Tune into today’s 2010 WordCount Blogathon live chat

Three hundred words a day, more or less.

That’s all blogging every day amounts to, a couple hundred extra words added to whatever else you do for a living or for fun.

But oh, how hard those words can be.

The words themselves are simple. As professional writers, we’re good with words. It’s planning what to write, doing the research, scheduling the time to write, making it look good and promoting our efforts that takes all the extra work. Do it every day and blogging can quickly turn from a passion to a pain.

So today, as we head into June and the yearly experiment that is the WordCount Blogathon ebbs into the past like a receding tsunami, we’re taking the time to celebrate surfing on the crest of the wave – or in some cases, just dog paddling to stay out of the undertow.

All this is happening at the real-time wrap party on Twitter for the 2010 WordCount Blogathon at 8:30 a.m. PT. You can follow along at #Blog2010.

The order of events is as follows:

No introductions – Normally a real-time Twitter party or live chat would start with introductions, but since we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well over the past month, we’ll skip that part – it’ll also help us end within 60 minutes. If you’ve been playing along but haven’t introduced yourself yet, feel free to do that on our Google Group, which will remain up and running even after the Blogathon is over.

Questions – We’ll kick off the party with questions. If you haven’t attended a Twitter live chat before, here’s how it works:

1. As the host, I’ll post a question – I’ll leave a set amount of time for people to answer – probably close to 10 minutes – then we’ll move onto the next question.
2. If you want respond – Preface your answer with the number of the question. For example, for the first question I’ll write “Q1: What was your favorite part of the blogathon? #Blog2010” Your response would look something like: “Q1: Making friends with bloggers from different countries #Blog2010,” or “Q1: Figuring out how to add photos to blog posts. #Blog2010”
3. Make sure to add #Blog2010 – to the end of your reponse, which lets people follow the conversation.

Here are the questions:

• Q1 – What did you like best about this year’s blogathon?
• Q2 – What was the hardest part?
• Q3 – What would you do differently next time?
• Q4 – What blogging tip or trick did you learn?
• Q5 – What would you like to see added to the 2011 WordCount Blogathon?

Prize drawing – Anyone who made it through 31 straight days of blogging is eligible for prizes.* In advance of the wrap party, I’ll use a random drawing service to pick names of the winners. Winners will be announced at the end of the question and answer period, at approximately 9:20 a.m. PT. I will also announce them on Twitter, the Google Group, the Freelance Success message board and on this blog tomorrow. You don’t need to attend the wrap party to be a winner. Winners who aren’t at the wrap party will be contacted within 24 hours.

*If you did not blog every day, please let me know so I can remove your name from the random drawing service (which will make my life a whole lot easier). You can notify me via email, by leaving a comment here or by leaving a comment in the appropriate thread on the Google Group.

Sponsors – Thanks again to the 2010 WordCount Blogathon sponsors for donating some fantastic prizes. If you are one of the lucky winners, the sponsor of the prize you won will make arrangements for getting it to you directly. If you don’t hear from them within the next week, please let me know.

Thanks to everyone for a fantastic blogathon experience – we’ll see you next year!