About the blog

So as Rachel pointed out on the Facebook group, the blog has been in sort of sad shape lately, so here are my main thoughts about the blog.

There have been a lot of missed posts lately and I think before we decide what we're going to do about it we need to figure out why it's happening.  Is it just because it's summer and everyone would rather be off having exciting summer adventures and enjoying the nice weather, rather than sitting inside writing blog posts?  Is it because we don't have enough time to write every week?  Is it because we're not hitting on themes that we find inspiring enough?  Is it something else entirely?

For me, I've only missed one post lately, and that was because I was sick.  Since I'm living at home for the summer and only two of my friends live near me right now, I just have no life and nothing better to do than write blog posts, haha, so that's my story.  I don't mind that the rest of you are missing posts, I'm just curious as to why, so that we can figure out a better system to meet our blogging needs!

I guess some suggestions on solutions are to move to a different posting system.  We could do one person each week, or we could move to a biweekly system, though it could be a little difficult to remember whether it's a blogging week or not.  Also I think if we end up sticking to any sort of 'days of the week' system, we should figure something out for Thursday; either get Kaity back on board, or if she's not interested, we can try to find someone new (it looks as though there are a few people in the YP thread that showed up late and didn't end up getting a group, so we could try to recruit one of them)

Even though I'm managing to keep up with posts, they're usually not up to the quality that I would like them to be.  I think the issue for me is that we always choose themes at the last minute - usually either Sunday or Monday, which gives me at most two days to think about it, figure out what I want to say, write a post, edit it, etc. and I find it's not really enough time to produce something that I'm happy with posting.  If we could figure out something where we know the theme maybe a week ahead of time, or even a few extra days, that would be really helpful.  I find the longer I can know the topic and have it mulling over in the back of my mind, the more time there is for ideas to pop into my head, haha.  Also, 'free' weeks are good sometimes, because it's nice to share what's going on in our lives and get to know each other a little better that way, and it gives an opportunity to talk about something you're passionate about/interested in/whatever that might not necessarily apply to everyone and therefore not be a good theme.  But again, it's good to have some notice on that so we can think about what to write, rather than saying on Sunday "well we haven't chosen a theme so let's just do a free week."  Maybe we could set up some sort of system where we take turns choosing a theme, and either do a free week after everyone's had a turn before we repeat, or in between each person, or something.  I don't know, just an idea.

Other than that, I think the only other thing I would say about the blog is that it would be nice if we interacted a little more, in terms of leaving to comments and responding to each other's posts and stuff.  Sometimes it feels like since we've been doing this for five months now (FIVE MONTHS, I can't even believe it's been that long, it feels like maybe two or three, haha), we should know each other a little better than we do.  I don't know, maybe that's just me.  And I know that even though this is a thing I would like to change, I don't make much of an effort at it, but now that I've written it down for the rest of you to see, maybe I will feel more motivated to actually do it.  There are definitely some weeks/posts where this happens and is great, but then there are other times when it doesn't (like now... it's been three weeks since anyone commented on anyone else!  And I know there have been fewer posts than usual in the past three weeks, but still!  Even the month before that, comments were pretty sparse).

Okay, those are all my thoughts, I am done now!  I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of you are thinking, and whether or not we're all on the same page.