9 Year Blogiversary!

Babbling Books is nine years old today! This anniversary brings a mini – crisis in my blogging activities but optimism for the future. The mini – crisis that I refer to will be evident to anyone who has been following this blog, that is, I have not been posting much.

The reason that I have not put up a lot of entries in the past few months in twofold. The reasons are also related. The first is that I have been working more and more hours at my job. These hours have been escalating. I have been working more in the past few weeks then I have worked since my blog started. In fact, I remember that 9 years ago, I started my blog shortly after a work project ended that was taking up a lot of time. At the time, I figured that the extra hours could be devoted to blogging. 

 

The second reason is something that happens from time to time. I have been stuck in a period of what I will describe as lower motivation. Much of this low motivation is part of the natural cycles of ups and downs. However, another related factor is the fact that about two months ago the keyboard on my desktop  computer died. I replaced it with something that I had lying around, but something that I thought would be a good choice. It was a Macally keyboard that was a large piece of hardware. I thought that its size and apparent sturdiness would be good for writing. However, in retrospect it it turns out that using it was an unpleasant experience.  Among other things it led to a lot of typos and missed key strokes.  I have replaced it with an Apple Magic Keyboard which is ironically much smaller but much easier and pleasant to write with. I did not realize that this poor keyboard experience was keeping me away from writing, but once I replaced it, writing blog posts became a positive experience again.    

I must admit that had my busyness at work coincided with a period of higher motivation for blogging, that I would have still managed to post more. I am naturally a very slow writer, so the combination of these two factors has really slowed down my posting.  

 

The really good news is that, while the long hours at work were caused by several factors, the biggest driver of time at work was a project that was just concluded on January 31^st. I should be working a lot less now. I am hoping that this freeing of my time will be also help spur more motivation to write blogs.

 

Thus, I am optimistic that I will be posting more frequently going forward and that 2021 will be a good year for blogging. I am looking forward to the future. Have no fear, Babbling Books should still be around for a while. 

 

As I do every year, I want to thank all my wonderful commenters. I am grateful to everyone who has taken the time to comment and engage in my comments section. Interaction with other bloggers in our comments sections is one of the main reasons to blog in the first place. 

Happy reading and blogging in 2021 everybody!

7 Years Old

Babbling Books is seven years old today!  As always, I want to thank the Blogging Community and all the folks who read and comment on my blog. You all are the reason that posting about books is worth it. 

Seven years has gone fast. What I originally envisioned for my blog I have realized. I wanted to talk about books. Books are about ideas and are sometimes about opinions and controversial issues. Thus, I wanted to express opinions. I did not want to shy around controversial issues. I had hoped that people would come to my comments section and not be afraid to express their opinions, even if they disagreed with me.  All these things have come to pass. 

Of course, not everything is perfect. I do not post as often as I would like to. Early on, I participated in a lot more group reads and events. As of late I have refrained from posting as often as I would like and from participating in group events. This is because my life outside of the blogging world has been very busy. Nevertheless, my blogging continues and I hope for less hectic future days when I can blog more and participate in the blogging community more. Some bloggers have expressed the feeling that they have gotten burned out or tired of blogging. I feel no such thing thus far. Perhaps the fact that I do not post nearly as much as I would like to has helped me to avoid burnout. Either way, I hope to be around for a while longer.

I hope that 2019 is a great year for everyone’s reading and blogging life. So once again, happy reading everyone!

Five Year Blogiversary

Today Babbling Books is 5 years old. The first thing that comes to my mind about this fact is what a wonderful experience that blogging has been. 

In past years I have thanked and praised the book blogging community and all of the wonderful folks who comment on this blog and who I interact with. Once again, you all deserve accolades.

The comments section of this blog has been phenomenal. Folks have consistently left insightful and thoughtful viewpoints on virtually all my posts. A few folks have disagreed and challenged my views. I not only welcome this, but I am delighted that people have done so. The road to wisdom includes the paving stones known as criticism and alternate viewpoints. Though I do not want to be so presumptuous to say that my blog promotes wisdom, I want it to represent a few of the bricks in the road that leads to wisdom. 

Several weeks ago, I expressed some question over what form this blog would take going forward. I believe that there is a good chance that the United States, and perhaps the world at large, is moving into a tumultuous time of the type that the world has not seen in very long time. I am not all doom and gloom, yet I think that we must be prepared for unprecedented developments. As I have always attempted to relate my ruminations on books to the world at large, if this turns out to be true, I will continue to tie my some of my posts to real world developments. If events are as consequential as I expect them to be, I will likely reference them frequently. With that, I am mostly here to talk about books. Thus, the majority of my writing will be confined to the words between two covers. 

Another year begins. Hopefully our shared reading adventures will continue to be both intellectually fruitful and fun. Thanks again to everyone who has shared this experience with me. Happy reading everybody!

Two Years!

Today is Babbling Books’ second birthday. Looking back upon my one year post, I recall how I underscored how wonderful and dynamic the blogging community is. That aspect of this hobby is still what I appreciate most. I want to thank everyone who reads and who comments upon my site. It is still such great fun interacting with so many kind, thoughtful and intelligent people.

Last year I also mentioned how blogging has made me a better reader. I think that this goes hand in hand with being a clearer and more organized thinker. Outside of job related technical writing, I never wrote on a consistent basis before. It seems that as time goes by I have gotten better at formulating coherent thoughts and arguments. I attribute this almost entirely to blogging and the constant need to formulate semi - intelligible posts.

I have also become more disciplined and less likely to throw around ill - considered thoughts. After all, if I put out an idea here, I really need to make sure that I can support  and back it up that idea. Otherwise my friends and commenters might check me on it! I never censor my statements because they might be unpopular (But I always try to be respectful of other people and ideas, even if I disagree with them. However, this topic is for another post.). However I do think twice about writing something that may not be supported by facts or reason. I do believe that this way of communicating has seeped into my everyday personal and professional life. Blogging has been good for me in so many unexpected ways!

In the past twenty - four months I have posted 107 entries including this one. Hopefully the coming years will bring many more. Happy reading and blogging everyone!