A Year of Active Blogging & 200th Blog Post

So I returned to this blog in full force just over a year ago when I renamed the blog and started to write regularly.  In June of last year, I hit my 100th post in total on the blog.  And today, I'm writing about my 200th post, which means I'm averaging about 2 blog posts per week, give or take.  Thus, I've been blogging strong and am starting to see the uptick in traffic that many bloggers talk about in the first year.  I'm not seeing crazy numbers but a few thousand each month--which is better than the scores I saw at this time last year.

In looking at the past year, it's clear that I've found some niches that seem to work for me.  That I blog about my running antics is amusing as I would have thought as a writer, I would never be a runner but learned that being a runner has helped me to be a better writer.  As I've crossed the half-way point with my current Master's Degree (Education, Instructional Design) coupled with my current position, I'm clearly writing more and more about education.  That certainly makes sense.

My top five posts include the following.  It's curious to see the range among them.  I was particularly suprised that the Childfree post rated so high.  My letter to students makes sense since I do believe it to be a well-formed thought about what I would love for students to understand about their education and the reflection on the Boston Marathon was bound to get high reception.
As an act of self-reflection, I have found blogging to be extremely rewarding.  It forces me to think aloud about the different topics that come up in my daily life and formulate a meaningful way to display that to the world.  Given the increasing traffic, I would say that it's somewhat successful.  But even if it wasn't, I'd continue to do it.  I've come to find my conversations are richer--when on topics I've written about or not--because I've come to have a much more reflective thought process in such conversations.  I'm less likely to grab for the easy answer and try to play around with the ideas first.

Branching Out
In the last year, I've added a few things.  There is the Facebook Page so that if people want to catch updates and the occasional reposting of an older post, you can like the page and stay up to date.  I also fixed the RSS Feed for this blog as it was acting wonky and having some problems with it.  I can see now that my subscription list has grown significantly since I fixed it.  The email subscription in the upper right hand corner is also working.

I'm also thinking of adding more media to the site including further developing my Youtube channel and adding audio where possible.

Rewarding and Reward Me?
Beyond the reward I get from writing, the biggest reward I get is from friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who tell me they read my blog and enjoy reading it (in general or a specific post).  I hear it in face to face conversations, via text, or in emails.  All of which is great and I am grateful for.  If I had but one request it would be that such comments be not regulated to one-to-one conversations but made part of this blog itself through the comments feature (or through discussion threads when the link is posted to social media outlets) as I have always wanted to this blog to be an act of dialogue more than monologue.  That it brings me into face to face conversations is great--that is certainly part of the goal.  But if you are read the blog, please think about dropping off a comment and letting me know your thoughts (good and bad).  I generally respond to comments and would find it useful to understand which posts are striking people the most (besides just how many hits they get).  

So that's my 200th post.  The question will be how quickly will it take me to get to my 300th post.  I'm anticipating much quicker (especially when I look at all the posts I have in my draft box).  That being said--what would people like to hear or read about?  Are there things you're interested in hearing my take on?

Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and check out some of my other posts!. You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by signing up for them via email.

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