Today marks the first birthday for this blog. To celebrate the event I am going to allow myself a ramble. If you want any content about making things, come back another day or plunder the archives, otherwise, read on.
To date I’ve posted 238 times. A small but slowly growing band of readers view an average of 12 pages a day. You click through to the adverts enough to earn me 2 cents a day.
Occasionally someone sends me an e-mail or posts something in the comments section of an entry. I’d love more feedback but then so would everybody who writes a blog.
Today I have to decide if it’s worth carrying on. On balance I think it probably is.
Part of the reason for writing this stuff is simply the practise it gives me. Two or three times a week I have to try and string some words together in a meaningful order. Sometimes I do it well, sometimes it goes a bit pear shaped. It doesn’t matter, the practise is useful. Since I aspire to get into print occasionally, the easier I find the process of writing reasonable prose, the more I can concentrate on the message or story I’m telling. All the best writing course say you have to write a lot and so that’s what I do. Sorry if you feel this means you read material that should have been rejected but that’s the way it is. The essence of a blog is speed so typos can creep thorough. You are getting this for free remember…
I also have to take lots of pictures. More practise, which has spin-offs in both my modelling and Real Work life. I have made an effort to get some basic facilities allowing me to take reasonable photos. Perhaps if I didn’t have an outlet that would be a job I wouldn’t quite have got around to.
Mostly though, it’s forced me to keep finding little bits of time to do the things that go into the blog. Over the last year I have completed a couple of boats, several model railway locomotives and various jobs on my campervan. I like to write these up and so I get on and do them. Rather than slobbing out in front of the telly the blog is always nagging me to post and if I want to post I have to make things. I love making things so this is A Good Thing.
People ask how I find the time for this. Well I don’t have a family demanding attention. My job doesn’t need me to take work home (actually it does want me to, but I refuse) in the evening even if it doesn’t let me take holiday properly. Most of all though I want to find the time. OK so I can leave stuff part done on the bench which saves getting out and packing away after each session. But lots of jobs can be accomplished in a few minutes – even if I do then turn them into a War & Peace length post ! Should I get a couple of hours to spend on something then it’s turned into several posts. One thing I have learned is that writing a blog means writing about trees and not the wood. But then that’s why layout articles in magazines rarely interest me. There is no detail and that’s where the devil is once you start getting your hands dirty on the workbench.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this stuff and will continue to come back. Why not bookmark the page and then tell all your friends about it. If you are a magazine editor, why not offer me a multi-million pound contract to write a monthly column ? If you are a modeller and hit a problem, let me know and I’ll see if I can come up with a suggestion. Sometimes I even get the answers right !
Happy New Year.
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