One of the blogs I follow, PoojaG of ‘lifesfinewhine’:

https://lifesfinewhine.com/2020/06/12/5-ways-to-keep-readers-coming-back-to-your-blog/

offers tips on expanding the number of ‘followers’ you have.  There are, apparently, those who attempt to carve out their life’s work in blogosphere and the bigger the following, the more likely you’ll attract advertisers willing to pay you for the privilege of gracing your blog with their latest wonder product.  Some successful bloggers attempt to bypass this crass commercialism with appeals to send them money directly – an ambitious thought for uncertain times on an overcrowded planet – but good luck to them!

Now, it’s not that I would object to having thousands of followers and getting some cash for my literary efforts, but I’ll be the first to concede that I’d starve to death if my livelihood depended on attracting tens of thousands of followers.  Fortunately, as a retired person, I can scrape by without largess from advertisers.  Besides, it was the idea of writing whatever I liked that I found most attractive in starting my blog.  I am, after all, at the age when even my wife runs for the hills when I begin conversations on topics that interest me. 

Bear in mind that when you’re eligible for the old age pension, the government sends you money and allows you free ferry rides – as long as you walk on and if it’s mid week when the moon is blue.  Not only that, but the bureaucrats send you a ‘Boring Old Foggy’ (BOF) certificate, which allows the bearer to engage in long-winded discourses in public.  Oh, the joys of growing old!

But I digress.  One of Pooga’s suggestions was to write on a regular schedule so that your followers can begin the expect something – even tremble with anticipation, at the knowledge that your offering will arrive, without fail, on every… whatever you choose.  There are those who blog every day and, when I started just over a year ago, I had ambitions to do just that.  It wasn’t too long before the three novels I was writing and/or revising, ate up all of the writing time I had in a day.  The blogs dwindled to small offerings that might arrive once a month. 

When I took a break from novel writing, I began blogging again based on my usual practice – randomly awaiting inspiration to coincide with rare moments of lucidity and enough energy to overcome any laziness that creeps upon me some days.  But Pooja advises that I eschew this haphazard method of blogging.  So I did some thinking.  How many times would I have inspiration (or at least be able to fake inspiration) in finding a topic and write a blog?  A difficult question to answer and one that I wanted to balance that against the reality of how often anyone would want to read my blogs in any case – well, perhaps I shouldn’t dwell on this point – I do have my BOF certificate, after all.  Balancing these finer points, I eventually decided that once a week is all I, or my loyal followers, should have to endure.  Thursdays sound nice for no apparent reason.

So thank-you Pooja, I’ve decided that I shall blog once a week on Thursdays.  Are you already trembling in anticipation for next Thursday?