10th Anniversary of This Blog!

Today, in 2006, I posted my first "Hello World!" blog and Cogitations & Meditations was born.

I had just recently joined the online bookish world. I was reading group author blogs, such as SquawkRadio and RiskyRegencies, and I had joined Eloisa James's message board. Through these blogs and boards, I came in touch with many authors, aspiring writers, and readers. MY PEOPLE! For the first time, reading stopped being a solitary hobby. Now, I had people with whom to discuss my books. What joy! What freedom!

Everyone was blogging then, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon. The first year, I logged all of TWO one-sentence blogs. Clearly, my bandwagon wasn't going very far. The next year was five—still barely moving. But I finally started it seriously in 2008 with 51. The next year, 2009, was a blockbuster year with 147!! I have never achieved those heights again nor do I aspire to. Last year wasn't too shabby with 111, but this year, the numbers are down and will stay down next year as well.

I used to publish five days a week in the beginning, but have since slowed down to once or twice a week, and sometimes, not even that. I used to have many comments in the beginning, but very few these days. However, I have enjoyed writing this blog so much that I have continued writing. As the Blogger stats indicate, people may not be commenting but they're reading.

Over the years, I have written more than 940 posts on writing, reading, the publishing history, world history, popular culture, conferences, and photography. I have also reviewed some books. In the beginning it used to be a writer's and editor's blog, but in the past couple of years, it has become a reader's blog. As my previous post indicated, I'll be rethinking and retooling the site to decide what sorts of posts to write. This will of course continue to very much be a bookish blog, after all that is its raison d'être, however the content may vary from years past.

I designed the site by hand-coding most of the details, and I'm in love with it, so expect to continue seeing the same look. I have updated the sidebar list of recommendations as my reading has expanded beyond Romance in recent years. So now I have a Romance list and a Non-Romance list that includes all other types of fiction, genre and general, and all types of non-fiction.

I have removed the section that included glimpses of my personal library from LibraryThing, because I'm debating what to do about LibraryThing itself. I have liked having a catalogue of all my books on there, however, as I've given books away, I have forgotten to update it, and so the catalog there is out-of-date and less useful than it used to be. Besides, there are hundreds of un-cataloged books in my house!

I freely admit to being a book hoarder. I gave away nine big boxes of books to my local public library earlier this summer, and yet there are thousands on the shelves that I cannot bear to part with. Clearly, another purge is warranted in 2017.

And so, this is a quiet celebration of my ten years of blogging. It's an achievement I'm proud of and one I've enjoyed very much. Onward ho to another ten!