Posts Tagged ‘blogging’

Eight years

April 16, 2018

I started this blog 8 years ago today as a means of curing writer’s block.

In that objective it has functioned very well. It’s been my relief valve and my therapy whenever I get stuck. Rather than engage in acrimonious comments and discussions when something is not to my liking on other sites, I find my solace in putting my own view down here.

3,862 posts in 8 years is a little over one post per day.

The reality is that I don’t actually post for anyone other than for myself.

Visitors to the site and readers are welcome bonuses, but the primary audience to be satisfied for any author is the author.

 

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Posted in Trivia | 2 Comments »

3rd anniversary

April 16, 2013

WordPress reminded me this morning that I started blogging 3 years ago.

My thanks to all those who do visit and to those who take the time and effort to comment.

Botticelli's St. Augustine writing and revising in his cell

Botticelli’s St. Augustine writing and revising in his cell

As blogs go I don’t suppose that the blog statistics are anything to write home about (1650 posts, about 500K views with typically between 400 and 800 views per day and a maximum of 5000 views in a day). I find  I cannot  predict which posts will get a high viewership but I also find that I don’t really worry too much about that. Sometimes I find that an old post suddenly gets a lot of interest and I usually don’t know why. I suspect it might be when a class somewhere gets an assignment which just happens to have been the subject of an old post. But blogging has changed my behaviour. It helps me to construct my thoughts and it has certainly changed my reading habits. It does- I think – help me to maintain a “discipline”. Perhaps it helps my perception of myself as a St. Augustine blogging in his cell!!

Writing this blog has become important to me as an extension of my personal space and as I wrote a month or two ago

  1. I write primarily for myself on any and all topics that interest me and this interest varies over time and with my reading.
  2. I write when time allows and my posts reduce when I am on assignment or if I am travelling abroad.
  3. My posts here increase in frequency when I get “stuck” with my other writing projects but I find that just writing a blog post can often “relieve” the “writer’s block”. (And that I think is because a blog post is not directed at anyone in particular but my other writing is).
  4. I have no commercial interests or consequences connected with this site. …….

……..

So this blog is just a place for letting off steam, for getting my thoughts in order, for keeping my writing flowing and generally for developing my own views in areas that are relatively new to me. It is merely an extension of my space in the world – for good or ill.

When posts are of sufficient interest to attract many (or even any) readers then that is just an added bonus.

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Posted in Trivia | 1 Comment »

Noted in Passing – why I write this blog

February 23, 2013

A few weeks ago I started a “Noted in Passing” feature which I hoped would become a regular weekly post with interesting links to other sites about subjects I did not have time to blog about. I find I have now missed a couple of weeks and a weekly post is going to be too onerous and this will now become an occasional feature.

However my failure to be able to keep up the weekly feature led me to review why I actually write this blog and I find that:

  1. I write primarily for myself on any and all topics that interest me and this interest varies over time and with my reading.
  2. I write when time allows and my posts reduce when I am on assignment or if I am travelling abroad.
  3. My posts here increase in frequency when I get “stuck” with my other writing projects but I find that just writing a blog post can often “relieve” the “writer’s block”. (And that I think is because a blog post is not directed at anyone in particular but my other writing is).
  4. I have no commercial interests or consequences connected with this site.
  5. Posts that are vaguely connected to my “6,000 Generations” project are posted on that site – sometimes with a link from this site.
  6. Sometimes what starts out as a blog post then becomes a longer essay which moves into one of my other projects.
  7. I don’t have any particular target profile of my readers because my own views seem to cut across all traditional religious and political boundaries and are often “politically incorrect”.
  8. Where I have actively formed an opinion it is the only opinion of consequence – for me. A consensus view – on anything – is inherently worthy of suspicion. Democracy has no place in science.
  9. I look at blog statistics from time to time but I  find I am not much motivated to “tailor” my posts in response to the statistics. (Typically this site has 400-500 visitors per day – 300 over the weekend – and occasionally a few thousand with 5,000 visitors being the peak for a single day).
  10. I have no political ambitions even though I am quite certain that if everybody agreed with me, all the world’s problems would be solved.
  11. I am content to observe and have no desire to be an “activist”, a “do-gooder” or “unprofessional” (which – it should be obvious – are the 3 most insulting epithets I can imagine).

So this blog is just a place for letting off steam, for getting my thoughts in order, for keeping my writing flowing and generally for developing my own views in areas that are relatively new to me. It is merely an extension of my space in the world – for good or ill.

When posts are of sufficient interest to attract many (or even any) readers then that is just an added bonus.

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Posted in Behaviour, Noted in Passing | Comments Off on Noted in Passing – why I write this blog

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