To be honest, keeping up the blogging now for soon three years is a little up and down. A couple of months ago I felt like I had gotten into a bit of a rut. The visitor number was flatting out a bit and the number of comments posted were also decreasing and people were coming in through the same searches and through the same sites. Basically nothing much was happening for a month or two and it felt a bit dull.As a blogger, one thing that makes it fun is when I see someone spending a whole day reading through my blog post by post and I can just assume that the person is enjoying it since considerable time is put into reading it all.
It’s also fun when you see a new place linking the blog and/or commenting on it on their blog/homepage (like My Man in Abiko and Karen did way back in the day).
It’s fun when you can be a part of inspiring someone to start writing a blog of their own (thinking of Bizarro Salaryman in Germany who should post more and have a lot more readers, and the pleasant Californian Nikkei).
It’s fun when someone mails you a question or just a greeting (thinking of Ms. Picnic girl who was trying to set up her boyfriend for a romantic picnic in Tokyo and the guy who triggered the whole serious “looking for a job” post earlier).
It’s fun when you find out you have readers from places you wouldn’t really expect it (thinking of Ms. Aethist black woman who has a serious blog about race, religion and more lighter topics like child abuse)
It’s fun when you notice a ton of readers hitting the page hard due to japanprobe.com putting a link to a post on their front page or finding out that the site blacktokyo.com features my “getting married in Japan” series (brothers and sisters are always welcome around, regardless of skin color!)
It’s fun when you see some new people commenting on posts but also always fun to see the regulars commenting (thinking particularly of Chris and the Penguin here)
As long as any of the above is happening it’s fun to keep it up, since I’m not doing it for the money, but yeah, with almost 500 pages of text now if copied down to word maybe I should start to more seriously considering trying to have an actual book made at some point (hey, anyone who has any tips and advice, let me know!).
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13 comments:
Ah, the roller-coaster ride of blogging - as if I had written it myself. I thought I'd just add a comment to say long time lurker, first time poster.
When you're talking about making a book, do you mean self-publishing for the memories, or publishing a book for sale? If it's the former, there's a few services available like Blurb, for one. Something I'd like to do one day too, so please post about it if you find a good solution!
Make sure there are lots of pictures in the book. Our Man likes pictures.
Looks like Akibo gotz tha A.D.H.D too!!
LOVE that pic. That guy has genius written all over him doesn't he ;)
I'm one of the people that spent the whole afternoon reading entry by entry.
I live in my homeland of Canada now, but I used to be an ex-pat in Japan for 5 years. Your blog brings back some memories and smiles. Thanks!!
I read entry after entry too! When I was in college, back in the day, Japanese business was always held up as "perfectly managed." We were all required to read "Theory Z" about Deming's quality control processes. Your blog humanizes the people behind the business! You make me laugh at our own human silliness. Keep blogging and don't give up the groovy graphics (alliteration trumps dated adjectives).
When I first came across your blog I made my way back through the archives, as I do when I first discover an interesting site. Hope the blog is around for another 3 years at least.
seems like we are in a similar situation. I've been blogging for about three years. I've had ups and downs; good stats and bad stats; met some friend via the blog; had a few laughs.
I always think I should blog more, and have at least two great ideas a day.. but never actually get round it.
By bizarre co-incidence I have just come across the first reference to Prof Deming (in Karen's comment) I have ever seen. I just learnt about him in an ITIL course three weeks ago!
In viewing the picture, I take an odd sort of comfort knowing that my Japanese English students are not unique in making fools of themselves in using the language.
When I worked in Brussels, Swedish people had a reputation for saying things like "Here in Sweden we have a thing called the försiktighetsprincipen," and then adding, "But we also have the allemansrätten," so methinks you are doing fairly well-above average and could easily get your stories published by any of the more reputable enterprises.
Seahorse - Well, the basic concept would be to use text from the blog and rewrite it to fit a "anecdotes from Japan" kinda thing. I could always make a pitch pack with a friend, but don't know how things usually roll and am pretty busy with general life as well...
Anonymous - Glad if it provided you with some entertainment!
Karen - My favorite reader! Thanks!
Aimless - Well, always nice to see you commenting, you're always welcome around!
Jon - yeah, dunno why, but recently I've been finding myself on a daily posting rythm basically, first time, I think I'm on a roll now after passing the hump!
Me - Well, the guy IS correct after all, it's jsut a bit... odd...
Martin - Thank you for the encouragement and I love it when Swedish people mix in Swedish words just like I can't resist commenting to an american who uses "ombudsman" that it comes from Swedish and he/she sounds really stupid saying it.
I have been reading your posts, one after the other,starting at the beginning, since early yesterday morning (8/7/10). I did sleep for a few hours, but still, I'm tired, and seemingly unable to stop. You're insightful, funny, interesting, and utterly charming. I have so much to do---i.e., I'm putting off editing someone's book whose first 3 chapters I must give him in two days; I have to prepare a syllabus for a class I've never taught with a book I've never read that begins in a week...yet, I sit here reading about your way more fascinating life. That may imply that my life is less fascinating, which is...unfortunately...true. I teach English (writing), by the way, and I would be most pleased if my students wrote as well as you do-----despite your simple grammatical errors. So, now I shall continue on our little journey together, make a pot of coffee, and feel really guilty about those things I should be doing, but am not. Thanks for the good read. Janet
Well, now you're making me blush Janet! I hope that the blog didn't distract you too much from the important stuff you need to get done.
Looking back now on the blog, it has amassed a considerable amount of pages and reading through them all at once in the chronological order also gives some insight in how my life has developed the last years (quite a lot!). I guess it takes quite a lot of time to go through it all now, but really happy to hear that you enjoyed it!
Not sure that my life is that fascinating or interesting, but I guess it's a little different at least :)
Thank you again for your very nice comment, hearing stuff like that makes it worth writing.
Hope you get the things done now that you've gone through the blog and had your coffee!
Hi!
I realize this is an odd place to leave a first comment, since its on a post from years ago but i just somehow felt compelled to comment as you mentioned you could see me reading all of your blog post by post for the past weekor so , hehe. Ill leave more comments when im finished, i promise !
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