I occasionally write blog posts for AACPL. My most recent one was published yesterday about NaNoWriMo.
I tried participating myself a few years back and failed at it miserably. I did manage to get an idea for a series of poems, which I continued working on after November ended. A few of them were published, so I suppose it was not a complete fail.
Highly Textured Librarian 
I tried to do NaNo but I don’t have quite enough ideas for an entire book. I did MiniNano one year, which was fun. They gave you a few prompts each day and said you should write at least 100 words. Isn’t there a poetry writing one too?
There is a poetry one, NovPAD. I did that once or twice and actually completed it. Did you keep your MiniNano writing?
I didn’t. 😦 I started strong but then it all fell apart after I missed a few days. But I did a LOT better with that than I did with NaNo itself. OH! And I just found out about LJ Idol, which is through livejournal, but it is also a writing challenge. I might just watch this round but participate next year.