Reading Time: < 1 minutes

As promised, I took some time off this week to work on other projects. They weren’t all creative; I’m working on some reports and major projects for a nonprofit group, and of course it’s tax season so there’s year-in-review stuff to do.

The two posts this week were short and spontaneous, and well received.

I also installed an editorial calendar tool in WordPress. This will let me plan in advance more easily. I did a little bit of that at the beginning of the month, which is why you’ll see posts next week on Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day and on Groundhog Day.

Observations: I’m learning that shorter is better. I’ll start looking for a blog template that will display the estimated read time and a short excerpt instead of the whole post, as a previous format did.

Interaction: Both posts this week received comments, mostly on Facebook but some on the blog. I miss the chats with readers that I had from the newspaper column. Those had to be done by snail mail and email. Today’s blogs offer a commenting feature that makes it easier. Still, I don’t comment much on other people’s blogs, so I guess I can’t expect others to do so either.

Professional development: I did put in some time on the Margery book. The whole Houdini-vs-Margery story has been done several times over by better scholars than I. This project is unique in that it’s half-book, half-play. It’s a book about writing the play. The play is done, or as done as it’s going to get. The book part tells the back story of how it gets there.

Next week: Work on the editorial calendar to plan ahead some short posts, and continue work on the book.

In case you missed it …