The novel-writing, blogging and podcasting quests are somewhat the digital-era equivalent of seeing how many high-schoolers could stuff themselves into a phone booth 50 years ago. But the month-long exercises point up something often overlooked about computing and telecommunications: For all the hand-wringing over the gobs of time that young people spend on the Web, cell phones and the like, young people have never before spent so much creative effort communicating through words and pictures.
Melinda Wilson, 32, plans to blog every day this month. Last year, she completed NaBloPoMo as well as organizing a group of more than a dozen other Maryland bloggers who took part.
Like millions of other Web journals, her blog - cripkitty.wordpress.com - is very personal, a work primarily of introspection not intended for a huge audience. It attracts maybe a dozen or two dozen viewers a day, although that number tripled after NaBloPoMo last year. Because she was blogging more often, she was touching on a wider range of topics and getting linked to other blogs more often.
