Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015-2017 - Z for Zed - The End

This is my last post in the Quaker Alphabet Blog. Since 2013 I have been through the alphabet, writing about Quaker related subjects, four times. Most of the other people who set out on this journey together have moved on to other things and it is time for me to do the same.

I have found this a useful prompt for my blogging - although sometimes no prompt is loud enough for such an arch-procrastinator as myself. The alphabetical structure has sometimes been difficult - not many names begin with Z, although some do, and some letters are much more difficult to find subjects for than others. I was particularly proud of X for Xylography!

I set out to use this format in part to continue to write about lesser-known Quakers of the past and I am happy to have done that. Of my biographical posts the most viewed has been Annie Elizabeth Clark. I certainly intend to continue with this theme and it will be a relief not to have to squeeze my writing into the confines of the alphabet.



Occasionally my alphabetical posts have been historical in other ways and there are themes there which I may try to expand on in future.

Another strand of my blogging has always been the autobiographical and when my life experience and my Quakerism have intersected some more personal posts have appeared in the alphabetical sequence.

So this is not really an ending. I am leaving one particular framework behind but I hope I can use it as a stepping stone to more writing. The difficulty that the alphabet structure was meant to remedy still remains - how to make myself sit down and write. To find out whether I have made any progress there you will have to watch this space!

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015-2016 - P for Procrastination

Procrastination is my besetting sin and writing a Quaker Alphabet blog was supposed to be a way of fighting it, so why have I not written anything for the blog for almost a year?

Part of the reason has been an unexpected health problem. Given my family history I might expect osteoarthritis (check), diabetes (check) or heart problems (not yet!). What I did not expect was acute angle-closure glaucoma which arrived in February and threatened the sight of my left eye. Swift referral from a splendid GP to an equally splendid eye hospital in Bradford meant that the problem was caught more or less in time and dealt with by laser treatment. I emerged feeling battered and uncertain and with a loss of some peripheral vision and this took much longer than I expected to recover from.

At least I now know which of my senses I really don't want to lose! I have spent a lot of time this year looking  - at people I love - at nature around me - at art, especially on Pinterest. I have been reading and researching too although now I am more aware of eye strain and try to take breaks, especially from the computer screen.

Now, with eye drops, regular checkups and the prospect of a possible cataract operation to relieve the pressure further I am feeling alright but I have found it too easy to put off regularly writing this blog. I am now determined to continue this alphabet to its end - but then I will have to find a new way of disciplining myself to write! I hope to reach Z again before the end of this year, but I'm not promising anything.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2014 - Y for Yes

'Yes' was what I said when I started writing Quaker Alphabet blog posts back in 2013. I needed a prompt to keep me writing and the alphabetical discipline has been good for me and has led me into some unexpected subject areas.

In life and among Friends I have often fallen into the trap of saying 'Yes' to too many things. I have been so happy to be asked that I have often taken on too much and have sometimes become overwhelmed and failed to fulfill my obligations.

For a long time my remedy for this condition was to learn to say 'No', to pause for thought before I made any commitment and to look honestly at what I could manage and at the direction I felt my Inward Guide to be pushing me in.

So far, so good. But now I am looking at the whole question again in a different way. In a new place and learning to fit in to a new community I began by holding back, not wanting to appear to push myself forward. Opportunities arose and I began saying 'Yes' again but, more importantly, I have decided to go forward in a positive way. From now on I will look for the 'Yes' I can say, however small that 'Yes' may be, and stop worrying about saying 'No' sometimes.

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 52 - Z for Zed

Well here we are at the end of 2013and I have come to the end of this year's Quaker Alphabet blog. This post is about Zed, the ending (or not) and what I have learned over the year.

Firstly I would like to say a big thank you to my fellow bloggers, Rhiannon and Stephanie. Without their inspiration and different take on subjects I think I would have given up long ago. Rhiannon has already started a new project based on the liturgy and I look forward to finding out what Stephanie will do next.

The format we agreed on, with two consecutive posts for each letter, allowed me to divide my posts up into one biography and one general topic for each segment. I made a plan at the beginning of the year and sketched out some possible subjects, some of which I stuck to and some of which changed. Sometimes I really did not know what I was going to say until I sat down at the computer to write while other posts took more than a week to research. I also enjoyed finding images to go with the words.

My blog has never been one to attract a lot of traffic. My statistics would normally show me fifty viewings or less although sometimes I seemed to say something that more people wanted to read and my views reached several hundred. For the Quaker Alphabet the picture has not changed a lot, although I have become aware of what a difference sharing posts on Facebook and Twitter can make. However occasionally this year my posts have been noticed by Quakerquaker and this has made quite a difference. I am not expecting to reach vast numbers of people but I have enjoyed the comments, both on the blog and on Facebook, and am glad that sometimes what I write seems to have been helpful.

Having said that I am not playing the numbers game I have done some analysis of the first 50 weeks! My most popular post was on Solitude and Sociability with 730 views, way out in front of the next contender Visiting at 358. 5 posts reached more than 300 views and 8 posts more than 200. The largest group of posts (23) were viewed over 100 times with 13 posts reaching less than 100 views. The least popular post at the moment is Y for Yearly Meeting with 44 views but even that is not bad for my blog. On the whole the topics were more popular than the biographies but I am happy to report that it was a close run thing and my fourth most viewed post was on Solomon Eccles. 

It was good for me to write regularly and I hope to continue to do so. I shall therefore be starting another Quaker Alphabet blog in 2014 although this time I will be writing it every two weeks. I hope that the space between will fill with other posts on a greater variety of topics - let's wait and see! I also hope that more people will take part in this endeavour so that we can share a greater variety of Quaker voices. I have set up an 'event' on Facebook which I hope will have some result and if anyone reading this feels inspired to try a Quaker Alphabet blog for 2014 do please comment. There is no restriction on the form which such an enterprise should take - short or long, words or pictures or a combination of both - just give it a go!