In honor of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I wanted to offer a smaller, and more unique, challenge.

Send me a PowerShell article.

Seriously. My name is Don Jones, and this is PowerShell.org, so you can probably figure out how to contact me. Send me an article between 800 and 3,000 words (including code) in Microsoft Word format. Don’t attach any scripts. Please keep the formatting super-simple: paste code from the PowerShell ISE, and use Word’s default styles otherwise. If you must include screen shots, please embed them in the doc, but also include them as a a separate PNG in your e-mail.

You can write about anything, provided it’s PowerShell-related. What’s best? Some challenge that stumped you – and that you eventually solved (and please, tell us how). Something that you think folks could benefit from, or could learn to do better. Even an article that lays out both sides of a particular question, and outlines the pros and cons of each argument. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you write.

I will personally commit to reading every single one, and providing you with feedback on your article. When suitable, I’ll make some specific suggestions for improving the article. If you then fix it up accordingly, I’ll run it by a professional editor – and I’ll have it published. In some cases, we’ll publish it right here on PowerShell.org. In other cases, I’ll submit it to my friends at 1105 Media for their consideration in one of their IT magazines, like Redmond Magazine or MCPMag.com. Still others will go into the PowerShell.org TechLetter, which would be a huge help to our editors, who are always hungry for content.

Being able to communicate well is important in all walks of life, but being willing to share is even more important. Think you’ve got nothing to share? Wrong. You have unique experiences that everyone can learn from. You do not need to be an expert in order to have something valuable to share. We would all benefit a lot more if more people shared their experiences and successes – so now it’s your turn.

The deadline is November 30th, of course, and I’ll work my way through them all as quickly as possible. You’re not going to be judged on your grammar or spelling (although do use Word’s tools to help those as much as it can). Don’t try to write fancy, or overly formal. In fact, just write like you’d talk. Read your piece back to yourself aloud, and if it sounds weird, fix it so it doesn’t. If it sounds good, it’ll read well.

C’mon. Take up the challenge. And tweet folks over to this article, too. Let’s make it a thing. My goal is to help at least a few folks because regular bloggers, either here or elsewhere, and my dream is to find maybe a couple of folks who can pick up a full-time column with a magazine or other publication. That’d be awesome. I know you’re out there – let’s get the party started.