This was way more difficult than I originally thought. Publishing every day for the last 30 days has been surprisingly strenuous. Countless times, I found myself with an “Ah! I have to publish something” around 9:30PM after a long day and have nothing left in me other than a few Fresh Links. Though, if I’m counting right, I was a perfect 30/30.

I felt like I cheated a little bit along the way. At no point could I have ever considered the coveted 50,000 word goal for NaNoWriMo — that’s 1,667 words per day, and my quick Fresh Links or photo posts weren’t going to do the trick.

That was never my original goal though.

My original goal was to see if I had it in me to publish something each day. And to that end, I learned a few things along the way:

  1. I have more to say than I originally thought: In this, I mean that I have some unique thoughts that I can add to overall conversations, and I discovered some cool stuff in the process. My Twitter timeline is a wealth of cool and interesting links and I want to work on sharing them more often here on the blog. And that self doubt that creeps in — that part where you don’t think your voice is unique enough to warrant a publish button — is one of the biggest inhibitors to small blogs like The Newsprint.
  2. I have less to say than I originally thought: You really can force the issue. I published a post about my first impressions of the iPhone 11 Pro Battery Case and the next day I discovered a new anecdote that somewhat overruled everything else. Had I been more patient and taken the day off to get it right, I could have been more accurate in my original take.
  3. I love posting photos of my family: I have essentially become that guy. It has taken effort to avoid making The Newsprint a shrine of my love for my family. I’ve snapped a ton of photos over the last month, a fraction of which have made it to the blog here. If I wasn’t careful, I’d scare people away by presenting too much me. I’ve got to come up with a “Newsprint Stories” that basically replicates Instagram Stories but puts them here for everyone to see.
  4. Posting every day had no effective impact on site statistics: Of all the rational and pragmatic things to think about, this one is one I’m going to take with me into the future. Posting every day and ensuring something new hit my RSS feed each day has done effectively nothing for growing my audience. My two takeaways:
  5. Garbage in is garbage out — it’s smarter to publish awesome stuff a few times a month than it is it to publish everyday with nothing to say.
  6. Your audience knows if you’re passionate about something — readers are super smart and they know when you’re into something and when you’re not.

This past month has probably been one of the most enlightening for me as a Newsprint writer in the history of this little site. I have learned a ton to take with me as I move into the future. This little site continues to be one of the most unique avenues I have to connect with folks online and it will continue to operate in that fashion. I see so many other writers celebrating their 10-year anniversaries and I understand how a small blog can make it that long. These things are passion projects. And The Newsprint continues to be mine.

But tomorrow, I’m going to rest.

Thanks for sticking it out the last 30 days.