My blogging state of the union

I think, after more than 18 months of maintaining this online presence, I can now confirm that blogging is not a trivial activity. Translating thoughts to series of words that have both meaning and flow can be surprisingly hard work. Perhaps I make too much of a meal of it, revising and editing my posts to the point of never finishing them, but neither am I comfortable with the splash and dash method: a blog is a document of some permanence, and is therefore worthy of being done correctly. Whilst blog posts can (and, really, should) be edited after publication, I still hold to the old concept of the publishing date bearing some relation to the date of an particular thought or event.

Still, jamais être content is a burden (umm, that's content in the sense of satisfaction, rather than information). I can see eight unpublished drafts listed behind the scenes of this blog, plus another two or three on my On Engineering blog. It's manageable, but there are strong indications that I'm not a great finisher. I would by no means call myself a perfectionist, but there's something that blocks me from hitting that post button.

One key blocker is not actually the text, but images. I have tacitly taken on the idea that each post should have an image associated with it. The images used should act as a kind of visual abstract, a simultaneous summation and an enticement to read. Just text looks a bit dull, goes the thinking, so it's a good idea to pep up each post with some artwork. The problem is that there are so many difficulties with images: the sourcing, the copyright and the aesthetics, thereof, that I sometimes spend more time on searching for images than I do writing. I want to break away from this constraint, so I'm going to follow the path of ownership: if I didn't take the photo or make the sketch myself, then it's not mine and it doesn't belong in my blogs. Alas, I'm not a graphic designer or even particularly much of a visual type, so there will be a distinct lack of cool sketches; but at least you will be able to read published text rather than not read a collection of drafts. In any case, it's the words that are important to me. There are also some good examples of well-respected bloggers that eschew images, including Rands in Repose, so I'm not alone.

Then there's the question of time and inclination to actually dedicate thought and effort to the creation and revision of these posts.

Creation and editing - they do rather seem too grand a pair of words to be associated with blogging; but since I'm writing neither novels nor poetry, they'll have to put up with being squeezed into the blogging box. And that box really has often to take a back seat.

The worlds of work and family, segueing seamlessly into one another, fill up so much time that I have precious few hours to myself. And there are very few of those few hours in which I feel I have the energy and concentration to write cogently.

I started this blog in May 2011 and have written a grand total of 46 posts plus 12 over at On Engineering (since Jan 2012); not a particularly high strike rate, I'll admit, but it feels worthwhile continuing, both here and at On Engineering.

So, if you are reading this; don't hold your breath for the next exciting instalment and don't expect particularly worthy artwork - but do expect cogently presented thoughts and observations as I continue ambling through life, pausing every so often for breath and a bit of a chat.