I think a lot can be changed just by looking at something from a different angle.
A friend mentioned that this blog has been quiet a while. Yeah, I told him, I've been working on Life Nomadic. That's part of it, but it's not everything. Sometimes I'm struck with inspiration and can't wait to get a post out. Sometimes, like a kid running across the lawn, I just want to write for the sake of writing and I crank out three or four posts.
But sometimes it feels like an obligation. Something that I should do, or something that I have to do.
I'm a nomad. The closest thing I have to a permanent home is a tiny little RV. Or is it? Maybe it's the internet. I have far more files stored online than I have physical possessions. My mail gets delivered there, I earn my money there, and I talk to my friends there more than anywhere else.
If the internet is my home, then this site is my front door. And every day 1600+ people come to my front door to hear what I have to say. Eleven hundred (RSS) have made dropping by my house part of their daily routine. Another five hundred stop by for some reason or another.
Man, what an honor that is. It's easy to forget that each of those people is a real person who has made a conscious decision to come here. It's easy to compare my traffic stats to the most popular blogs and feel insignificant.
How would I feel if 1600 people came to my front door every day, interested in taking the time to hear whatever I had to say that day? It wouldn't feel like an obligation, it would feel like a privilege. Next time I don't feel like writing a post, that's what I'll think about.
And what profound gem to I have to share today? A video of the shop girl at Kate Spade in Caesar's Palace giving me a ride on their ladder.
Let's be honest: My blog is pretty cool. It's not nearly as popular at Boingboing, Tuckermax, or that weird housewife who writes about her kids, but I have a pretty steady readership who all post comments and get something out of the site. Since I started around a year ago, I've averaged 1200 unique readers a day (half of that is thanks to huge spikes from digg and such). My blog hasn't made me rich, but I've probably made a few thousand dollars, which is a nice side effect. More importantly it's made me a much better writer, and has helped me chronicle the past year of my life.
What I'm saying is this : I can't help you build the next Engadget or WWTDD, but I can help you get started to building a moderately popular blog.
First you need decent hosting and Wordpress. Don't mess with blogger - no one reads blogger blogs because they all look the same and don't have cool plugins that you need. I know you can customize it and all, but stop arguing and do it my way.
This is part two of my thoughts on NaNoWriMo. For part one, click here.
The mighty chart of many words on multiple days during mostly mornings.
A) Writing daily for NaNoWriMo has helped build the habit of daily writing.
This seems simplistic and on the surface it is, if you do a habit daily then you will build that habit. The problem I've had in the past is that it's easy to skip a day after five in a row and then do three only to miss another. Those missed days add up in the process of habit formation. Within NaNoWriMo these missed days have a quantifiable weight to them. I haven't had a zero day but I did only manage 329 words on another, the lowest blue bar. My habit is to write each day, and doing that I've succeed. If my habit was 1600 words each day, then the days I miss that habit are even more pronounced.
