It seems strange to look back on one year of blogging. The posts I thought should be read more, weren’t. The ones I thought would get most visits, didn’t. The things I thought would provoke most comment, haven’t. I’m not sure whether or not I have hit on the formula or balance of contents either. Although this site was my first blog site, I also decided to set up a separate one for my creative writing, and I am also considering a third to curate presentations I have made at various TeachMeets and other educational events. I haven’t written as many posts about music or English language teaching, as I had originally anticipated, neither has my posting been as frequent nor as regular as I might have liked. I also wondered whether or not I should have a blogiversary as some people do and write something celebratory or reflective. That would have been yesterday, though, so you can see I sort of decided against it – always the rebel!
So what’s in store for the second year here? I’m not making any predictions, but expect to see more about music, education reform, and the occasional mathematical titbit – and a lot more paper-based stuff! If you haven’t had a poke about in some of my earlier posts, now might be a good time for a visit!
Sine of the Times: Dividing the Universe by Zero 
Hi Colin,
Hi Colin,
Your math chat facilitation has been stellar this year. I have learned a lot from the chats. Some of it is beyond me. April/May/June tend to be my busiest work season so I have only been lurking on #mathchat.
I am intrigued by your resolve to publish more creative writing. I started off my blog (which I have all but abandoned – didn’t give me the satisfaction I craved – not sure what my purpose was to start anyway – maybe that was the problem) with some creative writing posts. My sister was the main fan of my creative writing. Beyond that, there was really no response to the writing. (No complaints, just an observation.)
I find that writing fiction takes a lot longer than writing non-fiction. I found myself posting drafts rather than polished pieces. While it is more work to write fiction, it is my fiction which I would rather re-read multiple times.
I am entertaining the thought that a blog might not be the right platform for creative writing as people expect non-fiction? Does this barrier exist in my mind only? If it is a real barrier, what might change this expectation?
I recently sent a piece of my writing to a publisher so I’m excitedly anticipating my first ever rejection letter – it will be a moment to savour. I figure publishers might appreciate my writing more than folks who were reading my blog (with the notable exception of my sister.)
Bye for now,
Ingrid 🙂
Je vous remercie pour vos aimables remarques Ingrid!
#mathchat will be celebrating it’s first birthday in a month or so, and that will definitely need to be a big celebration!
As for creative writing, I have done quite a lot of poetry and short-story writing, the novel is a different matter. I always found most of my writing happened best when I had a deadline or some sort of challenge to work with. In the past, it was a monthly writers’ circle. More recently it was the national poetry month in the US. Ours is in October in the UK. I started a novel for the national novel writing month, which is held in November, but never got going last time… maybe this year! Whether or not you publish as you write on a blog is another question. I’m not sure I’d do that myself.
A bientôt
Colin
Congratulations. Having recently passed the year mark as well, I relate to the reflection you made about posts and readers. I also had the intention of having separate blogs for different purposes and after doing so, realised that all three suffered because it was just too much for me. Good luck if you choose to go that route.
Cheers,
Tyson
Thanks for the comment, Tyson. It may be that the ‘secret’ to multiple blogs is to keep each one completely separated with its own identity. We’ll see, anyway!