Ten Long Years

State of the Blog

I was recently described as a “long-time blogger” a few days ago.  The phrase took me aback: have I really been blogging that long?  And how did Dave know?

A glance to the left quickly answers both questions: there is a rather long archive listing every month I've posted entries since March 2003.  It's rather mindboggling to think I've been doing this for a decade. 

I admit that I've been inconsistent.  I don't post every day.  Sometimes I don't post for months at a time (as witnessed by missing months in that archive list).  Nevertheless, I have accomplished over 2,200 posts, with over almost 50,000 page views.

I've been told my blog would be more successful if I stuck to one subject. Recent evidence suggests that a blog of reviews could receive a fair number hits, for example. But my interests are too widely varied, and I'm not the most disciplined writer. Thus, “Love During Wartime” is a sort of electronic commonplace book, in which I've collected political opinions, religious wonderings, original poetry, music videos (my own & others), original photography, and a wide-ranging collection of quotations.

I began this blog about a year and a half after the U.S. Invasion of Iraq. My posts were primarily political, and displayed a great deal of anger toward President B*sh. For this reason, I gave the blog the subtitle “Chevaux de Bataille and Random Quotidian Thoughts”: “Chevaux de Bataille” roughly translates as "hobby horse"; and “Quotidian” means "daily" (i.e., "ordinary").

I eventually tired of my anger over that miss-begotten war, and realized it had essentially played itself out as a topic. That's when I started posting my poetry and photos, sometimes combined, and my religious musings. I became a member of the RevGalBlogPal list, and through that became involved with the book cum blog Ordinary Time. I was one of many writers and editors for the book.

Through that list I became aware of Project 365, an initiative encouraging bloggers to post a photograph each day for a year. I created a side-blog, Jonah 365, on which I posted an image (photographic or verbal) every day. There was some cross-posting, but most of my attention was on the 365 blog in 2007. The practice did teach me that I could post something on a daily basis, if I set my mind to it.

After that hiatus, the archive list suggests I was reasonably regular until 2011, when I got a new job. It was more demanding, but also more rewarding. Honestly, a lot of my blogging prior to 2011 was done during down times at work (my day job essentially paid for my editorial work on Ordinary Time). Now that every day of every month is busy, I find I have little energy for writing when I get home.

Since then, the blog has primarily been the repository of various quotes — “Idée d’jour” is my bad French for “Thought for the day”. Additionally, there have been a few prayers, occasional poems, and a handful of original videos. Given my time and energy, this may be the best I can hope for.

As I say, I'm not the most disciplined writer. I'm one of those relatively lazy people who “wait for inspiration”. I've wondered what would happen if I did adopt a discipline — writing at least five lines of verse occurred to me about a month after national poetry month (April).

The bottom line is that I'm going to continue maintaining this blog. Don't think I could stop writing; don't want to. Who knows? There may be another decade of blogging in me yet!