Oh my, a month ago, I heard the call to participate in a brave and foolish venture, that is to blog every day in June. I was a wee bit flexible and decided a day didn’t finish until I went to bed, which allowed me to get several posts in after midnight. That was ok, as it was still the same day in Perth. The #blogeverydayofjune challenge was indeed just that, though I had it a little easier than most participants, in that I had 30 films to blog during the Sydney Film Festival. I’ve been blogging in one form or another for near enough to a decade; however in recent years I have become increasingly sporadic: a post or two a month and occasionally a month missed. I said at the start that it would be nice to recapture my blogging sensibility ie to achieve that sense that all items encountered, situations experienced, and so on, are potentially bloggable moments. I haven’t quite achieved that, though I am happy with my progress. I would like to think that I will continue to blog on a more regular basis, but I have said that before. Yet it must be said, my blog has continued to wander ever on, so it will continue and there was never any doubt of that. It remains my own space, though it’s also space I’ve been sharing and people have been commenting and that has been really lovely.

As for my stats for the month of June:

• 34 posts
• 30 films reviewed
• 107 comments on my posts by other people! Having people comment on your stuff is really cool. I don’t otherwise pay attention to stats so comments are really nice.
• over 19,000 words written in those 34 posts. Oh my oh my! The longest post was my Kindle review at around 1,800 words and I generally strived toward 500 words a day as a sort of goal.

There was a second challenge for June and that was to comment every day on someone’s blog, which dovetailed nicely and encouraged engagement and participation. I know I commented at least twice per day on other blogs, often more…yet I know there were quite a few blogs I never quite made it to either. The joy of the ANZ blog community these days is that are so many participating, so many making a claim to their own space. It was only a few years ago when you could count the ANZ Biblioblogosphere on one hand. Now there are many hands.

Now we have community.

There were people blogging that I had never heard of, whereas in the old days I knew everyone. Old faces still going, and new faces stepping in; there is a vibrancy to the scene and a diversity of interests, though all united via a connection with the greater library community.

All up, the month of June has been bloody awesome!

I don’t think I can manage blogging every day as it was rather exhausting…with that said, June is a busy month with work and films and other months are potentially quieter. I can see, with my trips away, that blogging in July/August will be a tricky business but I shall see what I can do. There is continuing panic ahead too, with ALIA Access moving ever closer. Surprisingly, folk are willing to pay money for an unconference style of event…though the stream ADHD Librarian and I are coordinating isn’t really an unconference though it has unconference-y bits. We now know people are going to spend time in our little experimental space. Some of it will be good and some of it may fall flat – regardless, I’m hoping it will be fun. I am tearing out what little hair I have in anticipation :-)