Link: http://proverbs365.ericasp.com/

It was bound to happen one of these days... And it turns out that yesterday was the day.  My Proverbs 365 project has now surpassed this blog (Amsterdam Asp) in readership.  I'm not necessarily presuming that it's permanent (yesterday also happened to have lower-than-average readership for this blog), but it's been building in that direction for the last couple of months -- and I'm actually kind of excited to see that it's happened now.  Just four months following its inception, it's now going and growing strong.

What can I say?  I enjoy the statistical side of blogging almost as much as the artistic (writing) side of things.  To me, the development of the Proverbs 365 project has shown that daily blogging with a highly-specific focus creates for increased internet presence.  And, if I do say so myself, I think it also happens to be a worthwhile project.

Have you visited Proverbs 365 lately?  The statistics suggest that there are more strangers visiting than Amsterdam Asp readers.  So maybe you need to be encouraged to check it out for yourself.  Consider yourself encouraged :-)

A friend of mine is getting ready to launch a new ministry in the Italian Alps, seeking to help facilitate people's connection with God through experiences in the great outdoors (it sounds like a really great initiative, which is really starting to pick up steam).  To support this new endeavor, he's launched a new website:  www.intothewilderness.eu.  And knowing about my personal hobbies, he recently asked me for some advice about blogging and website development.  Certainly, I'm not an expert in these things, and I told my friend that I didn't really have any polished, succint listing of tips that I've picked up through the years.  But I did have a few scattered ideas that might be helpful.  And I thought I might share this list here in this space as well.  Here are a few of the random thoughts that came to my mind:

• Quantity of posting is more important than quality of posting:  When it comes to generating web traffic and maintaining followers, it's important to post more often than to ensure that "the perfect post" is sitting there, waiting for readers.  The major search engines refer queries to the most recent posts on a given topic -- so it's important to always have something fresh.  I generally post 10-18 times per month (although I know other, more serious bloggers who do it much more frequently!).
• Use simple language expressing sincere thoughts and emotions, more than trying to maintain any slick PR presence.
• Encourage comments and make a point to regularly respond to comments (within the comment section of the blog itself), so people will keep coming back to carry on the dialogue within your web space.
• Write about stuff that's meaningful to you:  a sweet spot you found to go fly-fishing… photographs from the excursions… specific, personal, bullet-point highlights from the excursions (i.e. "that morning when Alessandro fell into the river")… sharing the joys of the wilderness with your children… a great prayer time that you had while hiking through the mountains… These are just a few guesses of things that you might be able to write about.  But it's most important that the material be interesting for you -- not what you think might be interesting for your readers.  This is the only way you'll be able to keep up any frequency of posting, and oddly enough this is what makes a blog most interesting to follow.
• Use a lot of sensory cues when you write (what things smelled like, tasted like, felt like, sounded like, looked like).
• Keep your posts short (500 words or less).
• If you don't feel like you're really going to be able to keep up a blog (at least one post per week), I would recommend that you just scrap the blog idea and keep it to being a sort of on-line, electronic brochure (which has its own usefulness).  A lifeless blog is worse than having no blog at all.

What do you think of these tips?  Would you agree with my advice, or would you contradict any of my suggestions?  Are there any other random tips that you would add to such a list?  It's interesting for me to note that I don't always stick to my own ideals, when it comes to blogging!  But these are at least interesting things to think about... I'd be very curious to get feedback from anyone else who might have his or her own opinions and experiences in these matters (and if anything good comes up, I'll pass it along to my friend, too!).

I've had this concept in my head for quite awhile, but I finally got around to figuring out how to do it in Photoshop.  It's a combination of the iconic "I amsterdam" PR campaign, with an obvious change in locality (from Amsterdam to America), but also with a play on my name in particular.

What do you think?  Are all three levels of significance (Amsterdam, America, and me) equally clear?  Is it cool?  Or cheesy?

There are just three more days until the beginning of my Proverbs 365 project (as previously announced).  Have you added http://proverbs365.ericasp.com to your bookmarks yet?  Are you subsribed to the RSS feed yet?  The new posts will NOT be automatically appearing on my Facebook page, so those of you who follow my regular blogging through this medium may need to consider this.  I'll likely be cross-referencing to Proverbs 365 sometimes, from within this space (my regular blog) -- but the Proverbs study is really designed to be its own thing, running its own course throughout 2010.  I've been working a month ahead on this project (basically following some advice that I learned from Proverbs 21!), and I have to say that it's already turning out to be a very worthwhile experience.

Anyway -- I'd love to have you join me on my journey into the wisdom of the Proverbs... starting in just three days!

Our family is having a lovely last week in Ohio.  We're staying out on Marci's parents' farm, surrounded by drifting snow and extreme cold -- but we are warmed by furnace burning the wood we helped to stockpile in the cellar just two days ago. :-)  The internet connection out here is not the most ideal for blogging, so it may well be the New Year before I'm back to posting.  But stay tuned:  there are interesting stories and images to share from the holidays in Ohio, too...

I am about to embark on a new blogging project, and I want to let you know about it.

I know, I know... some of you are probably thinking that I need a new blogging project just about as much as I need another hole in my head.  "Don't you already have enough on your hands?" would be a pretty logical question.  And yes, it's true that my life is plenty full.  But here's how it works in my mind:  I'm considering this project as much of a spiritual discipline as it is an electronic writing project.

So this is the project.  You could say that it's something of a new blog within my existing blog.  Starting with the new year (1 January 2010), I am going to be initiating this project that I'm calling "Proverbs 365" -- in which I will be going through one chapter of the Biblical Proverbs each day, choosing a single verse (or small cluster of verses) as a source of meditation and reflection, and then writing a short piece aimed at making one particular Proverb applicable and relevant to my daily life, living in 21st Century Western Culture.  As the name of the project suggests, I'm planning to do this not just one day -- but 365 days in a row.  One whole year of soaking in the Proverbs.

If you've read much in the way of Christian literature, you might be familiar with a devotional book by Oswald Chambers, entitled "My Utmost For His Highest."  Basically, this project is like that -- except electronic and purely based on the Proverbs. :-)

I'm actually really excited about the project, and while I realize thatit's a bit ambitious I also feel like it's really do-able andbeneficial for my own life.  I've actually already been following thisrhythm since the beginning of December (partly to evaluate itsdo-ability and partly to work one month ahead of my blogging"deadlines," allowing for regular posting even when I may fall behind acouple of days in my own reading and inevitably need to catch-up) --and I'm really excited about what's coming out of my readings already!

So anyway, if you're interested in learning more about this project -- and hopefully even following along a bit -- I would encourage you to visit the new Proverbs 365 section of my website.   I think it would be cool if you told others about the project as well (since part of my idea is to maybe turn this into a real book someday), so the website to pass along is http://proverbs365.ericasp.com.  Also, if you use an RSS feed reader, you can plug in the following URL to your feed-reader:  http://proverbs365.ericasp.com/?tempskin=_rss2 -- and on the first of January, the fun will begin!

Any feedback on these ideas would also be welcome!