I’m trying to build up readership for Yankee Fog, and I’ve noticed that starting a campaign is a great way to get people to link to your site. Watching what other websites have done, I’ve seen campaigns for causes ranging from minor issues like opposition to the Iraq war to really important issues like the right to make new mixes of Beatles’ songs or eat pasta. However, it’s hard for me to imagine what causes might be well-suited for Yankee Fog. Put George Washington in Trafalgar Square Day? Go To Belgium And Stop In Every Chocolate Shop You Find Day? Neither of those seemed quite right. At the same time, I’m going to be traveling next week, and unlikely to have the chance to post my usual Something Interesting on Monday.
Thefore, I hereby declare this coming Monday, May 31, to be International Write Jacob’s Blog For Him Day.

Here’s how it works. In your own blog, write an entry that could, by some stretch of the imagination, substitute for a Yankee Fog column. Maybe it will have something to do with life in London, or with filmmaking. Maybe it will be about me, or about somebody else named “Jacob,” or about somebody who might have once known somebody who once saw Jacob’s Ladder. I mean, you’re writing my blog for me. I’m not exactly in a position to be picky.
Then post it on your blog, and include a link to this Yankee Fog entry so that people know what you’re doing. Make sure to include a trackback to this entry, so that visitors to Yankee Fog will be able to know what I would have written, if I were you. If you don’t have a blog–or if you don’t know how to use trackback–you can always post your entry in the comments link below.
Remember, this isn’t just a transparent excuse to get publicity for my webpage while making other people do the work. No, this is a serious protest, and by writing my blog, you are taking a firm stand against injustice. In particular, you are standing up against any kind of injustice that might prevent you from writing my blog. For example, if you were to be arrested for sneezing in the presence of a photograph of George W. Bush, you would be unable to write my blog. You don’t believe the President should have the right to arrest anybody who sneezes near his photograph, do you? What are you, some kind of sneeze fascist?
If you don’t have the chance to write my blog for me this week, but you want to show your opposition to fascist anti-sneezing laws, you can do so by changing the color of your blog’s front page to the same color it always is. If, however, you do not support International Write Jacob’s Blog For Him Day, please fill your homepage with bright chartreuse polka dots to show your opposition. (For some odd reason, most people go about this the other way: they ask people to demonstrate their support by making some sort of change to their webpages. But why should my supporters be the ones to go through all the trouble? Let the sneeze fascists do the work!)
Just in case the chance to stand up for freedom isn’t incentive enough, I make the following offer: if you participate in International Write Jacob’s Blog For Him Day by writing an entry and linking to Yankee Fog, I will return the favor by writing an entry for your blog. And I will do it in verse. Perhaps it will be a short verse, like a limerick or a clerihew. Perhaps it will be a long verse, like a multi-volume work in Middle English depicting the tales related by a diverse group of pilgrims as they wend their way to Canterbury. But whatever form it takes, it will be uniquely tailored to you. I will send it to you, and you can then post it on your blog whenever you don’t feel like writing something yourself. All I ask is that, when you post it, you give me credit for writing it, because I’m tired of that hack Chaucer stealing all my ideas.
(In the unlikely event that I get more than, say, 20 people writing Yankee Fog entries, I’ll just write verse for the first 20 participants. I’ll then pick the top 10 of the remaining entries, and write verses for them, too.)
Ideally, you would post your Yankee Fog entry before the end of the day on May 31, but the fact is that International Write Jacob’s Blog For Him Day is all about advancing the cause of liberty, and I hate to put arbitrary restrictions on my fearless footsoldiers for freedom. So let’s make the spirit of International Write Jacob’s Blog For Him last all week, by allowing entries any time between now and Monday, June 7, which is the next time I’ll have the chance to write an entry for myself.
PS: If you’d like a sample of how guest blogging might work, I direct your attention to Rance’s blog, which has recently experimented with a series of guest bloggers…