Update: Where it's at & Where it's Going...

This blog post is just a heads up addressing the recent activity—or rather lack-thereof—concerning the blog itself.

During the entire month of September I’ve basically fallen off the map, blog-wise. You can now see the post for the Humorous Speech Contest, which is dated on the 16^th, but it’s a lie! Even though the post-date says it, I actually finally wrote and posted it about twenty minutes ago (By the way I wrote 'twenty minutes ago' about five days prior to post). Blogger lets me be deceitful that way. Now I know quite a few of you have shed some tears over this, but now’s the time to finally dry your eyes.

But seriously, I apologize to all members, especially the winners and runner-ups of the two contests. That blog deserved to have been posted much sooner so they could bask in their well-earned glory. I don’t have much in the way of excuses. In the end, it comes down to self-discipline, something I am improving on but at times is still a struggle. 

I decided to hunker down and pound out a few in advance (which I've begun to do), and hopefully just keep throwing more onto the pile. Otherwise this November would be especially challenging, since I will be participating in a month-long contest called “NaNoWriMo,” which is a smooshy-word for “National Novel Writing Month.” It means exactly as it sounds: writing a novel within the month. If I end up coming to the meetings throughout November, I will really try to keep up with my “Weekly Recap” posts. 

Well anyway, I’ve come up with an idea or two about how I want to move forward. I really don’t want to turn my posts into an advice column; frankly I’m in no position to be telling people how to deliver a better speech. In fact, I’ve been a member for the better part of a year now, and most if not all the guests who’ve done table topics have shown stronger public speaking skills than I do. Instead, one thing I’ve been considering is to post content that analyzes video speeches/debates outside of Toastmasters, and narrow in on something specific thing that a given speaker did that was strong in his/her speech, as well as what was done poorly or could’ve been executed stronger, analyzing why.

When I joined as a contributor Craig suggested I write an introductory blog for new members, which sounded like a good idea. Turns out the execution’s more of a challenge than originally anticipated. Getting contact info from a new member and then sending interview questions and getting their reply to then write a post on—by the time all that’s done the new member isn’t exactly ‘new’ anymore. So instead I’ve been thinking about posting entries that provide some basic info (background, interests, random facts, etc.) I might put together a form and send it out to each member, and they can put down whatever they want to share (if anything).

So that’s where my head’s at. As always, if you have any questions, comments, requests, or suggestions related to this blog, post a comment below, or you can contact me directly if the subject is outside the scope of the respective entry.