WordWacker’s 3rd Birthday

Yes, today is this little blog’s third birthday! I like to have an image each time representing the event, and today I pulled together the number 3 with one of my other interests, showcasing one set of polyhedral dice, suitable for Dungeons and Dragons or other tabletop role-playing games, all showing the number 3. Cool, huh?

My main topic today, though, is to look back at another year here at WordWacker. Here are some highlights:

Some Statistics: Things are growing as well as I might hope. Yes, I’ll never make any Top Blog lists, but what’s happening here is generally making me happy. I’m up to 281 posts and 191 followers (up from 131 followers at this time last year). Hi, followers! I love you all! I’ve lost two followers on the WordWacker Facebook page (from 8 down to 6), but that’s never been anything other than a mirror of the blog itself, so it doesn’t surprise me. On Twitter, where I post occasionally, I’ve gone from 18 followers to 75.

Blog Posts: Here’s a breakdown of what I posted on this year. It adds up to more than 60 because some posts fall into more than one category.

• Photo Challenge: 37 (some just posting a photo with little comment, like this one on Earth Day pointing out There Is No Planet B, some with associated essays, like my post on the science of water in Water’s Edge)
• A-Z Blogging Challenge: 28 (the 26 letter posts, the Theme Reveal, and the Refection looking back at the experience)
• Writing: 23 (including longer posts relating to writing in general, like this one on Cultivating Creativity, and shorter ones like this one encouraging people to Visit the Shark: Do You Know Janet Reid?)
• Wedding: 4 (I managed to restrain myself from focusing on this ALL THE TIME, but did have an early post showing the dress as we were Counting Down to the Big Day, and a look back at the event when it was over, sharing my wish that the couple will Live Long and Prosper.
• Miscellaneous: 8 posts that really didn’t fit any of these categories, like this Poem I dropped on a day when I was feeling too sick to do anything else.

Writing and the Book: The initial goal of this blog was to chronicle my writing journey. As you can see from the blog post statistics I’ve shifted away from this to a certain extent, but I don’t want to lose that focus. Here are some changes I’ve made, and what I plan for the future in this arena.

• I continued to participate in Janet Reid’s flash fiction contests through 2016, but then I stopped getting involved. This was partly to redirect my energies in other directions, and partly because the people who participate in these contests are so amazingly, astonishingly good that I wasn’t in the right league. I’m still a faithful reader of Janet’s blog, though, and if you’re interested in writing or the business of getting published, you should be too!
• I’m participating in Camp NaNoWriMo right now, pushing to revise my novel by the end of July. (Yes, I should be working on that RIGHT NOW!). The last time I did this, in 2015, I was posting compulsively about it. This time I just posted once when I signed up and will post again when I finish. Win or lose.
• 10 Minutes a Day: I pledged in January 2017 to write at least 10 minutes a day, and post my progress on the blog. Mea maxima culpa – I failed to follow through. This spring semester was the most demanding one I’ve had in a long time, with routine 50-hour weeks at work, and I just couldn’t keep it up. Yes, I know lots of other people work more hours than that and still manage to crank out wonderful books. I am not one of those amazing people. Good to know, I guess.
• Wednesday Words: In October 2016 I started a regular feature on writing that I called Wednesday Words. I wrote or reblogged on this topic regularly until WordPress changed its photo challenge day from Friday to Wednesday. At that point I switched to Weekend Words, but posted under this tag only once, on February 13. After that I just ran out of time. I miss this regular focus on words and writing. So I plan to come back to it in some form or other, even if it’s just once a month, after I finish the revision I’m working on now.

So, bottom line: The blog is healthy and growing. My interest in doing it is still strong. I plan to make some changes, bringing writing and books more into focus, but mostly I plan to do more of the same.

Here’s to a long healthy blog life in the future! I hope you join me.