My Blogging Experience

 

In April 2009 I started work on my first blog, which was called “Walking Napoleonic Battlefields”.  It was a record of the many holidays Jan and I have spent exploring battlefields in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal.   Our first such holiday was to Waterloo in July 1971 and the last recorded was our second visit to Austerlitz in July 2002.   The aim of this series of blogs was to explain how we planned each visit and illustrated by photos we had taken at the time.    There is no better way to understand a battle than to walk the battlefield yourself.  And particularly if you have researched and planned the holiday yourself.   I hoped that by explaining how easy it is to do others might be encouraged to do so themselves.   I don’t have any stats for this blog because I used a different email address to set up each blog, and no longer have the passwords

In May 2009 I started my current 1813 Napoleonic campaign, and at the same time I started a blog to record the progress of the campaign and to provide a permanent record of all the battle reports.   It is a campaign diary, with one entry for each campaign day and one entry for each battle report.   I am not a great believer in the stats provided by the blog, but at present it states that I have 1001 posts and have had 122344 views.

Also in May 2009 I started a second blog called “Jan and Paul in Spain”.   This would be a record of our life here and the aim was to keep our family and friends in the UK informed of how our life in Spain was progressing.   Apart from Wargaming, our main interest was hill walking.   Within weeks of arriving in 2006 we had joined a local walking group and most blog entries recorded our many walks in and around our home in the Jalon Valley in the Costa Blanca.   The blog stats confirm I have posted 1084 posts and claim there have been 335220 views.

It was not until July 2009 that I started the fourth blog called “Napoleonic Wargaming”   This would allow me to air my general views on my favourite subject, as distinct from the factual reports on “1813 Campaign Diary”.  I didn’t have any clear idea just what I would post on this one, but it would allow me to expand on rules and Wargaming experience on the campaign diary.   According to the blog stats I have written 1069 posts and there have been 548863 views.

“Walking Napoleonic Battlefields” was a one off project, and would only last as long as it took to research and post each visit.  

“Jan and Paul in Spain” was started as a longer term project.   The first blog covered our move to Spain in 2006, so there was a considerable amount of work to catch up to 2009.    I have always recorded our holidays and day trips by taking photographs, and then filing them on my computer using a series of annual, monthly and then daily folders.  I continued this when we moved to Spain.   The photos taken of each walk and holiday formed the basis of the blog, with a short description or summary as appropriate. As I was now using a digital camera it was easy to take more photographs of each walk.   The blog also allowed other members of the walking group to share with their own family and friends.   So it is quite possible that there were indeed such a large number of views.   Remember that each blog would probably be viewed by the same family member or friend.

“1813 Campaign Diary” was also planned as a long term project.  However I did not understand how blogs worked, so I expected to have to start a new blog for each campaign phase, or mini campaign.   The first one was called “1813 Campaign – Magdeburg” and for some time I created a new blog for each phase.   It would be a few years before I realised that by using the labels function I could separate each campaign phase on one blog.   This system also changed over the years as I developed a better “filing system”.   By its very nature this blog provided content for a new blog post each week, and continues to do so. 

“Napoleonic Wargaming” had no long term plan.   I wanted to be able to post a different subject each week.   Having to work to a timetable is something I enjoy, and prospective readers would know that a new post would come out each Sunday.   It would be a general blog where I could explore all the different aspects of Wargaming this period.   I could explain problems experienced with my ongoing 1813 campaign, or explore different ideas for new maps or rules.   However right from the start it required inspiration for something new each week.   The advantage of wide range choice of subjects is that I could work on posts as and when I had inspiration.   I would often have four or five posts in reserve.   Recently I have found it more difficult to find something new to write about, and I decided to post a summary of my “1813 campaign diary” as a regular series on “Napoleonic Wargaming”.   Each one has a map, a short description of campaign movements and also of the daily battle.  In addition I would comment on the actual wargame, particularly if I had encountered a problem with the rules.

I feel that this latest development has become too much a part of “Napoleonic Wargaming” blog, and I am now looking for something different to break up the weekly posts.  I will let you know when I have found it.