I planned to write a post about journaling in public for the past 12 years. I thought I'd review my "most popular posts of all time" and craft something. But nothing jumped out at me, except "I wonder why these are the most popular?" So I didn't come up with anything.

After "baking in the sun" (or freezing in the snow), my comments about the Gully Brook Press experiment are that my participation and engagement in the online world has shifted. At first I read a lot of other personal blogs. I was never much of a commenter, and the 6-10 daily reads shifted over the years, from blogger-recommends in the early days to national A-listers in the middle years, and then to locally well known a few years ago. At present I read the personal blogs of others only occasionally.

I have spent very little time promoting Gully Brook Press over the years. I have not been interested in generating hits or links or fostering a commenter community. I have continued to write here, for myself and the others who visit, sometimes less, sometimes more, and I have never announced I was taking a hiatus, or taken one quietly. I have not changed the name, or very often, the look of the blog (and I have used blogger for all 12 years). The website design has changed three times, due to being forced to use different hosts (AOL to verizon to google).

Since 2009, when I started using facebook (I joined it a few years before, but didn't start using it until my 30-year high school reunion), I've spent more time in the social network, than at Gully Brook Press (both the blog and the website). I don't use facebook to promote GBP, but keep them separate.

It has served the purpose I intended in March 2002, which was to give me a place to post published works, and to write a journal. I wasn't sure whether I would abandon the journal quickly or eventually, as I have with every other journaling tool since I was big enough to pick up a pen. Well, I guess after 12 years you might say this has been the most successful of all those endeavors. It doesn't, and can never match Elwyn's diary in consistency, but it has been a rewarding effort for more than a decade. Bravo Gully Brook Press.