be sure to read the whole list ahead of time!

day 1: announce with great fanfare that you are taking part in Month of MAYhem Blogging Challenge™, that it is a rigorous challenge, and that you are committed to sticking with it faithfully. invite everyone to do the same and check back often.

day 2: do not post anything. nothing. not one word or picture.

day 3: take a close-up picture of a body part belonging to you or someone you know. the picture should be in focus, but at such close range that it is difficult to guess which body part it actually is. invite readers to guess. bonus points if the photo is of one of your co-workers, especially your supervisor.

day 4: tell us ten things about yourself that we don't already know. since you are a blogger, you have probably already told us everything you're willing to tell us, so dig deep. and be sure to cross-check your post with everything you've ever written online to be sure you are not recycling material.

day 5: leave your house. bring your camera and a megaphone or a bullhorn. when you get to the end of your driveway, turn left. turn left at the next opportunity.  go through the next three intersections, then turn left again and take your first right. when you come to the next intersection stop and set up your camera. take video of yourself making a rambling political-sounding rant at whichever street corner you find yourself. post the video to your blog.

day 6: post a picture of a housepet. anyone's housepet. do not identify or explain it.

day 7: do not post anything except the words "taken with instagram at (place)" and for place, insert any location to which you have never been. please be specific.

day 8: write that the Month of MAYhem Blogging Challenge™ says you're supposed to cook something in which the ingredients all begin with the letter "d", but then make anything you like and put the word "delicious" in front of it.

day 9: for "FOTO FRIDAY" (because if you are doing this day-by-day it is wednesday) draw something in a cheap paint program and post a screenshot. if for some reason you are choosing to have day nine on an actual friday, post a recipe instead. be sure to say it's for FOTO FRIDAY. do not apologize or explain.

day 10: pick a random commercial product and endorse it, but pretend you are REALLY, REALLY EXCITED ABOUT IT. write your post with plenty of links and testimonials for the product but try to keep a tone that suggests to the reader that you're trying WAY TOO HARD to appear like you're not getting paid .02 cents for every clickthrough.

day 11: ramble on about how much better things were in the old days. if you are over 50, talk about how everything has been spoiled ever since stores are allowed to remain open on sundays, because you hate shopping on sundays. if you are under 50, go on a tearful nostalgic rant about how much life has changed for the worse ever since (event) happened. for your event, pick something that happened in the last two weeks.

day 12: call up every hardware store within a twelve mile radius of your house and ask them if they have duck tape in the OSU buckeye pattern. if you live in ohio, ask for texas A&M. keep an elaborate record of those calls and tell us about it.

day 13: complain about someone with annoying or even downright illegal behavior. make sure to mention the person's race, ethnicity, religion, or perceived sexual orientation. because, you know, those things are all causative.

days 14 and 15: confess to a pattern of illegal behavior, vent your outrage at the inconvenience of being caught, and then complain about how hard it is for you to get a job as either a bank teller or a schoolteacher.

day 16: make six different posts, but don't actually say anything.

day 17: thank people for giving you awards that they didn't actually give you. bonus points if you can get them to give you the awards retroactively.

day 18: make up awards and give them to people. award yourself points if you can get them to pass the bogus awards on to other chumps. double your bonus points if you can get them to thank you for giving them any award that implies they should write less.

day 19: MORE AWARDS! as part of the Month of MAYhem Blogging Challenge™, design and give out an award that carries with it a long list of odious conditions, e.g., "to accept this award post a video of you hopping up and down on one foot while reciting ten sunshiny things about you and thanking the person who nominated you". make sure it is like a chain letter and must be passed on to several more people. give it a pretty graphic. if you are too lazy to make a fun graphic, you can use mine:

day 20: visit 20 random blogs and make comments that look like they ought to make sense, but do not. one handy way to do this is to save your comment for the first blog and write it, as if it belongs there, on the second.

day 21: go to some popular websites and leave incendiary comments designed to get people to follow links back to your blog and leave angry comments there. for this day, post the results. if there are any live backlinks, leave them in.

day 22: announce that you are taking an online writing course. have everything you write for the rest of the month become progressively worse.

day 23: start posting free-form poetry.
be
asbolutely certain
that it illustrates the concept
that you do not
know
anything about poetry or line
breaks
other than it has
narrower
columns.

day 24: be sure to mention that you are using a writing prompt from the Month of MAYhem Blogging Challenge™, because inclusion of the words "writing prompt" always signals a quality post. and then in your post, write about any incident from your life, but use the words "innertube", "mayonnaise", "postmodern", and "cephalopod".

day 25: begin to write about your activities for the summer solstice. be sure to write in such a way as to suggest it is today and not some date next month.

day 26: visit a handful of random mommy blogs and give internet psychiatric diagnoses to either the author or the commenters. make popcorn. some popular diagnoses to throw around include bipolar illness, borderline personality disorder, and trichotillomania. sound all knowing and ominous. sit back and enjoy the aftermath.

day 27: find a box of junk you don't want and present it as a fun giveaway in honor of  Month of MAYhem Blogging Challenge™. offer to mail it to the person who writes the MOST comments on a secret, randomly selected post from this month.

day 28: write a long-winded post apologizing for having nothing to say. be sure to title it "wordless wednesday." even better if today is monday.

day 29: in today's post, make sure you use at least five words you aren't sure how to spell and of which you do not really understand the meaning.  do not under any circumstances look them up.

day 30: pretend you do not know how many days are in the month of may, and declare a successful conclusion to the Month of MAYhem Blogging Challenge™.


i know i have helped you.