THE END OF THE LINE?

This is my 201st post.

It's almost two years since I started recording the day to day minutiae of my life. As I look down the list of post titles, I find it hard to believe that I have strung all those words together. But now, I feel the need to reflect and decide whether I am still travelling in the right direction or whether the time has come to pack up and move on to pastures new?

I began my blog as a way of nurturing the creative side of me that seemed to have got lost along the way. This I have done. I am now writing all kinds of stuff - my book of course but also various short stories and other bits and pieces. On top of that, my appetite for knowledge has been well and truly whetted and I wait with eager anticipation for my next OU course to begin.

I am also much more technically able than I was, another stated aim of the blog. I have an iphone, which, whilst defeating me on a daily basis, is still a massive step up from the basic Nokia that I was using. I now whizz about the social networking sites like a toddler in a toyshop and I can even download and manipulate photos from my camera.

And I am wiser. Organising your thoughts and beliefs into a format that is fit to be shared with friends and strangers alike is a useful discipline. It has clarified my views on a wide range of subjects and the helpful comments that I have received from readers in various forms along the way have encouraged me to believe that, in the main, I am making sensible choices in life.

But there are downsides too. The first and most obvious is finding things to write about. My life is quiet. Not so much happens to me that is worthy of note and what little there is I have written about all already at least once. Writing about my emotional state is always tempting but it's easy to forget that this is the world wide web and whilst it may feel to me like I am just off loading, I would actually be sharing with my family, friends and a whole bunch of randomers details that might be best kept to myself.

Also, having to write regularly is more stressful than you might think. I know that some people check frequently for new posts and I feel a need to keep them sated as a reward for their loyalty. Also, if they visit the site and it is unchanged too many times, they may never return. My statcounter tells me that my blog gets between 10 and 20 hits a day, more if I advertise on facebook. In total there have been 2,850 pageloads and 1,193 visitors to date of which 939 have returned more than once. When I'm feeling that the whole endeavour is some kind of narcissistic waste of time, which I do fairly often, I allow myself to look at those statistics and dare to think that I must be doing something right if people keep coming back.

I read a piece yesterday listing ten reasons why a writer should blog. I suppose those reasons are just as valid for aspiring writers too. (If I could work out how to insert links then I would put it in so you could check it out.) This article crossed my consciousness just as I was contemplating putting Imogen Clark at Home in a box marked "Things I did in the 21st Century" and closing the lid. Kismet? Who knows? But as I press publish on post number 201, I shall continue to ponder my blog's fate and try to decide what to do next. If you are a regular reader and have a view, please leave an anonymous comment and give me some guidance. Thank you.