Time to Loot Turns One

Well… Turned one. I missed it by a little while. The first post here, ‘Hello!‘ went up January 20th 2019. This isn’t the first blog of mine to reach the one-year mark but it is the first one to get there with anything approaching consistent attention. The first to get there without months of neglect along the way.

Before Time to Loot, my last blog effort ended in 2013, with a suspicion that the idea of writing for a blog was, to me, far more appealing than the actual effort required to have one. I’d seen this with endeavours to write more substantial efforts. I thought I’d quite like to be an author. But I enjoyed the act of procrastinating through research far more than actually putting pen to paper (virtual or otherwise).

There is a truism often bandied about says simply, ‘Writer’s write’. I always had an excuse for why not today. There was just this one more thing I needed to know before I could.

For blogging it was a bit different. I didn’t feel the need to ‘know’ so much. And perhaps even more crucially, I found (and still find) it much easier to silence the inner-editor while writing a blog post. While of course I want posts to be enjoyable reads, there wasn’t that same crippling pursuit of perfection holding me back. This does lead to the occasion… *cough* …OK quite frequent occasion wherein I find my major mistakes after hitting the publish button, forever memorialising them for anyone reading via RSS feed. But still. For whatever reason — this never felt like the end of the world.

Blogging was a media in which I was content to practice and improve over time. More ‘serious’ novel writing efforts it was a struggle to even get through a single chapter without wanting to go back and rewrite. Again. And again. And again.

So if not that, what killed off my previous blogging efforts? Was it just a maturity thing? I was still in my 20’s for my last attempts (if just barely for the last).

It’s certainly possible.

I came late to understanding certain priorities in life, I would say. Dedication to a craft simply may not have fit with my headspace when the effort to perceived reward or against the idealised vision of having a blog was realised. I’d even say this is likely.

But for all that may’ve changed in the intervening years and all the ways I may have grown in that time? There is still a very real fear that my connection to the commitment here is a tenuous thing. A link liable to be broken by any lapse. Taking even an unplanned week or two off might see me return to old form and not return.

To that, I want to say that it’s alright to come back. Even after a huge break. Just do it. Start again. And while I do believe that — I don’t want to let it sink in too deep lest it implies giving myself permission to take such an unplanned break. xD

In any case!

ONE YEAR. :D

• Total Views: 12,348
• Total Posts: 212
• Total Comments: 744
  (Although roughly half that for comments from other people — since I try to reply to every comment thread at least once. :))
• Total Likes: 916
  (I didn’t work out how to reliably turn these on until midway through the year though, and didn’t sort out an issue that prevented some people from seeing the Like button until much later than that! So we’ll see how 2020 goes. :))
• Best Month for Views: August 2019 — 1,946 views
• Best Day for Views: October 31st, 2019 — 108 views

My goal for 2020?

Just keep swimming posting.