One Year

I’ve had a successful year of blogging.

My personal goal of posting 200 to 400 words once a week about writing my novel have been met.

There were only two occurrences of outright panic when a Friday morning dawned and I realized I’d almost forgotten all about the day’s blog post.

Somewhere along the course of the year my fear and uncertainty subsided and I developed a pattern. I started thinking about the post in general terms on Wednesday. I wrote down some ideas and thoughts on Thursday. Friday morning became the time to fine tune and get ready for the actual upload.

But before I ever sat down to design my site, I made a list of potential topics that I thought I could write about: one, to see if I could even come up with 52 items of interest; and two, to have reference material when I needed it.

I went so far as to begin six posts and then saved them off in a special folder. I’ve added to that reserve pool as I’ve dipped in and used them. I still have some sitting there waiting to go. (I just checked and I have a dozen. Some are no more than titles, but I feel secure knowing I have something there.)

Of my list of 59 blog topics, I’ve actually used 22. The difference means I’ve had 30 weeks where prompts/ideas came to my attention in a current and timely manner and I was able to write a post that made a connection to my novel or writing in general. With time and experience the whole process has gotten easier.

I’m grateful that Blogger has been so very easy to use. I went with a very simple design with lots of white space and stuck with it. If I needed to go back and edit, no problem, Blogger makes changing text easy. I’ve added photos on 4 occasions. Not all that much by other peoples’ standards, but significant by mine. I have remained focused on the writing, on the words.

All and all, it’s been an important year for me: I’ve accomplished something new, I’ve stuck with a regime of writing, and I’ve found a really useful tool for understanding the inner workings of my novel.