Milestones

When I started this blog, a year ago today, it was a really effective way of getting myself through a bleak mid-winter. It was also a learning excercise and a way of trying to get into a personal writing habit. I still need to push myself further with developing the habit of writing – mainly with getting things finished and getting more of my notebook scrawls onto the online page.

A year ago today, I couldn’t imagine my blog in a year’s time. A year ago today I had no idea what an encouraging place to blog WordPress can be. Don’t you just love the system of trophies and progress notifications – I switched on and logged in to find this today:

 

Along the journey it’s been reassuring to hear from more seasoned blogger’s that it can take up to two or three years to really settle into a blog. So far, I’ve never really worried about stats and numbers as I think they have their limitations –  I selfishly blog for my own enjoyment and don’t really worry if no-one at all reads my posts. I’d often think ‘I don’t blame you!’ Besides, there so much stuff out there in virtual space to grab our short attention spans.

Now that I have been blogging a whole year – albeit inconsistently – what do I want to have achieved here in this next year?

1. To have made at least one post every week, consistently, with no big gaps.
2. To use images more often.
3. To have retained most of my blog’s followers and maybe have some new ones too 🙂

More immediate goals include a new pic for my gravatar profile(!) and a theme change… when I have a chunk of time to be ready to iron out the crinkles that are bound to arrive with a new set of clothes!

A few days ago, I reached the 100 followers mark and this was quite a surprise! Although that’s slow in comparison to many other blogs, I’m a snail and slow suits me just fine 🙂

Here are some links to some great posts from some of my earliest followers:

A wonderful flash fiction story in response to a Sunday Photo Fiction challenge from Prakash who also enters poetry challenges and posts other writings.

Ann at Grubbs’n’Critters shares her great sense of humour and is always making me smile with her fine mixture of posts 🙂 Visits to her blog also make me hungry. This cookie recipe looks easy to make, fun to do with the young’uns and the results look so tempting – as do so many of Ann’s recipe posts!

I’m so behind the times that this is the first news of the 2015 Turner Prize I’d seen! ‘Sculpture Everywhere and Anytime’ is the title of Steph’s blog, offering a feast of visual delights and interesting art-inspired posts.

Among more recent followers, here’s another small helping of noteworthy posts:

Ngobesing Romanus blogs at Success Inspirer, sharing writings and motivational poems such as this one.

If you like cats you’ll love this group blog dedicated to those feline friends. With fun posts like this, it’s easy to see how this blog has grown such a huge following of over 28k!

Sally Burr’s latest post about private renting will hit home for many stuck with landlords who fail to provide a decent home while reaping the profits. Sally is  a ‘Learning Technologist’ at the University of Sussex and her writing covers many topics of social, scientific and cultural interest.

Thanks again to all followers and readers of this blog 🙂