It’s been quiet on the blogging front for the past couple of years. The old vanguard of bloggers are still here and typing away, but many of the people I met over the course of the years via events like the Newbie Blogger Initiative and Blaugust have fallen by the wayside. Some have let their blogs die off, some have moved on to other creative endeavors like podcasting, streaming or vlogging, and others simply prefer to interact via social media or discord servers. The ebb and flow of content creation has hit us all at times; I’m no stranger to taking a break from things only to come back later and pick it back up.

This blog has been in existence since 2005, but my blogging “career” started back in the late 1990’s while I was still in high school and the Internet wasn’t nearly the phenomenon that it has become. I first heard about the NBI prior to my involvement, as it was started in 2012 by Syp of Bio Break/Massively Overpowered fame. Syp only planned on running the event the one time, so the 2013 edition ended up being late and after it had ended, there was a call put out for people to help organize the 2014 event. I took up the mantle, and along with people like Doone (who no longer blogs), Roger (from Contains Moderate Peril) and Eri (from Healing the Masses) we ran a very successful event helping new blogging hopefuls get started. Around this time I also started up the Couch Podtatoes podcast with Eri that would run for a couple of years.

In 2015, we participated in the event again, but this time the turnout wasn’t the same and things were less organized. I didn’t have much part in running the event either, but it still happened. 2016 was light again and we started a Discord server but by 2017 the event was pretty much dead. Blaugust sprung up as something a little bit different but still encouraging community interaction back in those early days, but wasn’t run last year either. With a full year devoid of any community events, it’s nice to see that Belghast has taken up the mantle and revived both Blaugust and the NBI for 2018. You can read about his ideas here.

There is a sign up to participate as a new blogger or a mentor (those who have been blogging for at least a couple of years). I’m not sure to what extent I will participate, but those of you who have seen me around for the last decade plus can always ask for advice, I’m happy to help. I will attempt to come up with some writing prompts and perhaps I’ll be able to squeeze out 31 posts for August. We still have this month to prepare so I’m sure that something will come of it.

If nothing else it will be nice to see an increased sense of awareness of the blogosphere and new content being pushed out from more people. If you haven’t done so already, send Bel a kind word or two for pushing the community to interact once more!

You can sign up for Blaugust/NBI stuff here.

Discord Server is here.

Looking forward to new stuff to read!