The 20th of October is declared the National Day of Writing. Hashnode wants to celebrate this special day with as many writers and readers as possible. 🙌

Keep reading to learn why this holiday is important, how Hashnode is celebrating it, and what's in it for you! 😉

Contents:

• What is the National Day of Writing?
• How is Hashnode celebrating?
• Why should you care?
• Final thoughts and tips

What is the National Day of Writing?

The National Day of Writing is a celebration of writing. It first took place on November 12, 2009, with a second year celebration on November 12, 2010. It was sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in the United States, and officially recognized in both 2009 and 2010 through US Senate resolutions. Since then, it is celebrated on October 20.

According to the NCTE's website, the celebration exists to:

1. Highlight the remarkable variety of writing
2. Provide a collection for research on whether writing today has risen to new highs or sunk to new lows
3. Help us help others to write better

Writing is crucial to everyone. It doesn't matter if you are a professional writer, a developer, or an academic. It doesn't matter if you use pen and paper, your mobile phone, or a PC. What matters is that you have a voice to express yourself.

How is Hashnode celebrating?

Here at Hashnode we obviously love writing and we are encouraging everyone to write. 😍

As you probably know we have devoted October to open source and in fact, we are already celebrating it with many amazing prizes.

If you've been living under a rock the last few weeks, here's what those prizes look like:

• Sponsoring your favorite open source software 💰

The top 5 #opensource writers with the greatest total number of reactions in October will win a 1,000 USD sponsorship, to be paid out to the OSS project of their choice!

• Win exclusive blog badges 🎟

This month only, we're handing out exclusive blog badges that you can unlock by completing writing challenges about open source.

• We also held an online conference, the Symposium, and our Twitter Spaces are all devoted to open source and contributions.

Why should you care?

Because we'd love to promote your articles even more! 🙌

How?

The #opensource tag has taken over Hashnode's homepage, giving visibility to the articles the community enjoys the most.

So keep writing and tagging your articles with #opensource!

For the next 7 days, we will feature articles about #opensource on Hashnode's feed AND all of our social media accounts.

Specifically for Twitter, you'll find threads with articles about open source written by the community.

The more you write, the more chances you have to gain new exposure within our community.

And by writing about #opensource, you can unlock exclusive blog badges!

• OSS First Timer—write an article about your first PR
• OSS Documentarian—contribute to OSS documentation and blog about it
• OSS Cheerleader—blog about your favorite OS project
• OSS Brain Buster—write about an especially challenging issue you resolved
• OSS Mentor—write an article to help newer devs get involved in OSS
• OSS Scholar— write about the Open Source Symposium
• OSS Superstar— complete all of the October OSS writing challenges

Final thoughts and tips

If you are new to blogging you might have some additional questions. We get that, and we're here to help! 👇

What can I write at Hashnode?

Basically, you can write about anything you want! But if you still need some clarifications, here is an excellent article to guide you.

But I'm still struggling with writing

Start slow. One sentence at a time. Soon, you’ll have a few paragraphs or even a full story.

• Do you find it hard to be consistent? Don't worry! We have the #2articles1week challenge to help you with consistency! The challenge already helped thousands of people to write consistently and level up their writing game.

• Do you like to write, but never seem to publish your drafts? We got you covered. Check this article and find ways to publish your articles once and for all!

Go ahead. Unleash your creativity. Put it in writing and tag it with #opensource! We can't wait to read your articles.