NaBloPoMo 2024 is over | I finished National Blog Posting Month
NaBloPoMo 2024 is over. Phew!I did it. I shared 30 blog posts in 30 days for the first time in my +20 year long blogging career. It was absolutely as crazy as I anticipated, but also more fun than I could’ve imagined.
The first blog post of November was about the challenge NaBloPoMo (1550 words long) as an introduction to the concept, which is why I didn’t want the last blog post to be about the challenge as well, so yesterday I shared my favorite knitting books instead. Today though, I thought I’d share my word count of the month, some statistics (just for fun) and my conclusion about participating in this blog challenge.
My NaBloPoMo Statistics
Let’s take a look at my word count, statistics & evaluation. This month I shared: 25,500 words over 30 blog posts. Here it might be fun to note that NaNoWriMo is about writing an entire book, and a novel by their standard is a book-length project that contains 50,000 words or more…
That word count does not include all the comments I wrote of course, replies to comments on my own blog or comments on other’s blogs.
As I write about art and craft, which is very visual, I have used and uploaded approximately 130 images, all my own photography or graphics.
I have not made one sales in the shop but have gained about 50 new subscribers to my newsletter and about 12 email subscribers to the blog, I think. Although I totally understand that a blog post each day might be way too much for most people’s inbox. If you want to be notified by email when I blog now is the time to sign up for that as my blog speed will slow down again.
On these 30 blog posts I have counted to about 360 comments, but of course about half of those are answers from me, so let’s say I have received about 190 comments in one month. That is amazing to me, and I feel so grateful to everyone who read, followed along and/or left a comment (or many) on this blog. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Reading all those blog posts…
I started following +30 blogs at the end of October when I found San’s list of participants for the 2024 challenge. They were all new to me and not blogs I would’ve gravitated to normally, as I tend to mostly enjoy mixed media and, art journaling peeps, crafters, well written essay types (love Substack for this), or self-help advice articles. With NaBloPoMo it was hard to follow along with so many new people at once. Normally when I find a new to me blog I usually click around a lot, read the about page to find out the name, age and place of the writer, and then read as many older blog posts as I can to “get a feel” for the new blog and its creator. I could not do that this time, and it was a bit confusing at times.
24 new blogs in a folder in Feedly, times about 30 new posts each day, equals around 720 blog posts during the month. So you might understand why this is a commitment not to take lightly. LOL.
Reading all those new to me blogs took away from my crafting and book reading time, but that’s okay for one month.
National Blog Posting Month graphic created by our host San.
The U.S. election results coming in at the beginning of the challenge was hard, especially as I myself can hardly watch the news here in Sweden these days without getting sad and/or upset. But I get how the venting was needed of course.
I am very grateful that I found a couple of creatives in the bunch, to which I feel most connected although I loved reading about travel adventures, new and old pets, outings, holiday prep and much more. I did not comment much on all the blog posts about running, novels (that I can’t access easily), cooking or money/savings, but I read most of it anyway.
Writing comments & replying to comments
As I understood the mission this challenge is a lot about the community and being generous with reading, commenting and answering comments. I got that by reading how others were thinking ahead on how to keep up with comments as much as possible, which sounded stressful to me – but also so lovely.
If you are asking your readers to read 30 blog posts of course you want some feedback, right? If not, why post it online at all? I have learned a lot this month about commenting and answering comments, how to keep up with other’s blogs and leaving comments when I could. I love how almost everyone did their best to cheer each other on.
I could go on and on about what I learned, how I myself did not handle the challenge in the most optimal way (burning myself out many days), the behind the scenes of all my writing and wanting to connect with real people (feeling lonely in my own life) and much more, but let’s move on to what I shared here on my own blog.
My themes | What I shared during NaBloPoMo 2024
Some of the things I shared during this month includes:
I shared zero filler posts and no “I can’t today” – although I was so close to giving up once or twice…
One new video blogged and uploaded, but also a few older videos which I did not share here at the time, probably because I felt overwhelmed by trying to do it all.
One invitation to join me in sharing your own Spotted Photo Themes next year (please do!)
One Dear Photo Diary blog post – a format I really enjoy and want to do more of next year (hoping that it will also encourage me to take more random, fun photos of my everyday life)
Two link love posts of things worth sharing, including quotes, NaBloPoMo blog posts from fellow but way more seasoned participants and some video content that caught my eye lately
Two essay like blog posts that were not based on finished/photographed crafts or projects
Two new book reviews and one video review of a knitting book I got this year
Three entire blog posts about my own handmade postcards for the DIY Postcard Swap that I host, which was timely, fun to write up and exciting to share
Four blog posts that was in part about Art Journaling, another one of my favorite categories to talk about and work within
Five blog posts with actual finished items made this year
Eight blog posts that include soft crafts like knitting, sewing or embroidery
Ten blog posts where I have mentioned my mom in one way or the other…
The list: 30 blog posts by iHanna
In case you missed any of the many blog posts I shared in November, here they are in easy access list form (bookmark the page or pin it to Pinterest fi you want to come back to it later to keep reading):
The other day I sent out my Substack newsletter announcing that I wanted to do this crazy challenge …
Evaluation of the experience
In conclusion, yes it was crazy and too much, but also fun and challenging in a good way. I feel proud of all the blog posts I put out. To find 30 blog posts by me you’d have to start counting at the beginning of November last year. That’s 30 blog posts in a year, just to explain how different this new pace was.
I did not think I could do it, especially since I had nothing at all ready to go, but I could, and I did. I feel proud of that as well.
I never did run out of ideas on what I wanted to write or share, but that’s because creativity is endless and fills itself up by being used. If anything, I have more things I wish to write about now, after taking notes on ideas sparked while reading others.
To the question if I’d participate again next year I’d answer: I don’t know. Would you want me to? Was it worth it? I am not sure yet. Let me sit with this and see how the blogging year goes from here. I would definitely write blog posts in advance and be more on top of it next time, I’m sure. I’d love if more themed art blogs came along, too. But as whole: I am very happy I did it. Thanks for being here.
Today is the first of December and also Advent first, so now I’m of to light a candle and rest up. See you later, alligator.
If you feel that you got some value out of this blog post please consider (if you can) to donate a cup of coffee to the creator iHanna via Kofi. It’s quick, easy and very very much appreciated:
I, for one, gained quite a lot of inspiration from your posts. I haven’t been making much as I had foot surgery and haven’t been able to be in my studios upstairs the way I usually am BUT that changed today and I actually sat and sewed at my machine. Thank you, Hanna for all the effort you put into your posts – I totally enjoyed reading all of them, even if I didn’t leave a comment on each.
Thanks Julie, I am so happy that you enjoyed my blog posts this past month. Glad your foot is healing and that you’re back on track with creating a bit again. I saw your pile of fabric, so yummy.
Wow, when you see it all lined up like this in one big blog post it hits home just what an achievement this was. Congrats on doing the entire month, and doing such amazing and interesting posts. I feel like I went on a crafting journey and learnt a great deal about how to go about doing a few new project for next summer.
And you know, I never thought about doing a stats post like this. I think I need to do one and round up the whole month.
Yes, ideas are free and blog titles great to borrow – so why not write a stat post too. I’d love to read it and see what you include.
When I have done longer projects in the past, like the 365 collages in a year, I have always written a “conclusion post” at the end, thinking about what I have accomplished, how and why. It makes it so clear for myself what was good, bad and in between with the challenge. :-)
Wow, well done – I know that was a lot of work.
I’m still catching up and have a few more to read but I skipped over to read this post.
Thanks for sharing!
Congratulations! I’m glad you participated. This was the first year where I didn’t comment on every single blog post- it just got to be too much. It seems like a lot of people felt the same way, and I would hate for people to NOT participate for that reason. I think it’s okay to check out everyone’s blog, read as much as possible, and comment occasionally. You’ll end up with some hew blogging friends, for sure. And for the rest… the truth is, you probably don’t want to read about running and visual art isn’t my thing (I wish it were! I have no talent for it.) So… we probably won’t follow each other regularly, but we’re still NaBloPoMo friends! I’ll check back here when I can, and hopefully we will meet again in November 2025.
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The other day I sent out my Substack newsletter announcing that I wanted to do this crazy challenge …
Congratulations! It’s a big accomplishment. I look forward to following along with you outside of NaBloPoMo! Your blog is so cool and interesting.
Thanks Nicole, I will follow along with yours as well of course. A great find born out of the challenge for sure.
I, for one, gained quite a lot of inspiration from your posts. I haven’t been making much as I had foot surgery and haven’t been able to be in my studios upstairs the way I usually am BUT that changed today and I actually sat and sewed at my machine. Thank you, Hanna for all the effort you put into your posts – I totally enjoyed reading all of them, even if I didn’t leave a comment on each.
Thanks Julie, I am so happy that you enjoyed my blog posts this past month. Glad your foot is healing and that you’re back on track with creating a bit again. I saw your pile of fabric, so yummy.
Wow, when you see it all lined up like this in one big blog post it hits home just what an achievement this was. Congrats on doing the entire month, and doing such amazing and interesting posts. I feel like I went on a crafting journey and learnt a great deal about how to go about doing a few new project for next summer.
And you know, I never thought about doing a stats post like this. I think I need to do one and round up the whole month.
Yes, ideas are free and blog titles great to borrow – so why not write a stat post too. I’d love to read it and see what you include.
When I have done longer projects in the past, like the 365 collages in a year, I have always written a “conclusion post” at the end, thinking about what I have accomplished, how and why. It makes it so clear for myself what was good, bad and in between with the challenge. :-)
Wow, well done – I know that was a lot of work.
I’m still catching up and have a few more to read but I skipped over to read this post.
Thanks for sharing!
Congratulations! I’m glad you participated. This was the first year where I didn’t comment on every single blog post- it just got to be too much. It seems like a lot of people felt the same way, and I would hate for people to NOT participate for that reason. I think it’s okay to check out everyone’s blog, read as much as possible, and comment occasionally. You’ll end up with some hew blogging friends, for sure. And for the rest… the truth is, you probably don’t want to read about running and visual art isn’t my thing (I wish it were! I have no talent for it.) So… we probably won’t follow each other regularly, but we’re still NaBloPoMo friends! I’ll check back here when I can, and hopefully we will meet again in November 2025.