Tolling Out 2012

The 366th day of the year 2012 (it was a leap year, remember?) is about to ring its last. Here at the casa it’s felt like a year of transition and reevaluation.

One thing regular visitors to this site have noticed in 2012 is an obvious decline in posts. I had been posting at least one blog article a day on average — well, at least when I wasn’t writing TCW — and that’s dropped down to once a week…if that. That’s not the sort of output wordy little me is happy about. Why did it turn out thus?

There were two major factors: the fact that I had been a prolific poster for years, and the US craziness of this year’s general election. The second item first.

I wasn’t happy about the selection of presidential candidates available to me. There was only one candidate I was willing to support, but he didn’t make it out of the primaries. Based on the early rhetoric, it was clear this was going to be a nasty and often fact-challenged campaign from January to November. Frankly, I didn’t want to get sucked into it. All it was likely to do was make me cranky to no useful end. Consequently, I decided to all but avoid blogging about the election and its hot-button issues of the news-cycle day. Needless to say, that eliminated a LOT of blog fodder. This isn’t to say that I didn’t express opinions and forward link on the social networks (mostly on Facebook…more on that later). Some collateral damage came out of even that, so I think my opting out of the bloggity fray was a good choice for me lest it have been worse.

As for my prolific posting… if you don’t want to repeat yourself (and I try not to … all evidence to the contrary), after a while you exhaust a good hunk of your talking points. I’m amazed that people have specialized blogs up for years and years and somehow manage to stay engaged and enthusiastic about that niche. One look at TIB shows that I’m not that person; I’m all over the map. Consequently, I’ve had to think hard on what I want TIB to be in 2013 and beyond.

Since the site is due for a theme upgrade (mostly for under-the-hood details), I’m considering changing the format a little. Make it easier for me to post links with quips and possibly tie in with my favored social networks. I have no intention of abandoning the posting of my articles, but that’s sometimes an elephant gun when a pea shooter will do. Since I prefer to write my themes from scratch, and I have to design in these editorial choices, the process takes a wee bit of time. As of now I’m only about half done with the coding — and I have other sites needing me to do the same for them.

Aside from that, it’s been a somewhat productive year. A few finished projects (mostly art), and several WIPs (works in progress) that are nearing completion, hopefully also including a new novel that I started in November.

As you can imagine, this all tends to lead to a bit of a time crunch. That means less non-professional time on the socnets. I had to prioritize. Because the majority of my friends (not just friends in name, but actual friends) are on Facebook, that means I spend most of my socnet currency on said site. Honestly, I’d love it if they’d go over to Google+ (it may be just as evil, but at least they play lip service to the concept of privacy), but it doesn’t look like they are going to. I like my Google+ for all of the professional and informational posts I get there. In lieu of my friends being there, it’s a lovely change from FB. Twitter, sadly, has been the biggest casualty. In order to follow threads and contribute well, it can be a bit of a time-suck. A time-suck that I enjoy, but still…. I continue to drop by from time-to-time but not nearly has often as I had been. With the current election-cycle respite, I’ll likely be more inclined to pop into the various nets as my time frees up.

So, all-in-all, not a bad year. Productive and a little transitional. I’m going to try to be more attentive to my sites — especially once I hit on an updated formula for what I want to post. Nothing major. It’s more of a tweak. I just have to make it a new habit.

With that, I hope 2013 gives us a good year. For me: a quiet, productive, prosperous year filled with health for me and my family and friends would count as good. In that vein, I’d like to quote a line Tevye said in Fiddler on the Roof: “Oh, dear Lord. You made many many poor people. I realize, of course, it’s no shame to be poor… but it’s no great honor either. So what would be so terrible… if I had a small fortune?” Godspeed, twenty-thirteen.