This post is actually my 6,101st post. But I happened to notice this evening that the post count for this here blog of mine was sitting at 6,100.
That’s 6,100 posts going back over ten years now, but still, that’s an average of more than 610 posts a year, or about 1.67 posts per day. I’m always skeptical when people refer to themselves as “experts” in one area or another. I see it all the time in the IT world. Someone with 2 years of experience is an “expert” in database management, someone with 3 years of experience is an expert in project management. Maybe they are, but I’m skeptical. There are things I’ve been doing for a long time that I wouldn’t consider myself an expert in.
But I think it’s safe to say that I’ve gotten pretty good at this blogging thing. I’ve got consistency (with a few gaps), I’ve got what I think is pretty good content, and I’ve got a great bunch of readers. I’m not going out to LinkedIn and adding a skill or anything, but I think that with 6,100 posts over 10 years, I’ve gotten in close to my 10,000 hours on this particular skill set. Give me another 10,000 hours and I might be ready to admit in print that I am, indeed, an expert at this.
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Your post reminded me that today is my blog’s 12th anniversary. I almost forgot about it. I can definitely see the difference that consistent blogging makes. I have just over half the number of posts you have on your site. Sure, it isn’t a competition but writing regularly and consistently definitely makes a difference.
Congrats on the milestone! I completely agree. I’ve said on panels that this blog has paid dividends in many ways. It has helped me think through my own opinions of things, it has helped me develop a voice I like, it has made me a more concise writer. All of that has led to nonfiction writing gigs for places like The Daily Beast, and 99u that I almost certainly would not have had whereat not for the writing I’ve done here on the blog.
Twelve years is a big achievement. How many blogs have been around in a consistent way for that long? I can’t think of many. (John Scalzi’s “Whatever” is one.)
I’m not sure if my blog qualifies as having been around in a consistent way but it has stuck around in one form or another so there’s that.