Every year our president gives a State of the Union Address. This year I thought I would write a state of the blog address. I have to admit, I don’t pay much attention to the State of the Union Address. For the most part, the State of the Union Addresses haven’t been very memorable. Inaugural addresses are the ones with the great quotes. I’m pretty sure the State of the Blog Address won’t be very memorable either, but I did want to let you know how I am feeling about writing it these days.
I was considering taking a long break from the blog this year. I’ve been writing between three and five times a week for almost eight years now. My posts average close to 700 words, so I’ve written about 1,365,000 words in the blog. The average novel is 90,000 words. My blog, at this point, contains the same number of words as 15 novels. When I first retired, I thought I would use my extra time to write some books. Instead of books, I have the blog.
It takes me about 90 minutes to write one post. But I also have to do the things that I write about. Doing things isn’t much of a hardship, but sometimes I make Tom do things we probably wouldn’t do if I didn’t feel the urgency of the blog. Being here at Fort Frederica for the fifth season is causing me some concern. It feels like I’ve written about everything there is to do in the area. You know as much about Fort Frederica at this point as I do. Tom says I can always go into more depth, but if I’m not interested in the details of something, how can I make you interested?
During the pandemic, I used the isolation time to get into a routine of writing every day. I spent about three hours every morning writing. One or two of the mornings, I would write the blog. The rest of the time I worked on a book about our adventures working in the national parks. I wrote about Death Valley, Chickamauga and Chattanooga, Grand Portage, and Fort Frederica. I had just started the chapter on San Juan Island when we got our vaccinations and started doing stuff again. Almost a year later, that’s still as far as I have gotten.
Finishing a book that I submit to a publisher is one of my bucket list items. I am determined to finish writing this book this year. Tom has agreed that we won’t work in a national park this summer or fall so that I can have more time to focus on the book. I am looking forward to getting back into my writing routine, but still feel some urgency to work on it while we are here at Fort Frederica.
When I was considering taking the long break from the blog, my webmaster did some Google analytics on it for me. I thought no one was reading it because I get so few comments and only have a few subscribers. I really appreciate those of you who read every post and take the time to comment. Even if you send me an e-mail or text instead of commenting publicly, I like hearing from you. But the analytics showed that about 4,000 people a month are reading at least one of my posts. An increase of almost 1,000 people per month over the previous year. And some of my posts have been read by over 2,000 people. That’s probably more people than would ever read my book!
My webmaster pointed out that most people get to my blog by doing a Google search for a particular topic instead of via the subscription. The number of people that read one of my posts based on finding it on Google is pretty good.
So, this is the state of the blog. I’ll never get famous from it but enough of you are reading it to make me feel like it is worthwhile. I know some of you like it to keep up with Tom and me. Some people read it to get specific information.
However, I may not continue to write three times a week. If I don’t have anything new to say, I’m not going to bore you or waste my time pushing it. Don’t be alarmed if I only write once or twice a week or even skip a week sometimes. I’m ok – just nothing new to see here. Know that when I’m not writing as often in the blog, I’m working on my book. Which I will finish. Eventually.
Thanks for reading and commenting. I always enjoy hearing from you.