Today is the first birthday of “Messing About In Sailboats”.
I started this blog a year ago on a whim, on a day when my son was at camp, my wife was working, and none of my mates were around.
I wanted to start a blog well …because I wanted to start a blog. I wanted know what blogging was really about. I do online marketing and web stuff for a living but the fact was that while I could talk a good game about web 2.0 and social media I didn’t really understand it. I also started it because I love everything about sailing including talking about it. For one reason or another I don’t get to do that much so this seemed like a good way to satisfy that need.
The experience has been surprising and a great one. At first I drove myself to post worthy but in retrospect very boring posts about places I had sailed. I started to wonder why I was doing this but the early encouragement and links from Zephyr, Tillerman and Joe (Pigs on a Beach) Rouse kept me going.
After a month or so, I ran out of steam. I really wondered what I was doing. I was about to quit but I had one post in me that really wanted to get out. I felt passionately then, as I still do now that the mainstream sailing media have really done a bad job online. They just don’t seem to get it. To me the most interesting and imaginative stuff was happening on the sailing blogs. So I did a post called “Why do sailing sites sucks much (blogs excepted)”.
It created quite a bit of discussion and Tillerman picked it up and the comments really took off. It was then that I finally got it. One of the best comments on Tillerman’s blog from Zen summed it up:
“Pros write for a check.
Bloggers write to share, not reward. Most times they do not even get comments.”
After that I got it, stopped worrying about why I was doing it and just got on with enjoying it, doing what seemed worth sharing, posting stuff that interested me and connecting with the all of you.
adam- happy b’day. glad you have persisted. i regularly play the cd that, without these blogs, would not be channeling such lovely music into my days. sail on….blog on …?slog on? cheers
w
adam- happy b’day. glad you have persisted. i regularly play the cd that, without these blogs, would not be channeling such lovely music into my days. sail on….blog on …?slog on? cheers
w
Congrats on your first anniversary and good luck for the 2nd year.
I think I started blogging for similar mix of reasons but like you and Tillerman do wonder why I continue – I keep meaning to post on this.
Congratulations! Keep blogging as long as it pleases you. I wouldn’t do any more posts on music, though.
Your Top Sailing Songs list is a bust, IMHO. You screwed it up pretty badly.
🙂
I wrote a printed version of my own blog for a decade, for the entertainment of a half dozen friends. We like to share, or make people laugh, or think, or look at pigs. I sometimes come to “Messing” just to read the line at the top about messing with boats…it makes me smile every time.
God damn it, I’m always late to these parties. What happened to all the champagne?
Kudos old boy!
Congrats to a year of blogging. Nice stuff and I could not have said it better, why I am doing it. I mean, Zen has summed it up nicely. Thanks for bringing it on.
Happy Anniversary! I recently discovered your blog via The Tillerman and am enjoying it very much!
~Christy~
Belated Happy Anni!
May you have many more years of typemanship! 🙂