David Bartels

I've been thinking a bit lately about what direction to head with this blog. As I mentioned in my first post, I'm committing one of the bigger blogging "no-nos" here by not having a focused topic. But I'm still okay with that for now. For the most part this is mainly a place for me to experiment with writing and maintaining a blog. Other than a few Gmail contacts who get this emailed to them and a few twitter followers, the audience here is really just me. By the way, I'm finding out that html, while not necessarily difficult, can be very time consuming. The layout here is pretty bare bones but a few things I've experimented with have been a pain. I can't imagine the time that goes into some of the better looking blogs out there and can see why it's so worth it to hire design people. So, what keeps me coming back? I think part of me just wants to prove to myself that I can keep a blog going beyond 5-10 posts, that this won't end up just...

I've decided to jump back into blogging. I've had a number of short lived blogs in the past but they've all been abandoned due to a lack of commitment. I think the problem with my last couple efforts was that I just wasn't having fun with them. I had chosen a narrow focus after reading several recommendations about how important focus is in making a blog successful. In fact, one writer even calls a blog without a specific topic a waste of time . While these authors make great points, their definition of what makes a blog successful seems to be how popular it is or how much money it makes. If that's what makes a successful blog, then in most cases I agree that specific focus is very important. But I can think of many other definitions of success when it comes to blogging: If it helps hone your writing or HTML skills, if it helps you connect with even a few people, or if it simply brings you joy. With this blog I am aiming for those latter definitions of success. ...