Format and process change.

I’m changing the format of this blog to match my changing interests and writing style.

What I most enjoy writing on this blog is the same as what I most enjoy reading on blogs — thoughtful blog entries that perform some useful analysis. There is value in the whole array of styles of blogs, but I think that I’m most useful when I think on something for a couple of days and then write about it. I’ve experimented with this format for the past couple of weeks, and I simply couldn’t be happier with the results. I intend to carry on in this manner.

An excellent point that was made by Frosty Landon at this weekend’s blogger gathering was that political blogging is no longer a niche. When I started blogging about Virginia politics, back in 2003, I could count such blogs on one hand, probably with a few fingers left over. Now we’ve got nearly a hundred. So we need to specialize if we want to provide value. Accordingly, I will be writing less about politics-as-sport and more about the actual causes and effects of the political process — taking some of my interests and exploring where they intersect with government and politics. I’ve been writing about this sort of thing for years — I just intend to focus on that now.

In short, I will write less but produce more. Amazing that it’s taken me so many years to learn this particular lesson.

There’s another change afoot. I have a half dozen projects that I’ve lacked the time to work on for the past year. All are technological in nature, like the General Assembly RSS feed (which I haven’t had time to improve or even work the bugs out of). Most are non-partisan, a couple are partisan. I’ve come to believe that these projects are far more important than anything that I’m liable to write about on this blog anytime soon. With the time I will free up by blogging less, I will work on these projects.

But that’s not time enough. So I will be, for at least few months, become a freeloading member of the Virginia political blogging community. I do not intend to read blogs in this community often, and will comment even more rarely. Though I enjoy participation in this community tremendously, I think that these projects are simply more valuable than any comment I’m liable to make on any blog anytime soon. And I’m simply not so vain to assume that my absence will have any impact, or even be long noticed.

As each of these projects get to a point that they merit blogging about, I intend to do so. If just one or two of them come to fruition, I think it will be time well spent.

I’m excited about this change in tack. It will be an adventure.