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WordPress has helpfully told me that my last post was my 200th post!*
Wow, 200 entries here on the blog. I think that deserves a moment to sit back and reflect on what I’ve done, and muse about the future a little.
Way back in 2015, when I started this blog, I was doing it to hopefully build up an audience for my forthcoming novel. I wasn’t sure what to blog about, but I did know I didn’t want to blog about writing or how to write. That would appeal to other writers, but I was trying to attract people who might want to read my historical fantasy.
Seeing as I was doing a lot of research for the novel, I decided to focus mainly on writing articles on life in 7th century England. The vast majority of posts, 73 to be exact, have been on this topic. I’ve covered personalities such as Bede, Oswald, and Brigid; places such as Iona and Bamburgh; various levels of society such as slaves, women, and kings; literature from the Early Medieval period such as Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and The Wife’s Lament; and even thrown in some fun posts on things like superstitions and how they celebrated Christmas in 7th century England. And much, much more.
Seeing as I use this space to talk about my book, I have included some posts on it and on the writing process, but I’ve tried not to overwhelm the readers with that. So I’ve had posts such as the difficulties of writing a series, wrestling with including female characters into a book set in a male-dominated society, and the long slow process (at least for me!) of getting a book ready to launch.
Book reviews have also shown up here at The Traveller’s Path. From 2015-2018, I have done a yearly “Year of Reading….” series, in which I picked a theme for the year, and read one book per month on that theme, writing a review at the end of the month on that month’s book. It was a great deal of fun, and I miss it this year, but I’m glad I decided not to do it this year as I finished up preparing and launching Wilding. It freed up time that I definitely needed. But I truly enjoyed all of my “Year of….” series. If you missed those, here’s the links to the introductory posts of each of the series. You will find posts every month (pretty much) in each of those years for book reviews in the series).
I also delved into a review of TV series, The Last Kingdom (which continues to be one of my most popular posts!) and a fun one in which I talked about Star Wars and 7th Century Monks. , which prompted the longest comment thread I have had. Perhaps I need to do more pop-culture posts…but there isn’t a lot of 7th century England pop-culture content to draw from. Go figure.
I’ve done a few (only three, drat!) interviews here on the blog. Authors Matthew Harffy and Edoardo Albert both graced me with their presence here, and I was able to have a fascinating chat with Graeme Young, the chief archeologist of the Bamburg Research Project. I want to do more of these.
So that’s the past 200. What about the future?
I’ve been thinking about this as my book launched. This webpage is great for a blog, but it’s not so great as a book-selling venue. So I am likely going to be changing it up a bit, to make it easier for people who come here looking for my book to be able to find it. I have FINALLY added a link to where you can buy my book on the page, but really the focus on the page once people land here should be the book and how to buy it. So the design is going to have to change. Stay tuned! Hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later.
However I change it though, this blog will definitely continue as part of whatever website I come up with. This year I lowered my posting frequency from once a week to once every two weeks, and I’ve found that much more manageable in terms of being able to get more work done on the books. So that will likely stay the same. The new schedule has also helped me free up time as I’ve tried to get my newsletter up and running. If you haven’t signed up yet, click the link and you will get a free bonus chapter from Wilding!
There are lots more articles about 7th Century England that I want to write, and as I mentioned, I would love to be able to do more interviews with other authors or with those who are experts in that time period. Stay tuned!
Some of you have been reading my words here from the beginning (here’s looking at you, family!) and others have been following along more recently. However you came by this little corner of the internet, I”m so glad you did. Thanks for sticking around.
Here’s to the next 200!
*As it so happens, I’m getting awfully close to 200 followers, too. I’ve got 5 more to go. Maybe I can reach that magic number before 2019 draws to a close.!
