One Year of Blogging

From the first few blogs I'd ever read, I figured it to be a good medium for me.

Still, I resisted.

I couldn't really decide what I wanted the blog to be, I only knew what I didn't want it to be. I didn't want to have a rant blog. Like an episode of Surreal Life or Lawrence Welk, if I came across one I got sucked in and then chastise myself for blowing the whole hour I could have been doing anything, anything but watching Surreal Life or Lawrence Welk. I am embarrassed to admit I have, more than once, copy-and-pasted the body of a long rant and word-counted it. One thousand words on getting cut off in traffic, I think. Seriously, what can be sadder than that? Perhaps word-counting a blog post...

I also didn't want to get caught up in being too heavily pop-culture-y either. While it is true that I am more than a bit of a pop culture geek, I could foresee a forced obligation to spiral deeper and deeper into subjects I might only have a passing interest in. I didn't want to, say, start gathering more and more obscure information on the Oscars, because I happened to mention that I know all of the Best Picture Oscar winners from the year I was born (which happens to be true, but has limitations of how interesting that can be...)

So I waited a couple years, and pressed my friend Dougie into starting his blog (the very popular www.holyjuan.com.) I was able to gain a particular amount of pleasure from that.

Then I realized my underlying desire to write a blog was not going to go away. I deliberately did not link my name to it so that I might have an "out," while still leaving the door open for a professional website or blog if this one failed.

I've had 77 posts so far, an average of one every 4.7 days. One advantage is that it pushes me to write on a deadline, which ups my general productivity level. It also allows me an outlet to explore little nuggets of ideas that I can sometimes build up in my head to proportions undeserving of the actual idea. It allows me to tell the difference, almost right away, between those ideas that deserve some headspace, and those that should just fade away.

But I've enjoyed it and look forward to seeing what this next round brings.