Wow. I just realized that I’ve been blogging daily for just over a month. True, it took me a few days to get around to make it public, but I still wrote those days, so they count! While I don’t want to sound too self-congratulatory (but definitely a little), that’s pretty cool.

Since I’ve started, I’ve settled on the goal of writing at least 500 words each day. Of course, I’ve had to make adjustments for reality and the various activities that eat up whatever scrap of free time they can find. So while it may not be accurate to say I’ve written every day, I have at least posted every day.

I find it interesting that even one month into this exercise, I don’t have a clear direction for the blog. Admittedly, a fair amount of my posts have been on the dour and depressing end, but that has not necessarily been my goal. My goal was to make sure I had my own place, where I could express my opinions in whatever fashion I desired. In that respect, I guess I have succeeded.

And patterns are starting to emerge. Themes, even. The aforementioned navel-gazing, of course, has been a big one. But so has the Axesperiment, where I chronicle my personal explorations into the mental side of SCA combat. The “Webcomics I Read” series has provided easy weekend filler, true, but it is also interesting to have to explain why (or why not) you like something in a short blurb. It’s given me ideas for a larger “X I Y” format, where I go through blogs, video games, and maybe even TV shows and books that I read/watch/consume.

And I’m really happy I’ve finally gotten around to posting fiction, as evidenced by what I hope will be merely the first in a series of vignettes: “Punching trees gives me wood.” To tell the truth, I didn’t set out to write a narrative from within Minecraft; I just started writing, and it ended up taking over most of the post (and then some). Sure, it could probably use an edit, but more importantly it broke me out of the shallow funk I had crept into recently (and that the navel-gazing posts tended to reinforce). So yeah, I look forward to more on that front, and hopefully so do you!

Blogging has not been without its challenges, though. Sustaining the motivation to write, especially when there are so many easy distractions, is tough. The best way to get going, of course is to Just Do It. If you ever see some writing that appears to be filler (or just really crap), it’s probably because it’s in truth nothing more than brain droppings.

But that was to be expected. What I wasn’t prepared for was the tyranny that is the Statistics page. I have a WordPress plugin that lets me track the number of daily visitors, as well as which pages they look at. For better or worse, the numbers have been trending down. As discouraging as that may be, however, I believe there’s an important lesson to be learned. It’s made me think about who I’m writing for, and whether I want to be a writer or merely popular. Inevitably, some ego has snuck in, and I hope I’m not boring those people who read regularly (of which hopefully at least a few). And that’s not to say I’m not thankful for readers; I am. Even if it’s just anonymous numbers on a bar graph, it’s nice to know I’m not shouting into the abyss.

So thank you all for letting me clutter your Facebook and Tumblr feeds on a daily basis. I’ve got a list of potential subjects that is growing faster than I’m writing, so I should be set for quite a while. And if you have any feedback (questions, comments, things you’d like to know and/or hear about), I’m open to that as well. But mostly, thanks for supporting me and my writing.  I’ve got plans…

Here’s to another month!