WordWacker is 5!

WordWacker is five years old today!

In some ways, this has been a rocky year, with good news and bad. I’m still lamenting the passing of the WordPress Photo Challenge, which ended in May 2018. I tried my own photo challenge for the second half of 2018 (you can see the first entry here). It worked, in that I posted a photo a week, one for every letter of the alphabet, and I liked the structure of it. Still, it felt awkward and never garnered much enthusiasm (though I did appreciate the constant participation of Olga Godim). I didn’t continue it past December. Then I didn’t post at all for the first few months of 2019. I needed to regroup and find a new direction.

I came back in mid-March, though, and participated for the fourth time in the A-Z Blog Challenge with another set of haiku puzzles (you can see them starting here, if you want).

Since the end of April, I’ve been posting once a week with Something for Sunday. There have been 11 of these posts so far on a range of topics, starting with an essay on how a popular movie movie relates to an important facet of human evolution and ranging through public celebrations like Mothers Day, private milestones like my anniversary, and a meditation on the complex relationship most of us have with our belongings.

This has been a year of modest growth on social media.

• I posted 68 times on this blog.The biggest category was the A-Z blog Challenge, followed by my own photo challenge.
• The number of new followers grew by the same number: 68, which brings my total followers up to 32. Welcome! I am sincerely grateful to all my followers. This blog wouldn’t exist without you. Thank you for coming, and I will try to provide you with content that’s worth the visit.
• I’ve been participating more and more over on Twitter, where my follower count is up to 282, more than doubling the 121 followers I had this time last year. On Twitter I mostly post haiku (I wrote about it on the blog here), but I also follow various writing groups there, including #amwriting and #WritingCommunity. If you’re on Twitter, check me out @Celia_Reaves.

What do I see looking forward to the next year?

• I’m going to get the my novel in shape to begin querying. That’s been a long time coming, but I think I can see the finish line from here.
• I’ll keep up the Something for Sunday posts at least through the end of 2019, and see how it goes after that.
• I’m going to look into becoming more active on Instagram. I’ve got an account there but haven’t done anything with it. I intend to figure out that platform and participate over there at least a little.

So, here’s to the end of another year on the blog. A good year, if not an outstanding year. Again, many thanks to all my followers for sticking with me, and I hope to make it worth your while for another year.