Jamie Lynn Spears Fan Site

November marks the beginning of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a project in which thousands of writers around the world work toward completing a 50,000-word novel by November 30th. Sound like something you want to get in on?

Whoa. That’s 1,667 words per day. I’m not ready for that!

We hear you — writing a whole novel is a pretty big undertaking. So why not gear up for the project by starting the WordPress.com Post a Day Challenge this October? It’s a great way to meet others in the WordPress.com community, including writers who have completed NaNoWriMo in the past.

At The Daily Post, home of the Post a Day Challenge, we provide creative inspiration each and every day. You can also find tons of writing prompts at Plinky.com, so you never have to worry about running out of ideas. Participating in Post a Day is also a great opportunity to prepare outlines, character sketches, and research before starting your novel in November.

How am I supposed to complete a decent novel in a single month?

According to the folks at NaNoWriMo, “It’s all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly. Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.”

Think of it this way: Would you rather write an imperfect-but-complete novel, or no novel at all? Besides, if you get in the habit of posting daily throughout October, you’ll be well-equipped to start chipping away at a novel in November.

Bring it on! How do I sign up?

To join the WordPress.com Post a Day Challenge, visit The Daily Post. (The challenge began back in January but you can start any time.)

NaNoWriMo 2011 begins on November 1. Visit NaNoWrimMo.org for information on how to register (the initiative is not run by WordPress.com). If you decide to write your novel on your blog and want to make it easy for others to check out your writing, tag your posts with nanowrimo2011.

What else should I do to prepare?

To create a brand new (and optionally private) blog for the writing challenge, make sure you’re logged in to WordPress.com, then start a new blog. If you don’t have a WordPress.com account yet, get started here.

If you’d like to make your blog look more like a book, you might be interested in purchasing the Chapters theme. Remember that you also have the option to set up a static front page (in place of your posts page) on your blog’s home page, if you’d like to use it to display a table of contents, for example.

So what do you think, are you up for the challenge?

If you score three goals in one hockey game you’ve made what’s called a hat trick. I think that should totally count for themes too. If you’re reading this post you’ve just scored a chance to check out three brand new themes for your blog. Hat trick!

The first up is Eight by renowned designer, Elliot Jay Stocks. Its unique layout means your blog will be almost completely transformed just by activating it. Thanks to the custom background feature and its custom highlight color feature, transforming the look of your blog even further takes only a few clicks. Eight is a premium upgrade for your blog at $75 for a lifetime subscription.

We have another brand new free theme for you too. It’s called Bold Life by Jay Hafling and just like Eight it has its own unique grunge-elegant look.

Finally, we have another premium theme for you and there’s nothing grungy about this one. The beautiful and elegant Elemin, designed by Themify, is just packed with features so make sure you check it out on the theme showcase. You can upgrade your blog to Elemin with a lifetime subscription for $75.

Enjoy!

Today we are adding .me (to .com, .org and .net) as a new option for upgrading to your own, custom domain name on WordPress.com. All of our domain mapping options cost just a couple dollars per month for your domain name and hosting. You don’t have to deal with web servers or configuration, we take care of everything for you.

Get your own .me domain on WordPress.com.

As Sara mentioned a couple months ago, one of the most common questions we get is whether you can use your own domain for WordPress.com blogs. Incidentally, Add a Domain is our most popular upgrade, so we know you love customizing your digital address and we are always looking for ways to make it better and easier.

Rather than adding numbers or dropping vowels for a .com you don’t really want, check out .me and find the perfect fit for your business, your name, or just a pun you can’t stop laughing at. We’ve seen lots of creative domain-names-as-sentences using .me, like about.me and connect.me. And we love our wp.me URL shortener, available to all WordPress.com users.

How to get a .me domain
If you want to upgrade to a .me domain for a new WordPress.com site, head over to wordpress.com/signup. If you want to add a .me domain to an existing WordPress.com site, you can follow our step-by-step instructions. It’s only $2/month, so what are you waiting for?!

Leave a comment and let us know what other domain mapping features you want us to add.

Remember your old admin bar (displayed at the top of your screen while you’re logged in to WordPress.com)? Up until today, it’s looked something like this while viewing an individual post:

But we wanted to make it easier for your visitors to interact with you via Likes and Follows, so we’ve cleaned it up a bit. Now it looks like this:

Better, right!? Now on the right hand side of the admin bar where your Gravatar is displayed, you have easy access to your user profile, all the blogs you can contribute to, and all the comments you’ve made across WordPress.com:

In the blog menu on the left side of the admin bar, you’ll see all the stuff related to the blog you’re currently viewing. If you’re looking at a post on your own blog, the menu will display links to your dashboard, post editor, comment moderation panel, custom menus, and widgets. Next to the blog menu are the Follow and Like buttons, along with a sparkline, which reflects the last 48 hours of page views on the blog:

When viewing posts on other blogs on WordPress.com, the blog menu on the left side of the admin bar will display the following options, as well as the shortlink and theme information:

If you hover over the WordPress.com logo in the left corner, you’ll see the following quick links:

Lastly, you may have noticed that you’re no longer able to reblog a post after clicking the Like button. Don’t worry — we’re cooking up some reblogging improvements that you’ll have access to very soon. Stay tuned!

Isn’t it nice to have a brand new theme, or two, on a Thursday? Maybe you’ll remember, this day in September—because today it’s double the fun with Magazine and Parament now available in your WordPress.com dashboard.

Magazine is a sleek and stylish theme from StudioPress that’s perfect for showcasing your carefully crafted content. Choose from ten color schemes and six layout options and customize it to your taste. Make it yours for a lifetime subscription of $75, and discover all its features on the Theme Showcase.

Parament is a beautiful, all-purpose theme featuring a dark color scheme with bright orange highlights and a textured background. Its clean, colorful, and curved lines will help your content stand out from the crowd. Learn all about it on the Theme Showcase.

Enjoy.