That’s All, Folks

This is my final post to Big Kid from Wyoming Takes on the World. Like Wyoming History in the First Person, the 26 posts will become an online archive.

I’m a story teller by nature. So blogging has been richly rewarding for me, as has the consequent contact with readers.

Why did I decide to shut down? Well . . .

When I started blogging, I was determined not to write memoirs. I wanted to write true stories—stories with a beginning, a middle, and an end. If the ending contained a surprise that would trigger chuckles, so much the better.

I also wanted to tell my stories within a context of local history.

Now—three and a half years and more than 50 posts later—I still have plenty of memories. But memories with potential stories imbedded in them are getting harder to find, as are memories with historical meaning. Recounted life events, whatever their intrinsic interest, are not stories. They are just memoirs.

Also, as a writer I have more than a content problem. I have an audience problem too. I’ve lived long and broadly. My clutter of memories still contains many episodes that could be written about. But the wider I range when digging through those life events, the less certain I am of who, exactly, might be interested (beyond family and friends). For whom, post to post, am I writing?

Meanwhile, my first blog, Wyoming History in the First Person, has succeeded surprisingly well in finding an audience worldwide. The Archives of that blog continue to live a life of their own on the Net. Page views are running more than 1,000 per month and now total more than 13,000.

I’ll quit while I’m ahead.