Gratuitous Effort to Reach Average

For the first time in Spew history, I think, I will average less than a post per day this month.  I have been blogging less over the past year, but this month has seen a bigger dip.  Why?

• Well, conferences and related travel make it hard to keep up.  Sure, I learn a lot and used to share more of what I learned while conferencing (such as this post two days ago), but I have much less time while conferencing these days.
• Related: I am way overcommitted.  So, while blogging does not take as much time as people usually suspect (my typos in old posts remind me how little time I spend vetting each post), it is still some time.  
• Am I burning out?  A friend was gleeful when I started blogging, saying that I would not be able to keep the pace.  Well, maybe I could not. 
• I also blame twitter.  Sometimes, I get my views out via twitter and then don't have the compulsion to express them here.  Yes, twitter still inspires more than a few posts, but it may be that twitter is eating some of my blogging energy.  

On the other hand, this was actually a good month for blogging, if one measure it less by output and more by readership.  Of course, taking swipes at IR trolls always increases my hit count, but I also had posts on my participation at PSR, on the GOP and anti-vaxxing, sexism in security studies, and sexual harassment in academia that all had decent audiences.

However, I didn't get into blogging to make my hit counts (or else I would trash the IR trolls more frequently), but to vent on a variety of topics, including many outside my lane (which junior academics probably should be a bit more reluctant to do).  Twitter does provide an alternative outlet for such venting.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I thinking about this today mostly to get my average post per month a bit higher this month.