The loneliness of the long-distance blogger

So, with Mr. Telford not submitting an entry to this blog yesterday, I am now the last remaining "runner" in the blogathon. With yesterday's entry, I managed a full month of daily blog posts. Now seems like a good time to take a look back at what the blogathon has been like so far.

In all honesty, most days I didn't have an idea of what to write about until time began running out and I had to produce something to stay in the race. That said, some of the entries produced from this possibly foolish method of blogging I have been quite proud of. I would certainly say that at least a third of my entries in October have been worthwhile. Some may disagree, giving a higher or lower fraction, but that of course is a personal choice; if you have no interest in whatever I blogged about on any given day, then you're unlikely to be keen to read an entry written about it. I can feel this getting somewhat unfocused, so I shall move on.

Telf stated that daily blogging "certainly became more of a chore than a creative exercise for [him] towards the end". I've certainly felt that way at a couple of points over the last month, but not to the extent that I've wanted to give up the challenge. In a way, being the last person left in the blogathon is reinvigorating and a little bit liberating: I want to continue on to see how far I can go, but I also won't feel quite so crestfallen if there is a day where I would struggle to write something and choose to end my run of daily entries.

Lastly, my reflections on the blogathon as a whole. Has it been a worthwhile exercise? I would say definitely yes. Even if for most of its duration it had only two participants, it has certainly done its job in galvanising the writers here to become a little more active than they have been in recent months. There's been a definite increase in material here from those not attempting the daily post challenge, which is brilliant to see. This place feels a lot more alive than it has done for quite some time, and I for one have found it hugely satisfying to read everything that's been written here over the last few weeks. I too hope that the activity continues here even when the blogathon has lost its final participant.

But for now, I'm going to continue looking back over the seventy-eight entries that made October 2009 the busiest month in this blog's history, and see if I can think of something worthwhile to write about here tomorrow.