Incoherent Scribblings

Almost Half Over

I have been thinking about my 101 Things in 1001 Days list quite a lot over the past week. I suppose I have been doing so because I felt like with the list it was not really necessary to make New Year’s Resolutions.

Or it could have been that I just happened to notice that the ticker at the top of the page indicates that I am within days of being half way through my allotted time. On Monday it will be 500 days since I started my task and as of October 8 (the last time I updated the list), I have only completed 18 tasks. I have completed a few more since then, but I am nowhere near the 50 mark where it seems I should be as I near the half-way point.

Upon looking through the list I have found that there are some tasks-in-progress that really can’t be counted until the last day of my challenge so when I see that they aren’t crossed off yet I don’t worry. However, there are things that for one reason or another I am no longer interested in pursuing so I have been thinking about replacements for those tasks. In fact, I have a few that I will be updating shortly.

One of the things I would really like to add but haven’t figured out exactly how to word it yet is something along the lines of blogging every day for a year. I know that there are different “365 Blog Groups” out there, but I am not sure if I want to join something like that. After all my blog is written for me, so I shouldn’t have to prove that I have posted something everyday to anyone but myself.

Perhaps if it is something I want to do I need to make some rules and/or exceptions… Sort of like what I had/have for the Project Challenge. I would love to post every day, but the fact is that sometimes life gets in the way and I don’t want to feel like I have failed my task if I miss a day here and there.

New Blog Structure

As you may have noticed, my blogs have a new, single URL. (I will leave the redirect for now, but please update your feeds and blogrolls ASAP.) Along with this new URL, my blog also has a new structure.

As you probably know, I have been maintaining two blogs, a cross stitch one and a “main” one, for about 2½ years. I originally separated them because I had two distinct audiences and the one audience (that for my “main” blog) wasn’t always interested in my crafty pursuits that I found myself blogging about on an increasingly regular basis.

Therefore, in response to my audience’s wishes, I separated the crafty content and began a second blog. Because I was still maintaining my “main” blog, I decided that my cross stitching blog would only contain posts that were directly related to cross stitching. I figured that any readers that I had that were interested in both blogs could just visit both of them.

At that point in time, I had plenty of time to maintain both blogs and did so quite successfully for quite a while.

However, as my personal situation grew more complicated, my main blog grew rather neglected. The voice of the American expatriate that had been guiding my “main” blog faded and when I officially repatriated, I knew that my expatriate audience had all but disappeared.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have felt for many months now that the voice of my “main” blog has been aimless. However, I also realized that really have no desire to stop blogging; I just need to find my voice again.

Therefore, for the past couple of weeks I have been thinking about new approaches to my blog and this is what I have come up with:

From now on, I will only have one URL… essentially one blog, but it will have two main categories that represent my two blogs. The two categories will be “Stitched with Love and Cat Hair” and “Beyond the Shelves” and each of the two main categories will then be subdivided.

The front page (http://blog.blondelibrarian.net) will contain only my stitching-related posts as I feel this is not only my main readership at the present time, but also because that is currently what I post most frequently about. Clicking “Beyond the Shelves” will take you to what was formerly referred to as my “main” blog and will be devoid of stitching content for those who may still be reading but are not interested in my hobby.

Finally, I am hoping to reinvigorate my blog and find my voice again by writing more freely. Nevertheless, I am still not sure how ready I am for the publication of some topics that I hope to write about, so from now on, some posts will be password protected. If a post is password protected, please do not ask for the password. If it is a post I want to share I will unprotect it when I feel ready.

Time for Change

I have been thinking about my blogs. Actually, I have mostly been thinking about my “main” blog. I feel like it has lost its voice.

When I lived in Germany, my main blog had an edge. I was an expatriate. I had interesting stories to tell concerning culture, language, and life with a “foreigner.”

Now what? I feel like I have lost my edge. I am just another blogger with an uninteresting life… Not to mention that I am an unemployed librarian in my 30s living with my mother. I try to take my day to day experiences and make them humorous and interesting, but is it enough?

I have to ask myself, who do I write my blog for? Is it really for me as I like to claim? If I only wrote for myself, I wouldn’t worry about my audience. I wouldn’t be concerned about how much or little information I want to share with my readers. I think about a lot of things that might make interesting reading, but do I want to share those thoughts? Do I want to publish them for all to see?

On(line) Cliques

Since today is the last day for Holidailies, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has stopped by via Holidailies for their visit. I hope that you found my writing interesting enough to stop by again sometime!

Otherwise… Until next year!

clique n. : A small exclusive group of friends or associates.

I have been online since 1993 in one form or another, but it wasn’t until the last year or so that I really developed an active presence within particular communities. I suppose the reason for this is directly related to blogging.

Prior to 2004 my online presence was static: I maintained a website, but didn’t update it regularly and it was not interactive. I rarely visited bulletin boards and when I did I always remained a lurker. I seldom went into chat rooms nor did I play online games. Simply put, I was just another faceless name among the millions of others on the World Wide Web.

Then in 2004 I started blogging and through the interactivity of blogs I found others online that shared my interests. At first we left each other comments, but in time we began emailing each other with invitations to online events that we were organizing. Though it was done without any intention of leaving anyone out, a core group of people formed and without realizing it, we had become a clique.

Clique: It is a word that I haven’t given much thought to since high school and yet within the space of a couple of months it surfaced nearly half a dozen times to describe my online group of acquaintances. Honestly, the first thing I thought when I read this description of the people that I interact online with was, “Is there such a thing as an online clique?” It seemed rather absurd, but when I pondered the definition I realized that a small exclusive group of friends or associates can just as easily form online as in real life.

I must also admit that I was hurt when I read this characterization of my group of friends. After all, the term “clique” has rather negative connotations and in my mind it implies that instead of including others, we want to exclude them and that is not the case at all.

However, I am sorry to say that I can also see how others might perceive that our group is a clique. As a general rule, we are generous with the comments that we leave one another. So generous in fact, that I can see how a visitor who comes across our blogs might think that comments from anyone else are unwelcome. We also use our blogs to sing the praises of our online events and once again, I can see how a visitor might interpret our enthusiasm for exclusivity.

And though I have never known any of my online friends to be mean to other bloggers, we have unfortunately had to deal with others that purposely try to make us seem to be snobby and unfriendly to those we don’t “know.” It has hurt some of us deeply and while I am angry that even in an online community that is supposedly filled with adults someone still has to act childish, I also pity the person(s) that is (are) only “brave” enough to hide behind anonymous comments.

Because if the person(s) would actually take the time to get to know us by following our blogs for a little while, he/she/they would find that we are actually a warm, welcoming community that simply enjoys sharing our interests with one another.

Holidailies

In an effort to once again update my blog (almost) daily, this year I have decided to participate in Holidailies. As a participant of Holidailies, I “solemnly vow to update my Web site daily from December 7, 2005 to January 6, 2006.” However, there is a catch: I can’t just fill my blog with quiz results. My post has to either be an entry of at least 50 words or a photo. We’ll see how it goes…

Honestly, I don’t think it should be too hard to meet the requirements. As it stands this entry is 107 words and I really haven’t said anything!