This morning I crossed the 30,000 word mark.  I’m excited. This is the highest number of words I’ve reached in three attempts. I’m not done either.

This puts me ahead of the curve. Much better than either of the previous years.

Blue lines represent the word count you’d have if you divided the 50,000 words up over the 30 days equally. As you can see, I’m not doing that.

My personal goal is to be done before Thanksgiving eve. I’m planning on traveling starting that Wednesday evening and be busy for the next few days. That will certainly decrease the opportunity to write.

How am I doing it? I’m giving myself some isolate time to write nearly every day. Only one day did I miss writing. I’m also seeking daily encouragement from others. The flip side to getting that? Give out a ton of it.

According to a recent pep talk, it gets easier after 30,000 words. I don’t know about that, but I’m pumped up to go the distance.  Please consider cheering me on, donating Diet Pepsi products, writing a blog post about me and my story, or something else.

For those choosing to write about me and my story, I’ll send you the text to date and you can excerpt it. Heck, monetary donations would be nice as well, but please make those at nanowrimo.org, under donations.

Cheers to my #nanowrimo twitter family, especially those in St. Louis.

I’m tojosan on nanowrimo.org. Find me. Buddy up.

Yes, you PepsiCo, are you listening?

There are many of us out that blog and use social networks that are fans. Sure, we may not be the top five in the A list, but is our thirst and opinion any less important?

It has recently come to my attention that Pepsi has a room on FriendFeed. This room is purportedly for Pepsi fans.  It’s a bit odd of an arrangement though.  It seems in this room only a few select individuals can actually post.

Pepsi hand picked four guys to make all of the posts.  The rest of us FriendFeeders get to just make comments.   Those will even be moderated.  Don’t believe me? Here’s the scoop from the room.

Welcome to The Pepsi Cooler. Join us as together we shape Pepsi’s social media future. We’re changing the way we do things and want to have you along for the ride. Contributors include Bart Casabona, Bonin Bough and Josh Karpf from Pepsi and Steve Rubel from Edelman. Note: comments are held for moderation but we will get them up as quickly as we can.)

Pepsi just doesn’t seem to get it on more than one front it appears.  They hand pick the talkers; they moderate the comments; they claim you are joining them as ‘we’ shape the future of Pepsi’s social media future.

News flash, that future came without you. Pepsi folks have been talking about you online for quite a while now. They’ve been sharing stories, facts, pictures and forming groups without your involvement. Have you totally missed those of us doing that sharing?

Here’s a clue Pepsi, join the conversation and community, don’t try to run it.  Your few fans that realize the room exists aren’t likely to use it.  They can’t even post there. Where’s your presence on Flickr? What about Twitter?

It’s not enough to have an idea on those platforms. It’s about joining in and being part of the talk your fans are already having.

On a personal note, I’ve been posting pictures, and writing good things about your Diet Pepsi brand for 2 years now and not a peep from you.  Perhaps you’d have noticed that if your team had searched around a bit for those conversations instead of trying to push it down to your fans.

I’m calling you to the mat Pepsi team. Step up your game.  Bring out someone on your team that loves your brand and is ready to be the face of that brand on the social networks.  Find someone that will find us fans, and those that aren’t, and engage them where they are.

Where are you?  I stand here in the midst of web 2.0 waiting for you.