Half-Way Done

For those of you who are new to the blog or have seen a couple of the blog posts lately, this recap is for you. For my mom, mother-in-law, Aunt Claudette, and a few close friends, this blog isn’t for you. You already know most of what I plan to share in this particular post, so you won’t get much out of it. The irony is that YOU are the ones actually reading this particular one.

A little over two weeks ago, I set out to try to write a blog for thirty days. I had no real vision, but I felt like I had a little purpose. The funny thing about life is that often times the real purposes is revealed during or after the process. I began writing to prove to myself that 1) I could be consistent at something. 2) I wanted to see if I could actually sit and write for thirty days. 3) I figured that I could use this writing experience in my PhD applications and interviews. If I say that I want to spend the next five years of my life reading, learning, and writing, then I better be able to sit down and write for a couple of hours a day.

The good news is that I actually ENJOY writing. Sitting down next to my puppy, with my laptop in hand is one of my favorite daily activities. The other news (not good or bad) is that I really enjoy writing in the morning and not at night. THIS is where today’s writing predicament lies. I attended an Okinawa Leadership Seminar Holiday party yesterday, and I had every intention of writing about it today. I have some ideas of how I wanted to structure the post, and I even had some good pictures – thanks to some of the other attendees. However, I could not write this morning because I had to go set up for our unit spouses’ holiday party. Yes, you read that right. I had two parties in two days. The parties were brunches so getting prepared for the events was my priority.

Today’s Party

I look forward to getting to write about them later this week!

Yesterday’s Party

I have regressed. This post is a recap of the two weeks of writing. I will write about the parties another day, but when my mind is tired, it is hard to stay focused. (Maybe that is one of my lessons-learned from this experience, and this is probably why I enjoy writing in the mornings. I am more equipped to stay focused, and I am a better writer in the morning.)

Through this experience, I have enjoyed keeping track of all the things that I can count. I do word counts on each post. When I started this exercise, one of the few rules that I placed upon myself was word count. Each post had to be no less than 600 words. I have come close a couple of times. My first day’s post was 662 words, and the Izakaya post was only 660 words. However, my book review was 1,697 words, and over half of my posts have been over 1,000 words. In total, I have written 16,492 words in the past two weeks.

Another thing that I like to count is how many visitors I have on each post. The fascinating part about this is that I don’t care how many people visit it. Whether it be one or 100, it doesn’t matter. This exercise is not one of reach. It is simply one of writing, but it is still fun to see if anyone clicks on the link or not. Promoting a blog or the release of new content is a whole different ballgame than creating content. Maybe someday, I will put more effort into promoting something. Let’s go back to visitors. The post that had the highest reach is the one that was shared by someone else. Only one post has been shared. The post with the fewest number of visitors was yesterday’s Tumbler post. The unfortunate thing about that is that it was promoting my sister’s business. That “promotion” thing that I mentioned before is a whole THING, and if I want to help promote people’s businesses or endeavors in the blog, I will need to improve my own promotion skills. It doesn’t surprise me that readership is going down. I happen to believe that reader-fatigue is real, and even the most avid, loyal reader gets bored with a writer, so it is highly likely that my readership will continue to go down. That’s ok.

One last thing that I enjoy counting is how many posts I need to do. This is my sixteenth post, and my goal is to write fourteen more, so I am over halfway done. I love being on the countdown!

Now, I hope that I can find fourteen more topics, and I hope I can be disciplined enough to create some content in advance so that I can write in the mornings.

My Favorite Writing Buddy