Another year, another anniversary as I’ve now reached eleven years of writing online. Here’s the very first post I made:
That was it. Eleven years on the tally is now at 449 posts:
One of the original ideas I had when I started blogging some eleven years ago was to keep track of all of the places I went and where I was going. In some ways the blog helped push me to get out and explore, see and meet people, as then I’d have something to write about. It was never intended as a business venture though I wasn’t against the idea. I did try to monetize it and failed, but I’m not too disappointed with that result. I kind of know why I failed and, moreover, I know there are other opportunities to be had so it’s a matter of concentrating some effort and getting them done. Finally, this blog has also been an avenue through which I could practice my writing, and I still find it useful for that purpose.
But here we are, eleven years later, in China, Beijing since 2014, in the ESL industry, and blogging mainly about life over here. The website has never been strictly a travel website, rather more a written documentary of what a working traveller does. It’s where I’ve tried out ideas and, I think, more importantly, forced me to go through the myriad of photos and videos I take and post them. Nowadays, Instagram hosts a lot of the photos I take.
Videos are a bit more problematic as I tend to overthink them. However, I’ve seen a few APPs come out that would make life substantially easier in terms of video post production. The last roadblock I face is soundtracking as it’s one of the things that flags a video as violating copyright. I don’t use stock music nor do I buy from any royalty-free libraries as I’d rather create my own. This has understandably added another layer of complexity to my workflow but one that I am slowly seeing progress in eliminating.
In terms of the blog itself, one of the most recent additions is the use of audio. You’ll recall that last year at this time I started my own podcast and for the first ten episodes I basically recorded myself going over what was already on my blog. After those first ten episodes I decided to try something else: live shows. So, instead of recording a podcast as one would imagine it, I went live over Facebook and simply went free-form.
They are fun and quick to do but there are a few issues I’ve noticed:
- First, I should make them shorter. I’m not sure how long people want to listen to a talking head unless they’re showing different pictures or items that are harder to display in a podcast and maybe not worth the stylized effort of a polished video.
- I still like to extract the audio so people can listen to the audio only while on the run. I appreciate that watching a video is a time commitment and not everybody is willing or able to give that focused time.
- Internet connections can be frustrating but I’m not sure if this would be different anywhere else in the world.
Other than that, I decided I’d keep the podcast going but mostly as an open-ended conversation-type of interview, talking to people that I know and have met along my travels. It’s been fun so far and I can see how it can continue but, given the length of the conversations and how long it can take to finalize the episode (complete with graphic work and website write up), I don’t think I’d aim for any more than one or two a month with my current set up. Since I’m a one-man show, there’s only so much I can do before it would become unpleasant and I’d rather keep it more fun than tedious. As of this writing I’m 21 episodes in with Episode 22 literally in the works.
I mentioned above that I started making audio recordings of my blogs posts which I actually record myself instead of using a computer program. (Speechelo was recommended to me as a viable text-to-speech program.) I started making these recordings with the idea that people probably don’t want to sit down to read long-form text online any more and given my own need to move for work. Some times it’s easier to just listen to what someone has to say instead of sifting through an extended blog post. Not all blog posts have an audio file to download but many of the more recent posts do. If the blog post does have an audio file, I normally put it at the top of the post so you can either stream or download it right away while scrolling through the post itself.
That being the case, I don’t think the written word is going anywhere any time soon. Back in 2010 when I started my blog lots of people were saying that everybody had a blog. And it was true, lots of people did have blogs. But how many are left? Where are they now? Did they move onto other projects? Did they segment and build out parts of their blogs into other businesses? I don’t know. All I know is that I myself don’t really follow any “blogs” per se, rather I follow several Twitter accounts that post stuff I’m interested in (lots of science and technology accounts in addition to finance accounts). I don’t see many people using their name for their web address unless they are a writer or some sort of personality. Maybe I’m doing something wrong?
Today, however, people are saying that everybody has a podcast. And so far they’re right. But, as I’ve managed to stick around for eleven years so far I do wonder if I’ll be able to keep up the podcasting for another ten years. If last year is indication (in addition to my track record of blog posting), then I could only reasonably expect an episode every two weeks or so for a total of 26 episodes a year which would mean 260 episodes over the next ten years. I think that’s optimistic. We’ll see where I’m writing, living and podcasting from at that time.
All that being said, I still like the process of writing. I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s therapeutic. I don’t disagree but from my viewpoint it’s more about documenting my ideas (“see? I was one of those people talking about it at that time”) and keeping me honest in my viewpoints (“where did you get that idea from?”). I am a little surprised I haven’t published or even assembled a book just yet but it’s not like I haven’t tried. It does take a lot of work just to sift through the blog posts and then download the text I need. After that, reformatting everything takes quite a bit of time and and and, so, as you can see, it’s a bit of an effort and something I haven’t made the time for just yet. This, in addition to all of the things I mentioned above. There’s only so much time in a day but maybe it does come down to focus.
And so that’s how things stands at the end of eleven years of writing and blogging. To be sure, I was writing before I started a blog but never felt comfortable enough to publish anything online. Eleven years on, however, and it seems like second nature.
449 posts? Double that, hopefully more, and I should be sitting at about 900 posts within another eleven years’ time. I wonder what those posts will be about?
And in case you were wondering, didn’t he write something similar last year? In fact, yes, I did. I’ve written several posts about my “blog-o-versary”. You can find them linked below!
- Ten years: https://www.stevensirski.com/10-years-of-blogging/
- Eight years: https://www.stevensirski.com/eight-years-blogging/
- Seven years: https://www.stevensirski.com/farm-seven-year-blogoversary/
- Three years: https://www.stevensirski.com/three-year-blog-o-versary/
- One year: https://www.stevensirski.com/happy-birthday-blog/
Thanks for reading! I’ve enjoyed writing!