When you begin your journey hosting a blog, the experience is a heady one. You—just a solitary individual armed with a keyboard—think the world and your readership will sit at your feet and hang on each and every word. Actually, you probably don’t have quite those lofty aspirations, but there is a certain confidence (arrogance) that what you set down for content matters. It usually doesn’t.

The start of a brand new run through spring, summer, fall, and then, the close of yet another year, offers a chance to revisit how/why you do things. I’m reconsidering my own blogging schedule and what passes for content.

For awhile now, posting twice a week—on set days at that—seemed like the best plan. I’m not certain that convention is necessary any longer. Since I no longer really care to serve as anyone’s paragon of a writer these days, self-imposed deadlines have become a bit of a drag.

At the same time, I still seem to have a few thoughts and opinions on a variety of topics. Certainly, our national rush towards the reactionary right offers plenty of fodder if I care to tackle serious topics. Blogging still seems like the best platform for putting political opinions and conjecture out into the biosphere.

Then, there are all kinds of personal experiences that navel-gazing passing for blogging requires that you tackle. Given my overly active fall, blogging often felt like yet another item on my to-do checklist for the day/week. I lacked the time and space to choreograph longer-form pieces that I’ve developed in the past. Of course, blogging doesn’t have to go long each and every time out, either.

One thing I didn’t bother with this year was my end-of-the-year book list. I considered compiling yet another one, just like I did last year, the year before that, and the year before that. When I weighed the ROI aspect of spending a couple of hours and cranking out 3,000 to 4,000 words to summarize my 40+ books, I decided to enjoy my holiday break instead. I’ll still list the books I’m reading throughout the year if you care to know what topics and writers I’m gravitating towards.

2016 was a weird year, really. There were some really good things going on in my life. There was also more than enough dreck, too. One goal I have for 2017 is to lower the year’s dreck-quotient.