The Year in Blogging

   I have been blogging for just over a year now. Somehow or other, it seems like it's been something I've been doing forever. But there it is, in black and white (and red, blue, yellow, green, and mauve), all the evidence pointing to the fact that, in actuality, it's only been about a year.
   I recently went back over the list of blogs and their titles and occasionally had that "holy crap, I'd forgotten about that" feeling. Upon further investigation, it seemed as though someone else had perhaps written them, I kept running across metaphors and similes and turns of phrases I simply didn't remember having used. In that way, it was almost like reading them for the first time.
   It has been a truly rewarding experience. Having a reason to write has made it so much easier to sit down on any kind of a regular basis and practise the craft. Writing a blog has also enabled me to get more or less instant feedback on what I've written. So far most of it has been positive...
   Like most writers, I do intend to sit down one day and write a novel or, at the very least, a collection of short stories. I have tons of ideas for both an maybe this is part of the problem--choosing. So often I find myself watching ordinary people in their day to day lives and trying to imagine the extraordinary things those people simply aren't telling us about. Most of us have some kind of story we haven't told but I'm not above making something up, either.

   Until very recently, my Dad didn't know I was writing a blog. When I brought the subject up he didn't even really understand what a blog was (he is an 85-year-old technophobe) and so I explained it to him, as best I could. Told him it was a little like writing a weekly column for the paper. He asked what I wrote about and I told him pretty well anything running through my head. He was at our place for Christmas yesterday and after dinner I sat him down with my laptop and showed him the blog. I showed him a couple of the more family-related pieces I'd written, to begin with. He spoke well of my writing, which I was pleased to hear. One of his comments was that he was surprised that I wrote about "everything". He made this statement just as he began reading "My Yearly Physical". He chuckled pretty well all the way through that one and even repeated a few of the lines out loud, which I found rather heartwarming. He, of course, has been blogfodder for me and,  as a matter of fact, my most highly viewed blog was "Dad, these days", wherein I described a little bit of his Alzheimer's experience. I suspect that, in the future, he will continue to make the odd appearance.

   The blogging has been a little more intensified for me in the last couple of months as I've become more comfortable with what I'm capable of doing. As it has intensified, I have also started to wonder a little more about my audience (if any). At the moment I only actually have three blog followers and the only way I publicize it is to post a link on Facebook. Having said this, though, I fairly recently discovered that, apart from Canada, my blog's been viewed by people in the U.S, U.K., Russia, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore and the Ukraine! Who knew!? Now a couple of those are because I have Facebook friends in those places but that doesn't explain Russia, the second-highest viewership outside of Canada! So this is all a little weird right at the moment...

   I have not published all the blogs I have written. This has been for a variety of reasons, mostly personal. I am still coming to grips with how much of my personal life to expose on these pages. One of my problems is that I've always been much too open with my personal life and quite willing to talk about almost all aspects of it, holding back little. I've battled with this long before I began blogging. Now I need to remind myself that what seem like only little personal conversations with myself are in fact going to be out there for the world (and Russia!) to see. So I've nixed a couple of pieces and a couple of them are just waiting for a better time to let them loose.
   So it's been a fun year and I'm looking forward to 2012. Hopefully I will not run out of things to write about. When going back through the blog list it occurred to me that two or three blogs concerned the deaths of people. I hope this trend takes a drastic downturn in the next year! I also noticed that two or three blogs touched on the nature of life, is there a God, was there a Christ, and so on. I suspect this theme may pop up again, I am finding it very difficult these days to not dwell upon that area. Hopefully, though, I will not bore!
   So all the best to you in 2012! I hope that many of your dreams come to fruition and that your families are well. Please feel free to comment, one way or the other, on any of my blogs. Even if you think the odd one sucked! Doralyn, my wife, was praising one of my blogs this morning. She tends to do this and I found myself asking her if she would actually tell me if she thought one of them sucked. She then asked me if I wanted her to tell me, if this was the case. I thought about this for a bit and then I replied (gulp) "yes". So feel free to comment or offer an opinion and I will (gulp) be happy to respond!
   Take care all!