And so here we are, some seventeen years since my very first blog post went up back in 2002…
A million words … wow!
This is a number that I’ve been chasing for years – typically whenever I’d hit another groove and get back into blogging every day, I’d think to myself, “This is going to be the big year!”
And then it wasn’t. 😛
2012 was apparently a very good year for blogging when I averaged 1.4 posts per day and 156,606 words total!
Surprisingly, despite occasionally being a bit long winded, my average post length is only 284 words, which just shows that those little posts that you knock out in 15 minutes can really add up over time. 😉
One stat that I found particularly interesting was my most popular tags by word count…
- rants – 153,136 (293 posts)
- geek stuff – 90,574 (258 posts)
- summary posts – 79,726 (130 posts)
- creative-type stuff – 79,380 (195 posts)
- politics – 75,683 (184 posts)
- movies – 71,840 (187 posts)
- diet & exercise – 65,736 (161 posts)
- dreams – 49,736 (86 posts)
- video games – 48,056 (198 posts)
- technology – 41,673 (141 posts)
Note: All of these stats come from the WP Word Count plugin by Link Software – the pro version is less than twenty bucks for unlimited sites … I’ve been using it for years and I love it!
One more of interest – looking at the blogging platforms that helped me to write those ONE MILLION words…
- Fusion PHP (2002) – 9,747 (<1%)
- LiveJournal (2003 – 2011) – 462,133 (46%)
- WordPress (2011 – CURRENT) – 528,670 (53%)
It’s just amazing to me to look back over everything that I’ve blogged about over the years – mind you, I don’t really make any money or anything from this site, but it’s immensely valuable to me because it really serves as a journal where I’ve publicly shared so many of the most important moments from my life…
- 9/27/2003 – Moved to Florida
- 4/22/2006 – First Date with My Wife
- 7/3/2006 – Moved in Together with Sara
- 5/4/2007 – Got Engaged
- 10/9/2008 – Got Married (sort of!)
- 7/6/2010 – Published My First Book
- 5/21/2011 – Adopted Our Dog, Cleo
- 7/30/2012 – Bought a House
- 3/25/2014 – Christopher Was Born
- 9/15/2016 – David & Matthew Were Born
…and of course, plenty of nonsensical, rambling or otherwise just plain weird moments and thoughts and ideas, too!
So what’s next???
The short answer is – I have no idea!
No more than I could’ve predicted any of what got me to this point, anyways. One of my favorite things about my blog is that by not locking in to a particular theme or topic, it frees me to write about anything and everything! One day I might feel inspired to write about video games or a movie that I just saw, and others I might be feeling a bit more nostalgic or want to share vacation photos or even, dare I say, share some thoughts about politics!
*shudder*
One thing I will say is that with my first one million behind me, I hope that this inspires me to write more … you know, so that maybe I can get to two million before I’m ready to retire! 😉
Blogging is something that I really enjoy because it’s personal, and yet it’s a way to share a little bit of me in a medium that I’m very comfortable with considering just how much of an antisocial, introverted hermit that I am. 😛
Over the next million words, I’m looking forward to sharing even more milestones, and ranting about things that bug me, and bragging about my kids, and everything else that has made the last million words so enjoyable. 
Only 998,905 words to go…