Blogathon - It's a Wrap! Lessons Learned

The Blogathon is over.  And so is may.  I am depressed, because it has been so much fun.  Fellow Blogathoners, you've all been great!


Tomorrow is the wrap party, which I won't be attending - first, because I will be working at my day job when the party takes place (oh well) and second, because I still haven't signed up for Twitter, where it will take place.  However, I've done a little research on my blog statistics and:

Successes

1.  I received 31 comments on posts posted during the Blogathon.  For the entire two plus years of my blog previous to this May, I only received 7 (not counting the spam I had to delete before Blogger increased its blog filter.  As a result of the spam, I turned off commenting for a couple of months.)

I hope some of my Blogathon readers stay with me.  I will try to make it worth your while.
2. Traffic to my blog increased.  Although the top two viewers are people who knew about my blog previous to the Blogathon, I did get increased traffic overall.  (and yes, I know who has been viewing, and I thank each and every one of you for reading.)

3.  I got the opportunity to guest blog post on two blogs - one person I knew beforehand (although I've only met her once) and the other was on a blog I had never heard of before the Blogathon.

4.  I got to stretch myself, blogging alongside several professional writers.  These professional writers leave me breathless, by the way.  It is obviously a LOT of hard work - work I'm not sure I am ready for.  Yet, if the worst ever happens and I find myself unemployed, I have an idea now of directions that I can go.

And, to those people, thank you for being gentle with me.

5.  I know now what people are interested in when reading my blog.  The gardening and weather posts seem to be getting the most attention. Although, my #1 post ever (to my amazement) was not Blogathon related but a post from last year concerning dinosaurs that briefly invaded Binghamton, before vandals put an end to their reign.

My "to do" list

1.  Give thought to where I want to go with this blog.  Should I dedicate it to gardening and perhaps local food?  Or, as an alternative, have "theme days"?  (I don't think I am going to keep posting 7 days a week!)

2  Improve my proof reading skills.  (also see #3)

3.  Perhaps buy a style book?  Or learn something about grammar?  Do more editing?  Sometimes, after I post, I find sentences that made sense in my head, but not on screen.  I have to go back and edit the posted post.

4.  Play less FarmVille?  Would you believe, I didn't take the cheap way out and blog about FarmVille, not once?  (Also, I played Angry Birds for the first time this weekend - I'm staying far away from that)

5.  Continue to visit, and comment, on other blogs. This is something I did very little of (the commenting part, anyway) before the Blogathon.  I now realize how important it is.

6.  Mine my blog a little more - now that I have over two years of material, I can revisit some of the older material and see if I have grown in my writing.

7.  Keep that momentum going!  I'm not one for "new year's resolutions" but hey, it's May!

And, last but not least-
8.  Look forward to Blogathon 2012.