I’ve been thinking about my own blog writing. Have I changed much since I first started? Have I seen any growth in my writing?
My wife likes to sit with my 3-year old daughter and show a slide-show of my daughter’s photos in reverse chronological order from recent to birth. She’ll ask her, “Who is this?” and my daughter would respond, “That’s Kaitlyn.” She’ll say her name in most of the pictures until she reaches a particular photo, where she’ll say, “That’s baby.” My wife and I are baffled by this. Is there a big difference in the way we photographed her before and after this picture? Does she look different? We don’t think so, but apparently my daughter can tell the difference.
The same goes with my blog writing. I’ve reviewed my posts to the beginning of my blogging days, more than 2 years ago, and noticed that I have indeed changed the way I write. Now, I write more words. The content is more in-depth and has a lot more outgoing links. I seem to have more things to say now, not just about myself. I can say that I’ve grown up, even if it’s only a little bit. I noticed my writing has improved a bit. The turning point was when I started having a few more readers. It began with zero RSS subscriber, now I have 25. I have regular blogging friends who drop by to check out what I have to say. I’ve also been reading other people’s advice, from writers and other experienced bloggers, on certain do’s and don’ts of the blogging. I’ve learned the tricks of the trade. Looking back, I have certainly grown as a blogger.
I’ve also asked the question, what should I do with some of the older posts that are bland and sometimes immature? Am I supposed to go back and delete them? Leo from Write To Done seemed to think it’s a good idea to delete old posts due to clutter. For me, I believe my blog is my personal diary and the old posts are valuable indication how far my blogging journey has taken me. My blog reader friend David Rader considers his personal blog as a time capsule for both him and his daughter can look back and enjoy. I certainly agree with him. I also want to use my blog as an educational material for my kid. I’ll tell her to learn from the old man, don’t make the same mistakes. My hope is that she will learn more from my unspoken words. I will not delete any of my old posts!
So here’s to more years of blogging — and more growing up to do!
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My blog is still new, so I don’t face any space issues. I say keep your old posts. It is always nice to look back to see where you were and how far you have come!
beeker’s last blog post..What’s Wrong With Taco Bell?
Hi Becky. Considering a blog is mosly text, it’s going to take a long long time to fill up the database. I’m wondering what I will blog about next… teenagers and retirement homes, perhaps? 🙂
Everyone’s writing and thoughts mature over time. I see my blog as a journal of sorts and so I value my old entries. They show where I was both in life and mentally and show how far I’ve come.
If I had a technical blog though, I would consider revising older entries.
Periapex’s last blog post..This Is What Cheap Dentistry Is Like.
BTW, one day when I have time I’ll read some of your older posts. I promise…
Actually, it’s kinda fun to keep old technical posts. It’ll show the progression of knowledge, and laugh at the old technology. I wish I can remember my old knowledge of Commodore PET and Apple // hardware, so I can read back and be amused by it. It’s fun enough to recollect the Amiga days.
Speaking of old posts, why are you re-posting them in your blog manually? Doesn’t WordPress has a Blogspot importer? You should also be able to adjust the timestamp to match the original posting date. That way you don’t clutter the current posts.
Do you mean why are you seeing trackbacks to old posts appearing in my feeds every so often? Or do you mean why is the second post on my blog always an old one?
One of the reasons I switched to WordPress over MovableType was because of the ease of importation of my blogger posts. They’ve all been moved across, but I’m slowly adjusting in-post links to point to the new blog address rather than the blogger one. This is easier with the random post widget I’m using. I’ve set it to post a random past post at the second post level. This is good for entrecard surfers to get new content each time they drop by and also good for me to vet old posts for formatting etc, etc, with respect to my wordpress theme. It’s kind of a nostalgic thing too, kind of what you’ve posted about — for me to see where I was in the past.
As you know, wordpress posts track/pingbacks to your comment feed, including the ones from your own blog…I haven’t gotten around yet to installing the plugin to prevent this. I’m not sure how many people are subscribed to my comment feed, and if they are, trackbacks to old posts might be interesting for them.
You don’t like?
Periapex’s last blog post..This Is What Cheap Dentistry Is Like.
I was just curious why you would insert your old posts that way. I guess your way does make a lot of sense to promote track-backs and keep old posts “fresh”.
I did notice there was a bug in there (no, not the cockroach posts) with the random widget post retrieving relatively new posts, like the South Park character post from Feb 2008. I see you’ve also noticed and deleted it.
Actually, there’s not much I can do about that. The plugin doesn’t allow me to specify date ranges so it’ll randomly bring up any previous post regardless of when it was posted…
Periapex’s last blog post..This Is What Cheap Dentistry Is Like.
Oooh, that would drive me nuts, not having that control. Oh well, no software is ever perfect.