Back in 2002, when pushing the edges of what blogging could be was a common pursuit, Mr Mike Troubled Diva did his 40 in 40 project, a series of 40 posts written off the cuff in the 40 days before his 40th birthday. It was a a great thing and, if I were wont to make a list of “great moments in British blogging culture”, which I’m not, but if I was, it would be on that list.
On Monday I’ll be 39, which means a year after than I’ll be 40 years old. The next 12 months will be my fortieth year on the planet. I don’t tend to give anniversaries and birthdays that much significance but I do acknowledge they are ways in which we mark the passing of time, just as we mark journeys in miles, so we can contextualise and comprehend them. To say “I am forty years old” means something to people. (It seems to mean a fair bit to my mother, anyway, who looks horrified that her son who has barely managed to settle down is that old, but I digress.) It’s a thingy of note and worth noting.
Speaking of anniversaries and birthdays, on June 2010 I passed my 10th year of blogging which I marked by starting a new blog, which kinda opened the doors on a period of diasporic blogging. In short, I’ve been spreading myself around and no-where quite felt right.
I think part of the problem has been I’ve been blogging with an aim, usually to promote or sell something. The ASH-10 stuff is blatantly business-oriented but even something as innocuous as 8bit Pete is geared towards promoting 8bit Lounge at the local pub. And as for my Twitter, that feels more and more like I’m shouting on the street with a hand-bell as people hurry by. (I say “feels” like – I have no idea what people are actually doing with the stuff I blurt out there.)
FYPA.NET helped a lot. I started it as a reaction against the silo mentality and invisible business models of Twitter and Tumblr but the formality of the process really gave my sharing of stuff a form. It takes a small but significant amount of effort to add something to that blog and that serves as a filter in itself. Why and I sharing this? What do I have to say about it? It brought something important back into the equation – me.
That might seem odd, that I feel detached from my social activity, and I may well be exaggerating to justify this new project, the one that will fix everything, except it probably won’t but the journey will be interesting and that’s all we can ask for.
Starting on Tuesday I’ll be using this blog to record something I haven’t recorded properly for a long while. My thoughts and feelings. Every night for the next year I’ll write something, sometimes an essay, sometimes a couple of lines, about the day and my place in it. I don’t plan on it being majorly confessional or deep. I’m not looking to get some kind of therapy out of sharing my innermost concerns with the world. But it certainly won’t be rants and opinions about the state of the world. It’ll be a record of me, for those who care. (And if no-one cares, that’s perfectly fine.)
I used to blog like this all the time. I only stopped around 2008 when the Created in Birmingham blog thrust me into a spotlight and I was suddenly aware of an audience that “mattered”. Sure, I played with it and poked at the notions of public and private but I quite consciously pulled back from the personal. Which was a shame.
But in recent months I’ve noticed my reach and influence has faded as the novelty of being Someone Who Uses Social Media has rightly faded. While a bit confusing at first (“Why can’t I get hundreds of retweets for this thing I care about?”) it’s actually quite refreshing and positive as it means the people who are reading my stuff are doing so because they want to, not because they feel they ought to in order to understand something nebulous. Maybe we’re finally at that stage of the blogging revolution that I predicted back in 2007 where the power of voice is truly distributed. It’s about time.
So yeah, the 40/365 project starts here on Tuesday and runs for 365 days until I’m 40, hence the title. I’m rather looking forward to it.
Good luck; I’ll be on of the silent readers who will quietly read it every day but rarely comment.
Contemplated doing something like this last week, as turned 43 on thursday gone. But in the end decided (a) didn’t have the mental discipline to commit to it daily and (b) would inevitably talk just about feelings for Nintendo, libraries, America, librarians and cheese, resulting in a diminishing / bored audience. Pretty sure yours will be a lot more interesting.
Mmmm, small thought. You could perhaps consider after a while whether you have enough relevant content to form an ebook of some kind (whatever kind) and make it available in that format as well? An experiment, if nothing else. Writing for 365 days, even of variable length daily, should provide more than enough content. Many options (possibly too many) for publishing in this format; one of my friends is doing so with Sci Fi writing:
http://www.nvbinder.com/books/
Anyway, that was just a thought. Good luck. I look forward to reading it daily, no matter which continent am in :-)
The eBook is something I’ve been considering for my other writings over the last ten years. I’ll probably think more about it over the winter. As for this, maybe, we’ll see, but as a byproduct, not an intention.
Oh good.
This reads like a good idea, more personalisation of your blog can only be a good thing as it’s what makes blogs the most interesting. I’ll be checking it out throughout the year, what if you are on holiday – will you be updating even when it’s hard to do so ? Good luck.
Holidays – I’ll probably write stuff on my phone and post it when I return. Or take a break. I guess it depends on how important the process is to me. Maybe a break from the process will aid the process. We shall see.
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