Today's my spouse's and my anniversary, and I took the day off work. It also happens to be a convenient midpoint for the Blaugust challenge, and a good time to take a break and reflect on my progress so far.
I'm doing okay! Haven't missed a day yet, and all of my posts have been at least a little substantial. I've also left a couple comments, sent an e-mail and shouted out some posts I enjoyed, which I intend to do at least once more before the challenge is over.
I've earned the newbie blogger award, the bronze award and the silver as of today. I'm shooting for the rainbow diamond award. It's definitely doable, because if I don't have a concrete topic to write about, I'm perfectly happy just doing a stream-of-consciousness ramble or posting some links. My bar for what counts as a "blog post" is one I can clear with one foot on the ground: I just need to make an effort. Not every blog post will be good, but if I wasn't making an effort every day, the ones that are good might never have existed.
I don't qualify for the Community Builder badge yet, but I think I can get there. I would need to meet at least 3 of the following criteria:
Have a post count that gives you at least the Silver Award. ✅
Of those posts, at least 5 should be directly inspired by a post by another Blaugust participant. Make sure you provide a link back to the post in question.❌
Engage with other Blaugust participants at least once per week. Read posts, leave comments, join discussions in the Blaugust Discord and share posts written by others on social media. ✅*
Guest post on another Blaugust participant’s blog – or have someone else guest post on yours! ❌
Create or join in a group project – choose a topic, find some other bloggers, and each post your own take on that topic on the same day. ❌
I've written at least one comment or email a week, so as long as I keep that pace up, I'm counting #3 as completed. I'm not big on real-time group chat, so I haven't joined the Discord. Hopefully that doesn't disqualify me.
I haven't written any posts inspired by another post, but there are a few that I could. One of the emails I sent could be expanded into a more complete post, but that's cheating a bit. I could probably hit 5 by the end of the month.
I think guesting one someone's blog and having someone guest on my mine is a neat idea, but I have no idea how to go about it. If you think my voice would be a good fit for your blog or vice vera, drop me a line.
The last one involves coordinating more than two people, which feels impossible. But please leave a comment if you're interested in a group project, and if more than two people comment we can start planning. I'll keep an eye on the feed and see if anyone else puts out a call for teammates. The Blaugust participants are a lovely group of people, but I don't have the charisma or nerve to start cold-calling people 😅
I'd probably be better at the community stuff if my blog was more focused. A lot of blogs in the OPML are focused on a single topic. I learned that the Blaugust challenge sprang out of a community of MMO bloggers, which explains why there are so many in the feed! I had no idea, I just saw someone on the fediverse mention it and thought it seemed cool. The signup post I saw didn't give any hints as to the origin of the challenge. I don't think the core community is upset that a lot of non-MMO blogs have signed on, but it does make me feel somewhat out of place. I hope my scattershot personal blog where I talk about whatever random-ass topic happens to be on my mind (which often focuses on games but not MMOs) has been a net positive to the community.
Okay, time to go do stuff. If you want to leave a comment to help get your community badge, it would make me happy if you could drop by Izzy's blog and wish her a happy anniversary, or send some words of encouragement. She got a slightly late start with Blaugust, so she might not be in the feed collection. She hasn't been doing this as long as me, but she's a natural, and I'm super proud of her
See y'all tomorrow!