Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Taking a Break, Y'all

I'm not sure if I have much of a readership, but I've found lately that this blog site of mine has felt like a daunting task hovering over me. "I need to write about my trip to Gettysburg, I should write about my daughter and I going camping at Lake James," or thoughts like that have been plaguing my mind.

I originally started this blog to document some of my life and thoughts as a writer, but now have decided to use the time and energy I had been channeling into this and spend more time really writing or just being with my family after work, instead of sitting in front of the computer.

I'm going to take a six-month sabbatical. However, if anyone wants to drop a comment just to say "Hi," I'd would be more than happy to respond.

In the words of Bob Ross, "I'd like to wish you all happy painting, and God bless!"

2 comments:

Deborah Wilson said...

David,

I'm reading - I'm sure a lot of people are reading - they just don't comment. According to statistics, only about 2 to 5% of readers will comment. To get a better idea of who and how many are hitting your page, here is a site by Google that you might want to check out:
Google Analytics

Personally, I think that it's in the way that one markets themselves. I'm none too happy with Technorati, basically they are a complete waste of time. I think that it would be better to have several outlets to drop blog url.

One trick that I learned at tech - is to title your post according to words that people might use for key words in a search. For instance, search engines always follows the url. Whenever you make a post, notice that the url to that saved post page is always at least part of your post title.

Or maybe every now and then we could start throwing up a pic of Paris Hilton or Brad Pitt - we'd be sure to get many hits then! lol

Gettysburg would be a good post, when you find time.

I try to encourage people not to become too dependent on their computers. God knows I don't have time to sit in front of this screen all the time. But you're right, blogging takes up a lot of time, and sometimes I feel that I could get more accomplished if I cut back. That's what I've been trying to do.

I've been giving serious thought to stop blogging period and go to a column orientated web site and offer guest writing once a week. It sure would free up a lot of time for me to do what I should be doing - writing. But even that's hard to find time to do with 2 classes left to do at tech.

Also, with a web site, there are no comments - unless you want to design it that way. Most people who have web sites rely on e-mail.

According to what I've been picking up, commenting is down all across the board. People are grouping off and just commenting to their friends/people they know.

David Hampton: said...

Thank you for your kind comments and advice. I've enjoyed reading your blog as well, but your right about not always commenting on everything you read. i'm not giving up on posting, i just have too many irons in the fire right now. any writing of interest that i do in the meatime i'll save and post later, perhaps.

take care!