10 Things I've Learned From Blogging Every Day

What I've learned from NaBloPoMo participation this year:

1. Writing every day is damn hard work.

2. I am not content to just throw anything on my blog. I am too much of a perfectionist to not write, rewrite, edit, proof. And then go back to make adjustments if I don't like how the paragraphs align on the page. And then edit some more. I realize that sounds just a bit compulsive.

3. I spend less time reading other's blogs when I'm posting every day. I think that others participating in NaBloPoMo have less time to read blogs too.

4. I didn't have any time to visit the NaBloPoMo site and see how others were doing. If I read anybody participating, it was only because I already had them on my blogroll. I want to spend time in December visiting some sites of participants I haven't read in the past. I hope to post about some of them in the next month.

5. I didn't have any problem coming up with ideas to write about, and wrote about a variety of topics. I don't think I could have selected a theme and written about it for 30 days.

6. I had difficulties finding the time to write.

7. Since I made the commitment to do this, I was unwilling to not post on certain days and found a way to do so despite two trips, bone-aching fatigue on a few days, work and family commitments. This dedication meant that there was more than one evening where I found myself falling asleep at the keyboard. If only I had the same commitment to other areas of my life!

8. I think my visit stats increased (I hadn't checked them in a long time), but only because there were additional hits from random, odd queries (see below).

9. I like writing longer posts and I hope to continue to do so in the future. I'm considering creating some sort of regular writing prompt that others can participate in by contributing longer, more essay-like posts on their blogs, perhaps on a monthly basis. More details later.

10. I will be making a donation to Water Partners International for at least $80, based on the 80 comments posted this month. This may increase based on additional comments I receive in the next few days on my NaBloPoMo posts. I want to continue to have some sort of charity tie-in to my blog and am working on something that other bloggers can participate in as well. Details to follow on how and for which charity. This may possibly be a lending team on Kiva and I'm leaning towards something related to reading and education. Emily has already indicated an interest. If you're interested too, email me or leave a comment.

After participating in NaBloPoMo for two years, I don't think that I will do it again. However, I hope that I will post more regularly. There have been a few months this year where I only posted two or three times. I'm hoping I can stay motivated to post two or three times a week. This was a beneficial exercise and helped my blogertia, that condition of lack of motivation to blog as named by Bloglily a few months ago.

Here are some stats from this month:

Posted once every day, and three times posted additional posts.

Used 26 different tags:

• using one tag five times
• two tags four times each
• Four tags three times each
• five tags twice.
• Most popular were: miscellany, food, politics, art, books, blogging, life, NYC

I linked to other posts 57 times.

Posted one you-tube link and 19 pictures, but only one post was dedicated to photos with only minimal words.

Had 669 unique visitors according to StatCounter, with an average of 23/day.

Only did one meme, but I wrote a lot of commentary on it, which was not part of the meme. Did one quiz.

Hits:

• Oddest hit from google query this month: Toss up between ounces in #2 cam and black and white picture of Paul Newman in bath.
• Most frequent hit query: concept that heaven is 3 feet up.
• Query I found the funniest: someone in Denmark who returned to my site a few times with the query I peed my pants.
• Seven queries took the inquirer to landing pages from last year's NaBloPoMo.
• Queries that most pleased me: Four related to the opera Dr. Atomic and the aria from that opera based on John Donne's sonnet Batter My Heart 3-person'd God

Congratulations to all who undertook the NaBloPoMo Challenge this month. Give yourself a round of applause!