This ‘gloat’ post is actually the 252nd
… the third part of the ‘bibliothrillers’ series was the 250th, but
I didn’t want to break the series with a ‘gloat’ post to announce my 250th
to the world … so here it is … I have now written 250 posts on my blog!!
It is a very meagre achievement actually,
considering this blog is almost 8 and a half years old … even if I had done one
post per week from the beginning, I should have written around 400 posts by now
… the first year was really good actually … I was sort of ‘prolific’ and wrote
74 posts … then I thought I’d continue to write with the same pace … I was thrilled
that I could write all these posts on a variety of subjects … not a great range
really … mostly about fountain pens, books, a few on music, and some on travel …
from 74, the number slid down drastically to 24 in the next year, and it was a
progressive decline for the subsequent two years – 12 and 10 posts … recovered
slightly in the next three years, but maintaining a bleak average of around
22-23 posts a year …
Many a times I felt like surrendering
altogether and posting ‘The End,’ but somehow I also felt this blog was one
thing that liked doing, however sporadically and that I should continue … so,
last year I pulled up my socks, tied my shoelaces tightly, tightened my belt
(huh!), and set off on a determined journey to write at least 50 posts by the
end of the year … I almost reached there … with 47 posts … another 9 posts and I
would have reached 250 last year itself … I was aware of this, but I didn’t want
to hurry by posting just about anything … this year didn’t begin with optimism
and for two months, I didn’t write anything … and I really wanted to close down
this blog … in March I made a tentative restart by putting up a really ‘down
and out’ post … and tried to remember the good times I had during my year end
trip to Shimoga and wrote three more posts about that visit … April was lost to
‘busyness’ of exams in college and or was it also because it is the cruellest month?
I went to Abids after 6 months and a book
that I bought there spurred me on to write a series on ‘bibliothrillers’ … and
here I am now …
I realise that most of my posts are sort
of ‘essay’ length, and sometimes the narrative flags and sometimes people don’t
have the time to read through the entire thing … all fountain pen enthusiasts are
not book lovers and all book lovers are not fountain pen enthusiasts … and
either of them may not like reading about HMT watches … but what to do, I am
like this only … I don’t know who reads my posts or how many read my posts …
there are some regular readers, I know … I was also rather touched when a
couple of my readers pointed out that I hadn’t been posting for quite some time
(during those bleak times) … and then maybe sometime in 2014, rather late, I discovered
that my post could be linked to my facebook page … that got my posts a few more
readers, going by the likes and some comments … and two book review posts on ‘chai
and tea’ actually got published in an online journal thanks to KBS Krishna’s
persuasions … that gave me some confidence that my posts are ‘readable’ … and
more recently, rather shamelessly, I concede, I also started putting my post
links on my linkedin profile page …
So, thank you all my readers for your likes,
comments, and ‘view’s … and invisible support … 300 by the year end? No way … it’s a long way to Tipperary … namma thipparaLLi balu doora …
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