John's Choice For "A Blog With 2020 Vision" #atozchallenge

The team decided our theme for this month's posts here would be a take "2020 visions of blogging." This set of weekday posts focuses on:

***A Blog with 2020 Vision***

Janet Miles is my pick for "a blog with 2020 vision." Janet's blog is Janet's Smiles. I first got to know Janet when she asked about how to "simulcast" her blog on Wordpress. I had written a post on how to do this from Wordpress to Blogger, and she wanted to know if it worked the other way. I think my answer was "it should," and she managed to set it up with little or no help from me. You can find her Wordpress "simulcast" here. We've been "blog buddies" ever since.

Janet is a scrapbooker, and she and her husband and/or daughters attend a lot of concerts in the Bay Area. She takes lots of photographs and keeps track of the set lists. She then turns these memories into scrapbook pages, and does beautiful work. This year, she's sharing the scrapbook pages she's created. They're truly works of art, and she writes a "mini-review" of each show. It's almost as good as being there yourself.

By all means, stop by Janet's blog(s) to admire her work and to say "Hi!"

Who would you choose, just based on what you've seen so far?

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In the moment (#AtoZChallenge)

The team decided our theme for this month's posts here would be a take "2020 visions of blogging." This set of weekday posts focuses on:

Blogging in the Present

Are you a pre-writer or a pantser? I pre-wrote all my posts over the course of February. I usually do this because my posts require a lot of research (including library trips), and I like to be free to visit others in April. But it also has a downside: Things can change a lot in a few weeks.
Interest changes. Every year I think I know what I want to blog about for the next Challenge. And then I change the idea multiple times. You might do the same. Having multiple interests is a good thing!
Inspiration changes. You might think your theme is up to date when you start, and then things turn around, and you might be inspired to blog, talk, muse about something else entirely. Allow yourself flexibility in the Challenge, and in your blogging!
Intensity changes. When you start a demanding challenge like A to Z, there are days when you just don't feel like doing anything at all. Sometimes you get excited, and sometimes you just cruise along. Both are okay!
In the moment, a lot of things can happen that Influence your blogging. I am writing this post two weeks in advance, and I can't even tell what things are going to look like both online and off by the time if goes live. But that's okay! Even if you plan ahead, you can always go back in an edit. Things change. Things get interesting. Inspiration strikes. Go with it!

Did your interests or inspiration change since you started the Challenge this year? 

Tell us what inspires you!

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Here and Now ( #AtoZChallenge )

Thoughts on blogging in the present...







The team decided our theme for this month's posts here would be a take "2020 visions of blogging." This week posts focus on:

 Blogging in the Present

Here and Now

           Periodically we see the statement made that "Blogging is Dead (or dying).  I don't think so.  Since blogging is often a very personal and individualistic enterprise I think it is inevitable that some bloggers burn out, give up, or let their blogs languish on hold as a blogger waits for inspiration or ambition to rekindle. 

              What I've observed in my 10 1/2 years of blogging is that while bloggers may come and go or some seem to vanish and then reappear sometime later with their personal reason for doing so, the totality of the world of blogging remains consistent as bloggers either blog like they always have or their blogs transition and grow with the times.

              Perhaps there is an illusion of a death or diminishing of blogging on the whole because we as bloggers fall into communities where we have our circles of blogging friends that we try to visit as much as possible or who we see commenting on our blogs with a certain regularity.  The complacent blogger is limited to the world they know best and as they settle into their routine of blogging they may rarely if ever seek out new blogs.  As bloggers within a community fade away, there is a sense that the entire realm of blogging is disappearing.

            Those new blogs are out there I'm sure--I no longer dig up the new ones like I used to because I too have become a complacent lazy blogger.  If it were not for the annual A to Z Challenge, I as well as you might never encounter a blog that has been previously unknown to us.   Though I have no quantitative data to back up my claim, I think blogging remains strong in the here and now.  You might have to look outside the community in which you have become ensconced to find those new-to-you blogs.  Blogging after all involves some action on the part of you the blogger to keep finding more blogs.   As always, there are more than you will ever be able to read or explore.

         From your experience, what is the best way to find "new" bloggers?  How has your blogging community changed since you first started blogging?   Do you think blogging is dead or dying?




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