Lately I’ve been thinking about how I blog – something I guess we all do from time to time. A number of thoughts have been kicking around in my mind and it felt like maybe I should share them with you. After all, you’re the guys who read these pieces and make it worth my while being here!
I’ve got myself into a regular pattern of posting for Tuesday Tunes and Song Lyric Sunday, and often with another piece in the gap between them – usually on a Thursday or Friday. I’ve never tried to be one of those who posts every day – apart from the Advent Calendar and two attempts (in 2013 and 2014) at taking part in National Blog Posting Month, which takes place in November. The strain was just too much! So what should I be doing with those gaps?
I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to start ‘series,’ which then seem to tail off after a few episodes. In my eyes, they were all good ideas that made them worth doing in the first place, so maybe I should resurrect them? One of those series was Saturday Smiles, which I ran four times back in 2021. My wish not to post on successive days would seem to have ruled that out of a renaissance, but there are still a great many funny videos out there we could be enjoying together, so maybe it can return with a new name – Friday Funnies, perhaps. Not every week, but as part of a regular roster.
There are a couple of music series which you guys seemed to enjoy, and which I have neglected. The first of these was Listen To The Band, in which I took an in-depth look at a favourite artist of mine. There have been six of those so far, featuring The Beatles, The Monkees, The Eagles, Cat Stevens, Jackson Browne, and Warren Zevon. The first five of those appeared in 2021 whilst the last one came last September, after a gap of more than a year. There are loads more out there I could include in this series, so expect to see it back again soon.
Then there have been the various permutations of the Under The Covers banner I have used for selections of cover versions I have enjoyed. There have been seven of these to date, but again the most recent was around nine months ago. Time for another reboot?
I also post occasional musical selections for special occasions: Easter, Valentine’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday are among those that come to mind. I plan to keep doing that, when time and inclination are there.
Thinking ahead, it is only just over six months till Christmas – you heard it here first! In recent years I have been running my Advent Calendar, which sees posts of seasonal songs on every day from 1 to 25 December, along with some favourite Christmas adverts and cartoons. I’m not sure how I’ll be doing it this year, but I’m trying to come up with another plan, because that is a huge ask of both me and you in the current format. Watch this space!
And there is, of course, the series which started as an idle thought and has since become the staple of my blog: Tuesday Tunes. The most recent of these, earlier this week, was #153 in the series, but this has been making me think. Many of you visit this each week, ‘like’ the posts and comment on them, which is great: it’s always good to know there is someone out there! But I’m wondering if the series needs a remodelling? When it began, it was just two or three songs a week, which gradually increased through six to the eight I post now. I had been thinking that perhaps I was being self-indulgent posting so many songs each week, as this is quite an ask of you to go through it all, and someone remarked as such on Tuesday. Basically, he said he always enjoyed the posts but they took a deal of commitment. Expecting too much of the audience is never a good thing, is it, so I’m thinking that I might try shortening the posts back down for a time to, say, five or six songs each week, to see how that goes? What do you think? Thoughts welcome!
Whatever I do, I’d like to think that my blog is somewhere you can come to be entertained – that is the main objective. However, in saying that, I wouldn’t want to lose sight of why I started blogging in the first place: mental health is a topic near and dear to my heart and you will still see occasional reminders of that. It is just too important to overlook.
So, that’s what I’m planning for the next few months on my blog. What will you be doing with yours?
Take It Easy 