For the past nineteen days that I have been posting about my NaNoWriMo progress here, a strange thing has happened. Every single time.
If you have a blog on WordPress, then you likely know that at the bottom of the New Post page is a section allowing you to tag your blog piece with relevent words. This of course makes it easier for people searching the internet for stories to find your blog among the slush piles of other blogs. WordPress is even nice enough to offer up some suggestions that pertain to the words in your new post. The suggestions are called Recommended Tags.
Like I said above, each day of November I have written a small blurb about NaNoWriMo. Usually I just give my word
count with a bit of “YEAH ME” thrown in to keep my spirits up. Other times I talk about whatever thought enters my mind.
That being said, Never have I mentioned…let me say this again…never…have…I…mentioned: the 2011 Big East Women’s Basketball Tournament. And yet, every single day as I prepare to launch my NaNoWriMo update there at the top of the WordPress Recommended Tags sits those words.
At first, I did not think anything about it. It was a glitch or something. But as the days went by I became fascinated. In fact, I have done a little research on the topic. It turns out the 2011 Big East Women’s Basketball Tournament was won by Connecticut. Being from East Tennessee, home of the 8 times National Champions Lady Vols and the Division One winningest basketball coach of all times (men or women) Pat Head Summit, I never would have written a post about this tournament. When you say Connecticut in Tennessee during basketball season we spit on the ground (just kidding).
I then figured there may be a bunch of NaNoers writing novels about the 2011 Big East Tournament. That would account for the Tag, right? Hey, it could happen. I mean, I am sure that the game between UConn and Notre Dame was thrilling. The final score sure seemed pretty close at 73-64. Maybe this really was the stuff of great stories. When I did a search of the NaNoWriMo websites Novels, Profiles and Forums though I came up with diddly.
Finally I searched Google. A bunch of WordPress blogs came back with this exact tag. Some of them from as recently as yesterday. Most were from 2012. When I went to read the posts they were from writers and most were about NANOWRIMO. I assume these people must have been sucked in by the “Apply All” link trap beside the Recommended Tags section.
Well today I get to say that I WILL be selecting the 2011 Big East Women’s Basketball Tournament tag with pride. Long may it reign as a tribute to NaNoWriMo and writers everywhere! I just do not think I want to read a novel about it.
Today’s Word Count: 42,086
Leanne Ross Read Faced 