This Old Blog in the Month of Movember
I think the pleasure of completed work is what makes blogging so popular. You have to believe most bloggers have few if any actual readers. The writers are in it for other reasons. Blogging is like work, but without coworkers thwarting you at every turn. All you get is the pleasure of a completed task.
- Scott Adams -
My contribution to the blogging world (As iAge) is Three Years Old this week. I published my first post in early November, 2009. It was called H1N1 Flu, and I observed that the upside to the flu pandemic were the jokes about Swine Flu and Miss Piggy.
No one read this post at the time, which wasn’t a surprise because I didn’t tell anyone that I had a blog until one year later. With 12 months of my online scrapbook/photo journal completed, I announced my blog to family and friends with a link to it and the post Small Time Blog in a Big Time World.
Reader views increased slowly – very slowly. (I’ve never won the ‘Freshly Pressed’ Lottery - that’s my excuse.) But that’s okay, because I’ve made some wonderful blogging friends and those connections are worth far more than any other statistics.
This post is my 370th. Simple math will tell you that I don’t write a post every day. I write when I feel like it and when I have time – and that is about twice a week. Let’s be honest here – you don’t have time to read my blog if I post every day – and I don’t have time to read your blog if you post every day either. For me, the fastest path to Blogging Burn-out would be a Daily Post. Have you ever written an entire post about how you have nothing to say? If so, and you want your blog to have a lifespan that is longer than the life cycle of a fruit fly, you might consider writing less frequently.
“But I don’t want an Old Blog – I want a Fruit Fly blog”. You go, girl! I wish I had your energy.
Movember (November if you prefer to spell it that way) is special for two reasons – it is my Blog’s birthday, and it is the Month of Moustaches. Hop on over to Bloggers for Movember to follow the Movember stories that will be posted there all this month. You will also want to read The Car Guy’s story – Movember – the Month of Moustaches. It will explain all about the Movember Prostrate Cancer fund raising campaign. We’ll be sending our donation to this Team Harley-Davidson.
Movember allows us to do all the things we, as a company, love to do: have fun and support a worthwhile cause. I’m so pleased to see WestJetters, our Mo Bros and Mo Sistas, from across our network joining in on the Movember fun. You know what they say, the Mo’ the merrier.
- Gregg Saretsky, WestJet President and CEO -
Congratulations on three years! At last, I am also learning not to post a blog a day. Burnout can arrive much too quickly. Very wise post and I look forward to hearing from you again soon!
Thanks Dor – I’m not writing much right now. It isn’t burnout, just not enough time.
This is encouraging to me. My blog is only 2 months old, but I have not told family or friends about it yet. I will, sometime. My goal has been to write what’s on my mind once a week, and I haven’t quite kept up with that hectic pace.
The quote you opened with captures my feeling that I am blogging for myself more than anything, and I enjoy the sense of accomplishment that there is something to show for time spent. If I ever get to the point of writing about not having anything to write about, I hope someone will tell me to go do something else!
You have made me curious, so now I will go read your old blog on swine flu! Congrats on 3 years!
It took me a year to decide whether this blog was just for me, or whether I wanted to share it with family and friends. I’m glad I did share, though it was a bit hard on the ego to discover that most of them never visit my blog!
I hope you enjoy the blogging experience as much as I do!
Wow, well done on three years and happy Movember! Am so with you on the energy awe, keeping the blog a secret for so long and the connections! I let stats go a long time ago and it was so liberating!
Stats can be your enemy, can’t they! I do like looking at the map of the world on my Stats Page to see where everyone who visits lives. The internet certainly erases borders and facilitates conversations.
Congratulations it has been almost three years since I quit blogging but you inspired me to start again so thank-you. My blogs have been quite a bit more sporadic the spell checker wants to call it spastic which may be closer to the truth.
Have a great day.
I chose WordPress because you did, L8n. I decided to blog because I saw the possibilities from reading your blog. You were my inspiration! (I guess you would say I look up to my older ‘twin brother by another mother’).
And another father as well, I do believe. But don’t tell your in-laws.
I like your rationale about blogging. It sounds good to me. I am not about quantity but quality.
Quality is important to me too. I could do quantity, but I wouldn’t be happy with what I was producing.
Congrats on three years! I am only over 2 years in and I’ve only posted whenever I’ve felt like it, I don’t have a set schedule. When it becomes a chore, I take a blog break. Mostly, I post for the sheer fun of it.
I can tell you enjoy what your are doing. There is always a sense of joy in what you write!
Congratulations on three years, Margie! I always enjoy your posts, from Harleys to gardens to your quirky sense of humor
I totally agree about frequency of posts; there are only a few “daily posters” that I follow – hard to keep up with them. Writing once a week is my goal but I don’t always manage that either. So glad you finally revealed your blog after a year!
Thanks for your visits to my part of the world, composer. Your presence is always appreciated.
Congratulations! Three years is a real accomplishment. Keep writing! Hope to keep reading your blog for many, many more.
I’m going to keep up with your blog too. We visit Arizona frequently, so your posts will give us good ideas of places to visit.
Congrats, Margie, I started about the same time as you, but have only posted a little over 250 times. I’m certainly not wearing anybody out, least of all myself. I also was crestfallen to realize my family didn’t hang on every word of every article. In fact, they have to be cajoled into visiting it most times.But I also agree that it is for our inner blogger that we write anyway, It’s just icing on the cake that we meet and develop a kinship with other nice bloggers. Like you.
Thanks Al. I’m glad I found your blog too.
I know what you mean when you say the family doesn’t hang on every word! I can always tell by the blank look on some of their faces that they have no idea what I’ve posted. I suppose that would change if I started to gossip about them…
LOL. Let the gossip begin!
Congrats on 3 years in the blog biz.! And I was wondering what Movember was. I thought people were misspelling the month for a while then I thought it must be something more than that–only I would keep spelling it wrong!
Thanks for being a regular visitor to my blog, Lorna. I hope you’ve learned as much from my blog as I have from yours!
I agree about the blogging every day leading to burnout, whether for the blogger or the reader. Twice weekly is about all I can handle, too.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I appreciate it.
Welcome to my blog, Carrie. I’m looking forward to visiting your blog regularly – glad to hear you aren’t a ‘daily driver’.
Congratulations!
Thank you. I’m glad to have survived so long.
Simple math will also show that you’ve published exactly twice as many posts as I have, and you started just a few months before I did. Congratulations, Margie, and keep writing. Three years of anything is quite an accomplishment.
Thanks for the kind words. Your posts are much more thoughtful than mine – and I expect it takes you a significant amount of time to merge your thoughts and words with Ron’s cartoons.
Ron lives in a city not far from me, and though we’ve chatted by email, I’ve never met him. Now and then I ask him to create a Canadian toon for me, which he is always happy to do. (If any of my readers haven’t seen Ron’s work, his homepage is http://toonaday.com/ )
Yes, one frequently encounters demented exhortations to post every day. They’re very similar to exhortations to buy rowing machines or eat tofu. One must protect one’s precarious sanity and turn a deaf ear and/or a blind eye…
Heartiest congrats on 3 years and #370! Subscribing to your blog has been one of my smarter moves, and I always enjoy my visits. Blog on, Margie!! : )
Thanks Mark. I always enjoy my visits to your blog too.