30 Posts For A Buck Fifty Apiece

It’s that most wonderful time of the year again when I post 30 times in a single month, and never again for the other eleven, despite promising to do better this time in the last post! I’d hate to break tradition now. 

I have much to discuss from this year. Life has thundered along at a blistering pace for everyone in my family. Along the way I have made cryptic notes in my phone to remind myself of things that at the time I thought would make for interesting posts. At one time in my life, I didn’t have to worry about that, as I would come home and write up the post that evening. That time, for now, has passed. 

Reviewing those notes, I have factual life stories, funny and fantastical short stories, follow-ups to previous years posts, and at least one post that I am completely convinced I’ve written at least twice already, yet cannot find any evidence of in my searches! 

It’s November. It’s Buck Fifty! An avalanche of typos and spelling errors are coming your way!

Enjoy the chaos. 

Buck Fifty: Addendum

Well! I did it! I successfully wrote a minimum of 150 words each day in November. While I didn’t have to post every day, as. long I wrote the required amount, as it turned out, I ended up writing 30 separate blogs! Here’s some interesting facts about the month. Or, at least, interesting to me facts. 

My shortest post was on Day 7, The Future Looks Brighter Today, at just 180 words. 

The longest was also one of my favourites, Murder, They Streamed, at 732 words. However, a large part of that was actually written over the course of the summer, and just edited in to new material. I actually only wrote around 300 new words that day. For the rest of the math in this post, I am taking an educated estimate of 311 words for Murder, They Streamed in relation to the challenge requirements. Adjusted, that would make Christmas Started Tonight In Ireland the longest, at 678 words. 

Only two posts broke 500 new words published, Christmas Started Tonight In Ireland, and the post immediately preceding that, Teaching Inis, at 503 words. Both were written in the final week. 

I published 8306 words in November. I wrote a lot more, but they got deleted or edited out before posting. That’s an average of 276.86 words per day. The mean word count was 251. That is to say, if ordered by word count, there are 15 posts of less than or equal to 251 words, and 15 posts with a greater than 251 word count. By coincidence, Day 16, Distance Grandparenting is the post with 251 words. 

At the time I’m writing this, My Nightly Ritual has the most views, at 41. Though that was posted on Day 4 and has had all month to accumulate that number. By contrast, The End Of All Now from Day 28 already has 37 views. 

If you did, thanks for joining me on this process. I really enjoyed this month, and hopefully it’s gotten me back into writing. Only time will tell. My next project, I think, will be a video I really want to do. I’ll post about it here if I succeed. 

Who? Who Are You?

I’ve now posted ten mini blogs in November as part of this Buck Fifty challenge, not including this one as I write it. I am very happy with my current progress, and genuinely hope I can succeed at completing the month without skipping a day. 

But what is truly surprising is how consistent the views have been. Each post gets around 25 views. I’m sure most readers are coming from my Twitter, as I’ve linked all but one there, and that post that I didn’t link got significantly less views. 

I’m curious who you are. I know one of you is my wonderful aunt, who’s mentioned my blog in the past when I was posting regularly too, and commented on one of these posts last weeks. Hi Carmel! 

But the rest of you are a mystery. I don’t mind. I write these for me. My blog has always been almost entirely for my own pleasure. I love going back through the archives and finding wierd posts from the last fourteen years! Moments that I’ve long since forgotten, moments that I’ll never forget, stories, reviews all sorts of stuff. Fourteen years. Wow.

Thanks for reading my nonsense. If you like, stick around for tomorrow’s post. It’s going to be a special one! I’ve been working on it all summer. 

Point Five Kay

This is it!! A new milestone! One I did not expect to ever reach at several points in the lifetime of this blog.

My 500th post!

I often start things, get excited about them and then forget about them just as quickly. I had hoped that this blog would break that mold, and while I've gone radio-silent a few times, my desire to post random stuff is still strong today.

I started this almost eleven years ago, on May 2nd, 2006! I can't believe it's been that long. Since then, I've gotten married, moved to Canada and become a father, and parts of all those years have been documented herein. Though a lot of a lot of 2014 and 2016 have been lost ot history, with only 11 and 9 posts respectively those years.

Let's not waste any more time and push on to 1,000!

Post Script: I actually had to cheat a little to get this post to fall on the 500th upload. Last night I posted the reviews of the Game Canopy and cajon bags, and the cajon post became my 500th. I'm going to alter the publication date on that post to move it after this one, rewriting history in real time!

 

I Have A Doubt

Firstly, why is "doubt" spelled with a B. It just doesn't make any sense!

Anyway, it's Friday, November 27th, so we are, by definition, 27 days into November, and 27 days into my NoBeProMo attempt to post 30 blog posts in the months. I currently stand at, including this very one, which totally counts, 23 posts, putting me a whole four posts behind.

I'm not confident I can make that up.

Mostly, I've just been lacking in inspiration for what to write about. Inspiration comes from all kinds of places. A whole lot of the posts have been about Ada already, because they're easy to write. Her and Claire and all that are on my mind some days. My previous post on trailers came about because of the recent Captain America: Civil War first trailer.

I've been desperately trying to write some short story stuff as well, but I'm having major minor writer's block. Why "major minor"? Well, it's only a short story for my personal blog, not the fifth installment in a massively successful fantasy series. It would suck to not be able to write the next book in a series millions of people are waiting for. I'd honestly love to write something again, as my short story posts are ones I enjoy going back and reading again years later. But it's just not happening.

Work hasn't helped, even though I can't complain. I've been crazy busy and it's been lots of fun. I've been working with the toddlers and infants a lot, which is always an enjoyable experience. But all this fun has meant little time for writing.

So, I'm behind. I'm honestly going to do my best over the weekend to catch up, but... well... the post title says it all.

Good luck to me.

Let's Do This

November is, for some, a chance to write a lot in a short amount of time, aided by the support of others doing likewise. Most popular is the NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writers Month, during which folks like my wife try to bang out a whole novel. Just the first draft. Editting and subsequent refining are left for another time.

I don't write novels, so instead, I'm trying my own version of November activity, NoBeProMo, November Be Productive Month. I'm going to try to write 30 blog posts over the month of November. The last time I tried this was way back in 2011, and I managed it! It wasn't quite one per day, but it was 30 posts in the month. Hopefully I can manage it again. But more than that, I'm going to try to do video editing stuff, art and more, all of which I'll update about here. So some of the posts this coming month might be short on content themselves, but hopefully I'll have put work into other areas for those days.

This time I'm also going in with a plan. I have a few types of posts I want to do, including movie and board game reviews, a short story or two, and general life stuff, mostly related to babies. I have a few outlines scribbled up in advance to help me manage this task.

If you enjoy what you see, please feel free to comment. Similarly, if you think some post is weak, then let me know. This should be an interesting month!