"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence." — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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March 16, 2024

Retro Minute #18: Some thoughts on blogging

To sort of celebrate 18 years of blogging, I'm sharing 18 of my favorite posts from previous blogs. Here's the eighteenth and last post for this celebration. This is a somewhat fun look back at all the great posts I have done and the not-so-great ones. Going through them, it kind of make me think my creative years of blogging might be behind me but I don't care, I'll keep blogging anyway because it's either a blog or social media and I don't much care for social media. I just like to be present on the web and not care if I'm putting out crappy posts. Well, I do care a little and that's why there's such things as the revert to draft and the delete (discard in case of Blogger) options. None of us have to leave permanent marks on the web unless some weirdo save our posts somehow and put it out on the web. Thank you, readers, for visiting, commenting and just being around.
  
Some thoughts on blogging
This post is from June 14, 2018 from Rainswept blog.

What are the top ten things that come to your mind reflecting on your blogging journey: what prompted you to start, what obstacles did you or do you still have to overcome, what have been your major learnings, what plans do you have...? (This was a prompt from Tamara from Part-time Working Hockey Mom.)

So what can I say about blogging after 12 years of it? Nothing new so there might be a repeated thought or two but these are what I thought about blogging now.

01 - I'm more of a slacker blogger now. When I started blogging, I used to post a lot, comment a lot, join a lot of challenges and memes, add my blog to a lot of directories and such. Now I just blog at a slower pace, my pace, which is really very slow.

02 - I still like to have an audience. You don't put your blog out there to keep people away, you do it do get people to come to you, isn't it true? I can't deny that I like having readers - they're one of many reasons that keeps me blogging.

03 - I do a lot of mental blogging. I think about things to blog a lot but not much gets posted because most of the time, I just don't think whatever idea I have, is interesting or good enough to post. So if it seems like I haven't posted in a long while, it just means I haven't find anything good enough to post. Either that or I'm slacking off.

04 - Sometimes I feel I should be on a blogging break every few days. It is possible to be a normal person with no thoughts of blogging what so ever but ever since I started blogging, I cannot not remember I have a blog that needs to be updated. (Occasionally I really do forget.) I envy those who can put up a post every day and not be bored with their blog. I can't do the same. So, what's a blogger to do? Well, I try to post whenever possible but mostly, I try not fret about it.

05 - Successful blogging is when you have at least, made one reader respond to your post or so I tell myself. Whenever you send a post out there, you hope for a respond, right? I think if one reader gives a (nice or not nice) respond, then you've succeeded as a blogger. I'm always grateful for those few readers who visit my blog and I'm glad I can at least, post something interesting once in a while.

06 - I still have no blog niche and I'm okay with that. This blog, my blog, is considered a personal blog which pretty much means it's a 'anything goes' blog but I mostly post about the same things - books, movies, fiction writings, drawings and everything else. But I guess it's still a bit random and lacking some forms of cohesiveness but I'm okay with that.

07 - I have no blogging schedule. I just post whenever I want and whenever I feel there is too much time in between posts. I have said several times how nice it would be to have a schedule but it's hard to have a schedule when you have no content to plan around so like my blog's random content, my schedule continues to be random too. But every now and then, I participate in challenges and memes (like this one you're reading right now) and in a certain way, this is a scheduled post.

08 - I've always disliked the two/three column blog template. I've no problems with other bloggers having one or even two sidebars, I just have a problem if it's my own blog. So my blog has returned to one column. I just find all that sidebar items to be too much chaos, too much distractions from the content and sometimes I think I'm too much of an organize freak to have a sidebar because I would keep moving items around to get them to look organized.

09 - I still have secret hopes that some of my favorite bloggers will return to blogging one day.
It's just ashamed how so many bloggers just disappeared on you. They're not gone, they're just elsewhere, just not on their blog. I know they have lives and blogging is not number one on their to-do list but still, I just wish they would come back even for brief periods. Even though I have removed them from my blogroll, I still sometimes check their blogs for updates.

10 - I am a anti-social-media blogger. Okay, not entirely true since blogging is a form of social media. But I've avoided joining Facebook. I've quitted Twitter and Pinterest a long time ago. I just don't have any interest in social media. I prefer blogs more than all other medias so I guess that makes me old-fashioned.

What are your thoughts on blogging these days?

March 15, 2024

Retro Minute #17: Twin Test

To sort of celebrate 18 years of blogging, I'm sharing 18 of my favorite posts from previous blogs. Here's the seventeenth post from May 21, 2010 from Just writing words blog.


color us coral
Twin Test (formally titled Searching for my twin)
I think people in general are either very similar or complete opposites. So below is a quiz to test how similar you are to me. Perhaps you're my long lost twin?

Answer each one with a No, Yes or Neutral and add up the points.
No = 0 points   
Neutral = 5 points   
Yes = 10 points   


01. you're right-handed.
02. you have brown eyes.
03. you drink tea instead coffee.
04. you prefer to buy books over clothes.
05. you consider potato chips a food group.
06. you like to eat your vanilla, strawberry & chocolate ice cream in the same bowl.
07. you like happy endings even if they aren't necessary right for the characters.
08. the only sport you're good at is walking.
09. you're a bit of a neat-freak.
10. you're near-sighted.


If your score is 0, you're probably my complete opposite.
If your score is between 5 and 50, you're almost like me.
If your score is 50+, you're my long lost twin.
If your score is 100, you are probably me but taller.

If you think this test is a waste of time, you're probably right! I hope you have fun at least. Feel free to create your own twin test.

March 14, 2024

A-Z Challenge 2024: Yes? No?

I haven't decided whether I will do the April A-Z challenge this year. I did say last year was my last one but I don't know. I'm fickle-minded so I might just decide to do it at the last minute. I created a logo/badge for it in case I decide to do it. Of course I have two versions because, fickle mind.

Not the official badge - version 1