4 years ago I wanted Micro.Blog to help me write more
Update: thanks to @artkavanagh for pointing out that I'm just shy of 5 years, not 4!
Hah, on 13 January 2018 I wrote on my new Micro.Blog with a link to my now removed and archived KnowIt blog:
A fresh start in 2018. In which I stop posting on my nearly 20 year old WordPress blog and take up at Micro.blog.
Over on KnowIt on 12 April 2018 I wrote (emphasis added to the quoted text):
I started blogging in 1999 — nearly 20 years ago — on a DIY HTML page. At times since then I've written on several blogs, quite regularly — even several times per week. These days it seems most of my writing goes on Twitter.
Meanwhile, this blog has accumulated some 3,255 published posts and 2,677 media items.
As we launch into 2018 the site feels heavy. It's a bit of a psychic weight and I feel keenly aware that I hardly ever write here any more.
It's a responsibility writing a blog post: finding and preparing one or more images, choosing topics, words and phrasing carefully, researching things, attributing sources and so on. In 2017 I wrote 25 posts, and published 23. The other two were never finished.
I've been considering what to do with this site. It has around 1,000 page views per month — well down on earlier times, and not surprising since I don't update very often and have switched to random posts rather than topic-based information.
There are 1,669 email subscribers, which sounds good but when I view the list of email addresses I'm confident in saying 99% are spammers rather than actual readers.
I don't want to delete the site — there's still some good info here, though some of the old stuff is truly archaic and occasionally embarrassing.
What I've decided to do is to make a fresh start. I'm unlikely to add anything new here, but will be making brief updates at Miraz.micro.blog. They are automatically cross-posted to Twitter [link removed].
Micro.blog is about brief writing. I'm hoping I'll actually write more words in a week by switching. It should also free me up to be more casual, more spontaneous, more willing to write. I hope it'll be
lighterand quicker.Who knows, maybe I'll switch back here at some point. Maybe I won't. It's definitely a fresh start.
Note: as at 23 December 2022 I have 4046 posts on Micro.Blog and I've written 9928 replies to posts others have made on their blogs. What's more, I know the folks reading are real people, not bots or spammers. I don't know or really care how many people are reading this blog, but I do know I love this community.
Pratik It’s been such a pleasure having you in this community. Thanks for sharing your writing here.
Art Kavanagh Thanks for the enormous contribution you’ve made so far, both in writing and in helping microposters to get started in customizing our blogs. One quibble though: Jan 2018 is just a month off five years ago, unless I’m miscounting.
Miraz Jordan @pratik Thank you Pratik. It's such an enjoyable community to be part of.
Miraz Jordan @artkavanagh Thanks Art. I suspect your maths is way better than mine. 😆
Ridwan Jaafar Thanks for your sharing your thoughts. I still struggle being authentic here on M.b because of the behavioural changes I learned from Facebook, Instagram & YouTube. Perfectionism does kill being authentic on M.b.
💬 John Philpin awesome … we are nearly up on our three year anniversary of meeting live.
Ridwan Jaafar @JohnPhilpin Cheers! But the struggle is real right? I always battle these thoughts ... "should I post it or not?" or "Am I just sharing just for the sake of sharing?"
💬 John Philpin @ridwan I treat my microblog as my public journal … I definitely sometimes wonder should I - and sometimes I don’t … just like IRL … we are all stopped from being our full selves because of what others might think.
Leon Mika Congratulations on five years of micro posting. Glad to see that it worked for you. I always enjoy your posts so here’s to many more.
Miraz Jordan @ridwan Many thanks. Once you can unlearn the ways of follower counts, likes etc, it's much easier to just write what interests you. 😀
Miraz Jordan @JohnPhilpin @ridwan That's pretty much my approach too. If there's something to journal about that really doesn't belong in the public sphere then I write it in my local thought repository.
Miraz Jordan @alanralph Many thanks. For the first while I didn't necessarily post on Micro.Blog every day, but at some point I noticed my On This Day feed was richer with daily posts. Now I strive for that and usually achieve it unless some external factor gets in the way. Only rarely have I ever almost despaired of finding something to write about. 😀
Rick Rupp I also came to Micro.blog looking for something that would stimulate a writing habit. Ironically, the site was recommended to me by an acquaintance who only posted a few times. I also want to be able to tweak the visual appearance of what I write, and I am having fun with that. After a slow start my participation is increasing. I hope I can make a post like yours in five years.
Miraz Jordan @palousegeo That's really cool and I'm glad you're having fun. I must say the On This Day plugin and viewing that page each morning has been a real motivator for me.