It has been 6 months since I wrote my first blog and I am half way to completing my New Year's resolution to write a blog every day. I have written 128 blogs since then and if you do the math I am just a wee bit shy of my daily quota for the 140 days since Jan 11/09.
Since then I have developed not only a passion for blogging, but also the habit of putting out a blog just about daily.
My original objectives in writing a daily blog were:
- to practice my writing skills
- to acquire a daily discipline of a creative writing effort
- to reach out to others and connect with others through my written communication.
I do fancy myself writing something of a different genre and have short stories in mind and a plan to join the NaNoWriMo thousands in November to attempt to complete a novel in that International Event. So the writing practice and the habit development is important to me personally as I transition sometime in the coming year to daily work (in my off "day job" hours) on a different creative writing project.
It has been a rewarding 6 months. I have connected with a dozen or more bloggists in the last 6 months and now have a whole new set of friends in blogland. I have also learned from the blogs that I follow that the best blogs follow a theme or at least have some sort of unified topics or style. Mine has been a bit of a hodge podge as I have experimented with what I want to write about and stretching a bit to try my hand at writing travelogue, current events and social commentary as well as some more personal topics. In reviewing what I have been writing about in the last 6 months, it has been overwhelmingly about the things that happen in Toronto, with perhaps a third being in quite a different vein. Whatever the topics, I am very happy writing these blogs.
On the less than satisfied side, my photos are so so and do serve the purpose, but probably I could do better. Alas! It takes not only a better camera than I have, but also more time than I am able to devote. However, I have learned over the years when good enough is good enough. I have not set out to build my photography skills and so I am proclaiming them good enough.
I have also learned that blogging can be addictive and that it can swallow up a whole lot of time. So my next 6 months will be spent trying to get more organized about my blogging. I have also decided to divide my blogging time between two distinctly different blogs. I cannot afford time for two daily blogs, however, a good portion of my blogs are about the things that go on in the City of Toronto and I thought I might be able to reach a different set of following if I put my Toronto focused pieces on one blog (and promote it as such) and the others, which tend to be more personal peices, into the other one.
I have concluded in this half year report card, that I am quite happy with my progress in blogland and I am confident that I will be successful fulfilling my New Years resolution and finish a full year of blogging. I hope to continue blogging for many years to come, but we shall see. It is hard to find time to work, to blog and to also complete the sort of creative projects I have in mind. Time will tell.
So the "So what" is that I am launching my "Toronto is My Town" blog. I will be blogging daily on one or the other, and for the first bit I will link the two so that on the days I do not have a blog for "Highway" I will put a post with a link to the other blog. After the first week I will blog in either one or the other and those that care to read only about Toronto can just follow that one blog. If you want the real skinny about my non Toronto oriented exploits and more opinion/current events and commentary pieces then you can follow me on Highway.
I have put a couple of my past week Toronto themed blogs on the new blog to "prime the pump", so to speak. Today, I will publish in that blog as well. This coming week is going to be a busy one with Luminato starting on Friday, so most probably the bulk of the posts in the near future will end up on the Toronto Is My Town blog site.
Please do adjust your RSS feeds and join me there in the coming days and weeks. Go here to read my new blog "Toronto is My Town"
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Fantastic post celebrating your mid-point blogging career. I look forward to many more columns.
ReplyDeleteGreetings from London.
I saw your comment over at the Cuban's blog. I enjoyed your photos. Creative. I once did that, too. I would disagree with one of your observations. I prefer hodge podge, myself. My interests usually involve what people think and how they think. It all is fun,though.
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