2011: New Year, New Attitude

It’s pretty obvious that in 2010 I was a serious blog slacker. My slackage was due in part to simply being busy, between the move, the new city and the day job. The other part was that I just didn’t know what to post. True to its name, this blog has been a through a couple of iterations, wandering from one topic to the next – kinda like me. Over the last year I started to feel like maybe I was “blogging wrong;” that my blog needed to have a defined topic with defined and targeted content. I’d fallen for the idea that the point of blogging was to cultivate a readership and to develop a brand. The problem is, I don’t just have one thing that I love over all others. I don’t have a brand. I’m just me, with all my various interests and competing passions.

While I might not have been blogging much over the last year, I have been doing quite a bit of reading (and lurking) in the blogosphere, and I’ve come to realize that there’s no right way to blog.  There is a wrong way – to try to be something you’re not.  Well, I’m not going to do that.  I’m bringing this blog back to its roots, and I’ll be writing about anything and everything that appeals to me.  From this moment on, this is a blog about photography, books, writing, pop culture, cool technology, Seattle and life in general.  Oh, and anything else I might come up with. At times it may lean more toward one topic than another (I’m working to finish a novel, so there will probably be quite a few posts about that), but I’m not going to limit myself anymore. Crazy no-plan blogging, here we go!

As for personal branding, I kinda like Maureen Johnson’s take on the topic. If, like me, you’re struggling with all the new “instructions” on how to be a person on the internet, you should check out her manifesto.

Thanks to all you authentic bloggers out there for helping me find my way back.

Happy New Year!