What’s New Around Here

[disalarming]

Now that my Twitter contest to celebrate my blog relaunch is over (congratulations to the winners!), I can highlight what’s been tossed from my old blog system/structure and what’s been added as a result of the revamp.

• No more weekly blogging schedule
  Honestly, it just wasn’t working for me anymore. It worked like a charm when I first launched my blog in January 2009, and without it, I probably would’ve given up on blogging a long time ago. But in the last year I think I’ve started to find my blogging “voice” and the schedule was just starting to be more of a hassle than anything else. I’ve developed quite a strong opinion about blogging schedules, having followed one for a year, but that’s an entry for another day.
• New set of blog categories
  Since all of my blogging categories were focused on the now defunct blogging schedule, there is now a new set of blog categories. Some of the old categories, like Reviews and Question of the Week, remain, but the majority of them are new. The old categories that are no longer in use have been converted to tags. I went back and recategorized/retagged all of my posts according to the new ones, and I aim for them to reflect the more personal approach to blogging I am striving for.
• New Q&A, rewritten About page
  Rather than invite questions from readers once a year, I added a Q&A section so that anyone can ask me a question anytime. Also, I’ve rewritten my About page and added a picture of myself for an added personal touch.
• New Archives and Subscribe pages
  Previously, I had set up my archives as a sidebar widget and left it at that. Now, however, I have an Archives page. It can be sorted by month (default setting), category or tag. There are also a multitude of ways to subscribe to my blog, all of which I have outlined on my Subscribe page. Stalking has never been made easier!

Overall, the changes are on the minor side, but I think each change has been exactly what I, as a blogger, needed. Now I can post what I want when I want however I want, which I wasn’t able to do before thanks to the constraints of the blogging schedule. I’m really excited about all of this and I think all of these changes will be awesome in the long run, and I am more enthusiastic about blogging than I’ve been for a long, long time.

For the tl;dr crowd: No more blogging schedule, couple new pages/features, and a more personal approach to blogging which starts… tomorrow!

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.