By Jim Hagarty
Six months ago today, I wrote my first post for Lifetime Sentences. When I did that, I became a blogger.
I really didn’t know what I was getting into. As it turns out, blogging and bloggers belong to a whole weird world that up till then had been a mystery to me. I have tried to learn the ropes but it’s a daunting adventure.
Every project I have ever started seems to go through a few phases. In the first phase, I hit the ground running and go at it like a madman. In Phase 2, the fun sort of falls off a bit and the project begins to feel like work. The Final Phase sees me trying to figure out whether or not I want to carry on with whatever new thing I have started.
In the past, there has been making recordings of my songs, writing books, freelancing (I even rented my own office for that one), and investing in the stock market online which can be likened to taking all your money up to the tenth floor of a building and throwing it out the window. (Not really. It’s actually fun and somewhat profitable.)
I still do all those things today but with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Sometimes you can’t get my guitar away from me and I write new songs like Bob Dylan on uppers. Other times, weeks go by, no guitar, no songs. Intense investing for a week or two, then a three-month hiatus.)
My blog has gone in several directions. Humour, philosophy, photography, music. I’ve written limericks and poetry and taken lots of pictures of old cars and trucks. I’ve posted some music by my friends. I’ve done political commentary (which I will probably stop when the U.S. election ends).
When I started the blog, I had various vague goals. I would contribute lots of stories, humourous and otherwise, and collect up those stories into a series of books which I would sell. And yes, I thought I could make some money from the project. I haven’t quite rang that last bell yet.
I envisioned a sort of online magazine, with lots of contributors other than myself. I haven’t gone very far down that road yet except for the music by friends and the fantastic photo displays by my son Chris and my buddy and fellow blogger Al Bossence who, with his wife Kelly and their pooch Pheebs, is RVing somewhere in the southern United States as I write. It was Al who got me going on all this blogging business. He has been at it for 10 years (thebayfieldbunch.com) and has had well over four million visits to his site in that time. His goal is to reach 2,000 views in one day. He has come close attracting over 1,900 sets of eyes in a 24-hour period.
So six months for me. I will keep plugging along but I might make a few changes along the way to keep the whole thing more enjoyable for me and less like a burden, which sometimes, to be honest, it does feel like at present.
It is gratifying to use my tracking software to see where my viewers are coming from. At present, most are in the United States, but a lot from Canada and even some from far-flung places such as Finland, Australia and Russia.
So I hope you will hang in there with me for another six months. On my one-year anniversary, April 30, 2017, there will be free popsicles and chocolate ice cream for everybody!
Thanks for dropping in. I appreciate your interest.
