A few weeks ago I received this notification from WordPress. It’s hard to believe that this experiment has turned into ten years of writing! I thought I’d share a few of my reflections on blogging, kind of my top ten thoughts (or perhaps the first ten).

10. Apropos, I discovered that people like lists and these have been popular over the years.

9. The “Growing Up in Youngstown” posts were unplanned. I thought I would write my response to a question people could ask to learn things about me they probably didn’t know, which was “what was it like to grow up in working class Youngstown?” When I wrote a second post on food and it went viral, I decided there was something here.

8. I’ve learned that not only our memories but our history in a place are important. I’m convinced schools ought to have a semester on local history so people know the story of their place, and perhaps learn to care more about perpetuating the best and to avoid the mistakes of the past. Youngstown has often been know for rust and the mob. There is so much more and I’ve loved mining the riches of our local culture, people, and history.

7. Writing book reviews are probably the easiest, because I’ve been thinking about them while reading the books. The Youngstown pieces are the hardest–coming up with an idea (especially after nearly ten years), researching it, finding usable images or getting permissions. The writing is the fun part–most of the time, I’m trying to weave all I’ve learned into a story.

6. One of the surprises in all this are the wonderful (for the most part) people I’ve met–people who have helped with information about articles, publicists for book publishers, and authors, in most cases grateful for the time and care you took with their baby. I would especially single out followers, including people I meet who tell me they have been following for years and found some books they really liked. The others are family members of some of the people I’ve written about who write and tell me they are grateful that someone remembered their loved one and the contribution they made in their time. That means so much. Over a lifetime, I’ve become so aware that we all stand on the shoulders of others, yet so often forget to tell their stories.

5. I’ve learned to appreciate the craft of writing reviews and the people who do this for a living (believe it or not, I just do this because I love books, love encouraging others to read, as well as love getting at least some of my books for free in exchange for the review!). It’s a constant challenge to say enough about a book so that people can decide whether or not they want to buy it and not so much that they feel no need to! For some, any plot information is a “spoiler.”

4. I probably did not choose the path to fast blog success. I write a lot about theological books, but also about contemporary novels, poetry, science, other non-fiction including history, biography, and contemporary affairs. I’d probably do better if I stuck to one of these niches, or just wrote about Youngstown. I’m glad, over the years to find other book omnivores who are interested, or tolerate my own omnivorous reading tastes. And that’s without a lot of the provocative fireworks that drive social media engagement at the expense of manipulating emotion.

3. What I have tried to do is just keep showing up, writing a post six days a week (I take Sundays off and re-run a Youngstown post in Youngstown groups). I’ve tried to be consistent. At some point, I may transition to four a week, but will try to maintain a consistent rhythm. People like consistency!

2. I think the blog on the whole is one of the best parts of online media, even though other media have arisen. I’ve found the support by WordPress far superior to other social media sites, many of which you cannot reach for support–even if they have taken some action against you–which has frustrated many of my friends. And by and large, the trolls have been almost non-existent and WordPress uses really good spam-filtering software. They make it easy to do the one thing you came to do–blog!

1. Finally, I’ve touched on this throughout, but you have made this a joy. I so appreciate those who comment and share their own knowledge, which often surpasses mine. Some of you have put me on to books and authors I would not otherwise have looked at. I hope I have returned the favor. Thank you.

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And for those who geek out on statistics, here are a few you might enjoy (all are as of this writing):

Total views: 1,647,007

Total visitors: 1,133,063

Number of posts: 3,218

Number of reviews: Approximately 1700

Top post ever: Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — The Top Ten (about 22,000 views)

Top review post ever: A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny (5600 views)

Number of words written (all time) 2,367,684

With that, I think I’ve said enough. Thanks for joining me on this journey!