It's hard to believe that I'm already halfway through 100DaysToOffload. But at the same time, it totally feels like I have made 49 articles. So, this is the reflection. I'm aware that this is a terrible way to start an article.
Ideas
For me, the hardest part of this whole thing has been coming up with articles to write. For the first week and a half of doing these daily, I was able to come up with a lot of ideas. I even made a list of more ideas on the backlog. But frequently I will have days where it takes almost an hour for me to come up with an article idea. Usually you can tell these days because the article I end up writing is on a specific topic and is only about 230 words, not very in depth.
The lack of ideas or good articles isn't a bad thing. The whole point of the challenge is to write 100 articles in a year, no matter how good or bad. And so far I have yet to miss a single day since I started. The point isn't writing good articles, it's writing to get into the habit of writing. And to be honest, I don't think I am going to end up in the habit of writing once this challenge is over.
And, that list I was just talking about. I don't know what it is about it, but for some reason writing ideas down in a list makes me want to stop doing them. It just feels so embarrassing to use an article from the idea list, and I have no idea why.
Reflection
I realized that I never actually look back on the posts that I write. Maybe I include an update or two, but I never actually read them again. Once I write them and publish them, I'm done. I don't even proofread before uploading. I'm sure I have made a bunch of really obvious mistakes.
However, if I had to choose a favorite, it would definitely be Upcoming Changes to Living. It was so fun to be able to write something fictional. And even if it wasn't a well thought out concept, it was still fun to write about. I should probably write more fiction. I don't have a least favorite, a lot of them are bad and I honestly might unpublish them or at the very least unlist them.
I thought there was going to be a much more drastic improvement in my writing style as this went on, but I don't see any. In fact, I would say I went backwards. When I started this, I was including jokes, embeds, references, links, and a lot of formatting features. Now I just include like 2 links in an article, and 2 headings if I'm feeling special about it. I love formatting, so this upsets me too. The lack of a writing style is also sad to me. When I'm not writing these articles, people say I am very funny and wise. But when I write these I feel like I'm just writing for school. These feel repetitive. Nothing about this screams me.
Promotion
I don't have stats on how many people viewed each page, and to be honest, I don't care. I have Google Search Console setup, but that's only because I find it really funny to see what people search to find my site. Current popular terms include he stole my dream journal, spotify radio sucks, and hello, your account was suspended due to violations of x rules. after reviewing for reinstatement your account will not be restored. thanks, x support (which 4 people clicked through to the article, you desperate fools). However, I don't care about the popular searches, because the unpopular ones are way funnier. I see you person asking why the nerd face in google noto color looks similar to the grining face, or 3 people who searched dshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (which links to the update page). And for the person wondering did dimden founded the nekoweb?, yeah i think. You don't need to add a question mark to your searches.
One thing I was going to do but only do sometimes is actually promote my writing on social media. For some articles I will tweet on BlueSky with the hashtag and a link, but for most I don't. The only close thing to that is posting to an RSS feed. Also, if you're wondering, Mastodon is the best place to post blog posts. People will repost it to who knows where. I certainly don't.
Yay
Well, 50 blog posts done, only 50 more to go. I'm not expecting too much else to happen, but I'm still looking forward to wherever this takes me. At least it's good practice.