The few of us who are still flying the #oneaday flag are closing in on the grand finale. 365 posts of non-stop bollocks, some of which might have been entertaining, some of which may have been utter nonsense. If you haven’t checked out the fellow survivors’ blogs yet, I encourage you to pay Jen, Mat, Mike, Krystian, Ian and other Ian a visit and support the awesome work (and endurance) they’ve shown over the last year. Give ’em a big hand, or whatever the Internet equivalent of applause is.

Now: to the point. I have tagged @shoinan in this post because he was specifically asking about it on Twitter at some indeterminate point in time that I’m confused about due to intercontinental time zone drift and watching Scott Pilgrim until 1:30 in the morning, then getting up at 7am to record a podcast. But this post is directed at anyone who wants to be Awesome Like Us.

#oneaday is something I intend to keep going with once my year is up. The others may feel differently. For some it feels more like work, for others it’s a good habit that they’ve got into. Some are persisting out of sheer bloody-mindedness, some are passionate about the whole thing and want to succeed in it as a creative endeavour. In fact, most of us have fallen into some or all of the above categories at different times. And those who dropped the project partway through the year all did so for completely valid reasons, too.

It’s a challenge, make no mistake, but it’s one you largely set the rules for yourself. The only rule that everyone needs to abide by is this:

Post something—anything—at least once a day for a whole year.

Exactly what “something” means to you can be anything at all. It can be a photo-based post (I’ve done a few of those in the past). You can set yourself a minimum of at least a paragraph. Personally, I try to write at least 500 words a day, and in the last *mumble* days I’ve also been doing my comic daily, too. (All right, I couldn’t be bothered to check. But I know it’s over a hundred days now.)

But there’s no hard and fast rules about how much you need to write, how good it needs to be or even what it needs to be about. The whole point of the exercise is to get you (yes, YOU) writing. Writing anything. Posting anything. Getting into the habit of being creative regularly. Creativity is something you need to exercise, just like your muscles. Spend your time not being creative and you’ll stagnate, but it doesn’t take long to get back on track. And there’s no better way to exercise the creative bits of your mind than coming up with something—anything—every single day.

The other side effect that you might find is that it’s a good outlet. I’ve had a shit year, by all accounts, and I know that one thing that has really helped me deal with said shit is writing about it, getting my thoughts out of my head (where they’d fester and eventually explode) onto the page. Saying things and knowing people are reading them—even if the things I’ve written aren’t specifically aimed at anyone (or are, in some cases)—helps. It’s a form of therapy.

I’m not saying you need to have something going on in your head to enjoy success at #oneaday blogging. But it certainly gives you something to write about, and I believe it’s a healthy thing to do, too.

So for those of you interested in participating next year, I’m fully intending on continuing to take part and helping to co-ordinate everyone’s efforts, too. Keep an eye on these pages for further details, and in the meantime feel free to get started whenever you like. If you do, be sure to let me know that you’re on the case and I’ll be sure to throw up some links.

Not in a vomity way. That would be weird. You know what I meant.

Anyway. Now it is time for pancakes. I hope those of you reading this who have a creative itch that is proving difficult to scratch will certainly consider joining me on another year of #oneaday blogging next year. Good luck to those of you who are in for the ride.