Chp 200. Post number 200

Ok, actually it’s not my 200^th post. It’s my 200^th Chapter! Because a couple of years ago, I used to occasionally post “Chapter Interludes” in-between Chapters. “Chapter Interludes” were short posts, maybe just a sentence or two, very much like the twitter of today.

5 years I’ve been blogging now. And it has definitely shaped and moulded me into what I am today. I was never the writer kind of guy back in school and engineering college. But that one incident at IIMB changed everything.

For 5 years I’ve been maintaining my forte – article based long copy, usually covering one entire issue completely and with an introduction and conclusion, while maintaining a flow throughout the article.

I can say at least 95% of my posts have more than 1500 words each, and to have more than two lakh visitors even with that length is something I am truly grateful to you all for.

I know, I feel bad that I do not blog about all those wonderful tags and memes I get from all my amazing friends around the blogosphere. It sounds so… prudish and egoistic of me to ignore the tags. But much as I would like to return all those favors, I also have to maintain the so called “brand image” of my blog – strictly article based posts [ General | Humor | Mizo-centric ] or short stories and poetries.

And I am glad many of you understand me for doing that.

For people who think blogging is a waste of time, let me fill you in on some of my experiences as a regular blogger.

1. Vast improvement when it comes to language usage and article framing. It also gives courage to people who have always been afraid to speak out.
   
2. Knowledge increment. With today’s easy access to the internet, any info you require on anything is available on the net. By reading other people’s blog, I learnt a great big deal about stuff I never knew. Sometimes I do my own researches too.
   
3. Social network! I have found a lot of new friends from blogging and my bond with such people is extremely strong because we all share the same wavelength.
   
4. Exposure to the unknown world. It is always exciting to wander into new domains we’ve never explored before. Blogging provides different platforms for that.
   
5. Recognition. This is also something that comes automatically once you cross a certain milestone. You are recognized not just socially but also professionally and your entire blog itself becomes one huge résumé, which to me is the biggest gain I got from blogging.
   
6. And of course, apart from your normal salary, there is always the extra side income you get from Google Adsense revenue. Lolz.

I can go on and on, but let’s leave it at that for now.

If I ever reach a position where I can give advice to other new bloggers, then my two advices would be:

1. ALWAYS accept criticisms. Sometimes you can even ASK for criticisms. Correct yourself from those criticisms. If you are not getting any criticisms
   • Nobody’s reading your blog.
     
   • Your so called buddies are not real friends, because true friends criticize each other honestly.
     
   • Or you’re the kind who can’t take criticisms so your friends are afraid to criticize you.
2. Learn how to differentiate between constructive criticisms and people criticizing you just for the sake of criticizing.

200 chapters and many more to come. I am eagerly looking forward to the bright future with fingers poised and ready on the ctrl+S keys

I will be moving into a slightly more flash hybrid blog with better GUI and UIDs, while maintaining the same content-driven USP.

And I’ve just joined twitter, finally. Catch me at twitter.com/Mizohican for lots of lovely twits. Errrr…

Cheers to you on my Bicentenary!