P1k

Today, June 11, 2008, I’ve finally reached that milestone of 1,000 posts and you’re reading the 1,000th. By my count, it’s taken me 924 days to reach this point so my average isn’t too bad at all.

I’ll start out by thanking all of you who have taken the time to read my website, whether just for one post or for all of them. While I do get a little crispy at times, I also have nights like Monday night where the creative juices flow and I fire off two posts along with a article submission for Friday’s Patriot Post web newsletter. Before I started blogging, I’d previously written a few letters to the editor of my local paper and did the newsletter for both my Young Republican club and voters in my precinct as a Central Committee member, but the Patriot Post is actually where I started writing for a much wider audience as one of a few dozen anonymous contributors nationwide, starting when I still lived in Ohio. I’m not quite as well-known through this outlet, but I’m going to keep working on it and not give up on that dream.

Naturally the website has evolved through a lot of phases, and it’s obvious simply by looking at the categories and the number of posts within them. It’s been a long time since I wrote on issues pertaining to my former home, but when I started they was a relatively frequent topic. The same goes for Wal-Mart, as we were in the thick of the Fair Share debate when monoblogue was in its infancy, now I only use the category for my semi-annual “market basket” posts. Conversely, I’ve most recently added Radical Green and Delaware Politics as categories because I was beginning to write on those subjects more frequently. In fact, I have some exciting Delaware-related news shortly.

As the website has evolved, so have I – both personally and as a writer. Actually, having a website isn’t a bad way to get to know folks, and I’ve found that I have acquired a number of fans both near and far. I’m very proud to have been asked to join the Maryland Bloggers Alliance (I was the seventh member back in the summer of 2006), and contribute to three other sites – Red Maryland, Pro-Maryland Gazette, and as of yesterday evening Elbert Collins (That’s Elbert with an E) has asked me to be a contributor at his site. It’ll give me an opportunity to become more exposed in Delaware, a state with some exciting elections on the horizon this year. So I’ll crosspost items on Delaware and other selected posts relating to national issues onto his site beginning this week. In addition, on July 13th I’ll once again host the Carnival of Maryland as edition number 37 will come your way from monoblogue. It’ll be my fourth go-round and I’ve been consistent with sevens as host of editions 7, 17, 27, and now 37. Makes for nice spacing.

The bread and butter of monoblogue has been and will continue to be the realm of politics. While a few may challenge my relevency in that field, it’s worthy to note that the BlogNetNews influence ratings have existed now for one year and in Maryland only two websites have been in the top 20 each and every week – Brian Griffiths’ self-titled site and monoblogue. That’s 52 weeks of making a difference in some small way, and this week marked my seventh straight top-three finish.

Of course, I don’t want to rest on my laurels here. I have more readers than I dreamed of when I first started this enterprise (after all, 200 readers a week was astounding to me back then) but once you get a taste of success you want more, more, more! Without question I’ll be covering a lot of the local aspects of the 2008 election because arguably we’ll have the most-watched Congressional race in the country here on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. I have my horse in the race while other local bloggers differ.

There are two other projects I’m working on that will indisputably be of political importance on both a state and national level. My goal was to have both ready by July 4th but the logical side of my brain prevailed and I’ll be working to finish one project by that deadline while the other should be ready to begin by August. Since both will be ongoing portions of monoblogue, there’s no real need to hurry…I’m really enjoying putting them together because the research is interesting to me.

If the Good Lord is willing and I can keep up the posting pace I’ve been on the last couple months, my 2000th post should be sometime around May of 2010. That will be a pretty exciting time here in Maryland as the state races begin cranking up. A lot of monoblogue’s growth came from my coverage of the 2006 races and 2010 promises to be even better since I’ll know more of the players. Between now and then, we’ll have a new President and Congress sworn in and normally Presidents are at their most ambitious when they’re on their public honeymoon in the first months after assuming office. This website will be standing for what it’s always stood for – more freedom and limited government, and I won’t be shy about firing both barrels at whoever stands in the way of these goals.

While I’m quite proud of how far I’ve come with the first 1,000 posts, I maintain the attitude that the readers ain’t seen nothin’ yet and I’m going to strive for continued evolution from a small local website to a nationally-known resource for political commentary, along with maintaining a healthy dose of that non-political stuff which keeps me interested in writing all of those words I commit to pixels.

I’ve grown readership tenfold in the first thousand posts and maintaining that pace is a challenge I look forward to each time I write.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

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