Things I Didn't Expect

When I began writing this blog it was basically for one reason: I was tired of talking to myself. Not that I was walking around muttering, though I have been known to do that on occasion. What I mean is, I'd been keeping a journal for several years and realized I wanted to talk to someone else besides me. A friend pointed me to a blogging program offered by Google, and the rest is fairly recent history. I can scarcely believe it will have been a year in November; that's amazing.

Anyhow, I'm thinking this morning about all the unexpected things I've learned as a result of this more or less daily dialogue. Interestingly, most of them have nothing to do with writing. I've learned how to install HTML code, work with webmaster tools, send notices of posts to networking websites, and manage web site analysis. I really hadn't anticipated a creative outlet would turn into work, you know?

I mean, sometimes writing is hard work, too. It's the other side of writing, the technical aspects that can absorb more time than you realize in the beginning. But that can be a lot of fun as well. For instance, one of my favorite things to do in the morning is check my statistics counter (a free service offered online) to see how many people have dropped by and which posts are read most frequently.

You just never know what's going to result from something new. Well, that's obvious, isn't it? Something new should have the unexpected trailing behind it, otherwise it's not all that "new" in the first place. But I think we anticipate these experiences because we want to be intrigued, to grow, and The Beggar's Blog has been one heck of a learning experience for me. I anticipate it will continue to be that, thanks to you -- after all, you're the one reading this.


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