Blaugust 2022 – My Blog Museum – It’s Okay to Start a New Blog!
Posted on August 3, 2022 by Aywren
It strikes me as interesting that hearing from long-term bloggers, many of us have had several blogs throughout the years before we settled on a “main” blog. Some of us kept the old content in some form and have used it in newer blogs, while some of us haven’t and that content is lost to the Wayback Machine.
I’m no exception.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have started a blog that didn’t work out, only for a blogger to create a new site that they eventually stick with. So if you’ve been in that phase, or you’re in that phase now – take heart! You’re not alone!
In my introduction post, I talked about having a blog museum that was still in the works. Mentioning it in that post motivated me to get it completed, and so here it is: My Blog Museum.
This is a collection of writing from old blogs that existed long before this blog did – from 2008 – 2013. I want to say that during that time, I dabbled with several different blogs, mostly geared towards creative fiction writing.
From the titles that I do remember, and the Wayback Machine, I could find the following:
- Finding Figments – a short-lived blog made with a lot of love where I wrote using the names and points of view of my own fictional characters. Sorta like a role play blog, but without the role play. Don’t know how to explain it.
- Rough Sketch – a blog about creating and maintaining web comics (No Wayback for this one)
- Wren’s Wings – a writing blog that turned into my first forays into gaming/geek blogging.
It seems like Wren’s Wings ran from 2008-2010 where I decided to consolidate it into the blog portion of my webcomic, Wayrift. At the time, Wayrift was also using a WordPress backend, so making the move was probably pretty easy.
I can tell you from experience that after making that move, I hardly blogged at Wayrift. I’m not sure why.
It was a missed opportunity and I really regret not writing more during that time. I’d built a pretty active audience from the fiction stories I’d been writing during that time, and we had lots of neat writer-based conversations. Some of these folks are still around, but many of them eventually went their own way – hope the best for all of them.
Finding Figments was updated sparsely until about 2010. I’m not sure if I consolidated that, too, but it’s likely.
I have some archived posts in the museum from 2011-2013, but I can’t for the life of me remember what blog they came from! Then, in 2014, I launched this blog. Originally, I hosted it on Sygnus.org, my main creative domain, and eventually took the name “Clean Casuals.”
From the start, it was a gaming and geek blog where I allowed myself to write about topics of all sorts. I’d learned real fast that writing a blog centered around only fiction writing was hard to maintain for me. I even invited a few other folks to co-blog with me for a time and that was a fun experience!
Eventually, due to self-hosting bandwidth troubles, I picked up Clean Casuals and moved it to Aywren.com on WordPress.com. And now it’s here under the name “Aywren’s Nook” - so even this blog has gone through several moves and rebranding moments.
How many blogs have you had over the years - until you found the right one? Did you have several? Or were you lucky enough to stick with the first blog you ever rolled?