We are approaching the one-year anniversary of this blog. And this is the 100th post on the blog (including the one written by Charley).
Yesterday, September 9, also happened to be the 10th anniversary of chcollins.com. In 2001, it was a big deal to have your own domain name. Back then, my website included personal details, interests, humorous features, poetry, and so on (a sample page is at left). I had the naive notion that a person might use the internet to connect and make friends with like-minded people.
Then that miscreant Mark Zuckerberg stole my idea, created Facebook, and made billions. Lawsuit is pending.
One hundred posts in a year — that’s pretty impressive. I have barely over 100 posts over the lifetime of my entire site. I’d love to have a conversation sometime regarding how to maintain your motivation when writing these things.
I actually have several dozen posts waiting in the “drafts” queue that I’ve half-written, but then lost interest in finishing them.
100 is a lot, a post every 3-4 days. I’m not maintaining that pace anymore due to other interests and distractions like my job. I did 100 in 2010 (probably did a bunch on my company shutdown forced vacation in December to make that number). I used to do a lot more. In 2007 (326) and 2008 (366, going for the one a day milestone, natch), I was doing lots of Solar System Ambassador and space flight simulator stuff and blogging about that. So they came pretty easy. Now it just depends on what I’m interested in on any given day and how much I feel like writing. I think that’s the way it should be, though I still look at 38 posts so far for 2011 and feel like something of a slacker. I did also write a few posts on my flying blog over the summer, but that too is winding down as business travel picks up again (at Tokyo airport at the moment, flying back from 10 days in Taiwan and Korea).
Anyway, I hope you keep writing. Even the one foot putts can be enjoyable to read.
DB and Bruce, thanks for your continued interest and your comments. The purpose of this blog is to make and maintain connections while giving me a chance to be creative. I once had thoughts about how to “monetize” the blog (advertising banners?) but the real reward from this effort is the interaction, not cents-per-click.
DB, at any time I also have several “drafts” in the queue, often just a phrase or two that I jot down and save, to be developed (or not) into something more substantial. Like you have concluded, not all ideas rise to the level of being shared, and the energy to fully develop other ideas can become exhausted before the process is complete. For instance, I’ve sketched out a piece on my Mom, and I also have some paragraphs in draft form on my childhood friend Bill and what he meant to me, but I’m not sure these will ever see the light of LCD screens. Sometimes you start writing, and then you feel like, well this is enough, I don’t really have to continue. There’s nothing wrong with writing as a “cough reflex”, which once satisfied, doesn’t have to be produced for a subset of the world to see.
DB, your blog is also very different from mine: yours is technical and instructional in nature — a visitor to your blog can actually take away useful products, whereas a visitor to mine… well he/she gets some entertainment value and knows me a little better. I think I have the lesser burden in my blog. Some of my posts have been one or two sentences (though more recently I have been tending to collect such items in my “Thoughts at Large” posts). 100 posts is just a Base-10 number.
Bruce, I doubt I will ever reach your level of productivity. I once thought that “10 posts a month” might be a good goal, in terms of keeping both me and my readers engaged, but then that’s not the goal of the blog. I am trying to avoid turning the blog into a product measured by the number of “customers” it has. On the other hand, I do like the interaction. My ideal is to write what I want, and people will (hopefully) visit of their own accord, often enough, to make it feel like a conversation, without me having to explicitly market the effort. It pains me even to put promotional comments to this effect on Facebook (and so I intend to stop doing so).
I am not a schmoozer and I am uncomfortable making small talk at parties, because it means nothing to me. Writing is more my style and comfort zone, with respect to meaningful personal interaction. I’m nearing 60 years old and I no longer feel guilty about settling into comfort zones. I thank you both for joining me.