Some thoughts on the essay writing process

Now that I've had time to digest my initial success of at least finishing a first draft of all my essays, I have some thoughts that might be helpful to others out there just starting the essay writing process or those true early-birds who may not be applying this year but are just reading through the MBA blogging community:

1. Start Early. This is listed first for a reason. It's imperative. It will allow you to avoid stress, allow time for others to review, and allow you to take a week or so off w/out reading them and then come back w/ a fresh set of eyes. Plus, it will probably take longer than you think... things come up, work gets busy, and before you know it, there's a little schedule slippage. If you start early enough, this won't cause a problem.
2. A caveat to #1 - I would not suggest you start writing ravenously when essays start appearing in July. I did this and spent time wring most of my Columbia essays before I realized that, for me, those wouldn't be due until Jan. Figure out which deadlines come first, which schools makes sense to write to first (i.e., you're comfortable with the questions), and THEN go to town.
3. Be strategic in your essay writing approach. This has many facets. For an individual school, you may want to jot notes down for each essay and then take an overall look - did you fit all your good stuff in there? do you have to force it (probably not good)? will your essays portray the general picture you'd like to give adcom? Also, look across the schools. I personally liked writing my HBS essays first, with their stringent 400 word limits. It made me focus on the most important pieces of what I wanted to say. In the longer essays for other schools, I took that core piece I had created and expanded on it. Some others may like the opposite approach, but my point is, consider which works best for you before you start writing.
5. Tailor your essays for each school. Yes, my career vision is the same regardless of school, but I might highlight certain pieces of it more than others in one school vs. another. I think this is obviously important for the Why School X question. You don't want to speak generically about what you like about School X... do your research and then SHOW them you are crazy about their school b/c you've done your "background check" and you totally dig them! Great resources for this information are websites, current students, alums, and school magazines.
6. Recognize the role of reviewers. First, love them. They are taking time out of their schedules to help you. They will give you great insight. Give them time to do it right and help you out. Also, know that if you have carefully crafted your essay to read 399 words and the limit is 400, you will have that totally blown to hell by the time you are done w/ it. Yeah, I definitely didn't realize that until I had spent way too long working to the world limits... *sigh*.
7. Make sure what you tell your recommender about your career goals, strengths, weaknesses jives with what you are putting in the essay. If there's a disconnect, it may raise some eyebrows (why didn't the applicant communicate clearly what they want to do w/ this degree to their recommender?)
8. Don't discount your extracurriculars. I personally think they are a great way to show uniqueness... especially for people like me (consultants) who comprise a large portion of the applicant pool. I initially shied away from talking too much about sports. I thought it seemed childish for some reason (like... aww... the little girl likes to play games with her friends). Anyway, I found I could write passionately about my sport and what it taught me and still sound mature. I think that brought some life into my essays.
9. Don't forget that you chose to do this. :) Have some fun w/ your stories and use that creative writing you might not get to use at work (I don't get to be overly creative with wording in client deliverables, but I love descriptive vocabulary words that can bring text to life).

I wish I had a 10th point to round out my list ... but I'm just out of advice. :)

I went on the Wharton S2S forums today for the first time in awhile. I was afraid they'd be like the BW boards (all about stats and whatnot). Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised. I was searching for something in particular, and I found out what I wanted to know fairly quickly. So, I am no longer banning those from my life (I'm sure that will hamper my productivity, which has already dipped to lower levels than I would like... oh well).