Long time readers may know that when I began blogging in January I said I’d post weekly throughout the year and then decide whether to continue indefinitely. Somewhere along the way, I decided to post a few times a week. 

Random thoughts on my blogging experience to this point:

• I appreciate my commenters, but in general, it hasn’t been as interactive an experience as I had hoped.

• The limited interaction is okay because it has forced me to continually think about why I’m writing. One reason is because it contributes to a “decluttering of the mind.”  I’ve enjoyed taking nebulous thoughts about things I’ve thought a lot about , meritocracy or youth sports for example, and clarifying them. I think, “Okay, it’s nice to have finally captured those thoughts, now I can move on.”  

• A related potential benefit is going back to the captured thoughts and expanding on them sometime soon. When I look back over the year’s posts, I see a lot of essays in the making.

• Another thing I’ve enjoyed is looking at the broad outline of my post topics. The written record is a map of my thought process. I knew I had wide ranging interests, but I’ve been surprised by the number of topics I’ve chosen to write on and how often I switch gears among them.

• Related to that, I don’t regret writing on any particular topic, but I think I need to narrow my focus in order to strike a better breadth/depth balance. 

• I’ve learned blog readership depends largely on entrepreuneurial know-how and drive. I’m not entrepreuneurial, and haven’t marketed “Welness Writ Large” so my readership remains humble. Still, there’s positive momentum. The three top months in terms of viewers—1) November; 2) September; 3) October.

• A third of the time I think I need to pull back and just think/write off-line. Two-thirds of the time I feel like continuing. So I’m leaning towards continuing.

• Over time I’ve grown less fond of the concept of “wellness.” I’ve tried to expand it’s definition along the way, but it still does not feel robust enough for what I most enjoy thinking and writing about. So I think I need one more name change. 

• Maybe I can narrow my focus by forcing myself to delete some of the categories that I haven’t written as much about.

Thanks for reading.