What I’ve Learned from Writing 100+ Posts

WordPress informed me that yesterday’s post Retirement Lifestyle is my 100th post here on Retreading for Retirement.

I’ve been working on my two other blogs longer. I started Notes in the Margin, my literature blog, in November 2007, and it currently has 789 posts. Change of Perspective began in August 2007 and currently has 454 posts. So what I’ve learned about blogging over the years takes into account those two blogs as well, but here I’d like to focus on Retirement because it’s the blog that has most recently and directly resulted from my 2015 blog challenge.

There is some overlap of items here, but these are the biggest lessons I’ve learned.

1. I learned how to use WordPress to create and maintain a blog.
2. I learned how to combine text and photos to create illustrative graphics for my blog.
3. I developed the discipline of writing every day.
4. I became more aware of the world around me as I looked for topics to write about.
5. I experimented with WordPress themes to find a design layout that I like because it appropriately features what I have to say.
6. I am becoming more comfortable with using my own experiences as source material for posts.
7. I learned to write poetry.
8. I found that reading other blogs makes me a better, more informed writer on my own blog.
9. Commenting on other blogs has introduced me to some interesting people and ideas.
10. I took a couple of instructive classes through WordPress’s Blogging U. and learned even more when I attended the conference Press Publish in Portland, OR.
11. Writing over a wide range of topics is helping me figure out what’s most important to me as a person and as a blogger.
12. I’m reading a lot more web content (though many fewer books) than before.
13. I’m beginning to experiment with different formats and approaches to writing.
14. It IS possible to find something to write about every single day since I’ve started paying attention.
15. I’ll continue to learn new lessons as I pursue post #200.

Thanks for reading.

I’d love to receive your comments.