I have a script I use to analyze and visualize my blogging. One script generates a simple CSV file containing a variety of metadata about my blogging that I then feed into a Grafana dashboard to see how I’m doing. Another script does some simple visualizations. In the past years I had an annual tradition of sharing these visualizations and describing each one but I took a look at this year’s and for the most part there’s nothing that interesting.

I started blogging since it helps me improve my writing while clarifying my thinking but these days with my two-a-week commitment I’ve veered away from that purpose and am now beholden to the quantity and not the quality. Even now I sit down to write about a topic I often discover that I wrote about it in the past and don’t have anything new to add.

At the same time, there have been significant changes in publishing since I started writing. Google Reader is dead and RSS seems to be on the way out. Instead we have newsletters for longer form writing and Twitter for the short form and stream of consciousness reactions.

While it’s difficult to break tradition the above are enough to make me switch my blogging approach in 2021 and beyond. Rather than aim for 2 posts a week I’m going to write one long post a month. These posts will require multiple days of writing and research rather than the stream of consciousness style I’ve adopted lately. My hope is that this will improve my longer form writing and thinking while also giving readers unique and thoughtful content.