An American Life in Istanbul

I started this blog with one goal: to allow concerned friends and family to follow my life. Specifically for my father to live life vicariously through me. I think he is probably my most attentive reader.  It has gradually begun to change.

Murat has recently become a regular reader of my blog and he has commented to me several times that if I keep at it for a while, my blog could be something valuable one day. He said there is no one else in Istanbul publicly writing about their interactions with the culture in blog like me, and that I have a real potential to create something here. The subtitle on my blog changed from “Your window to my life” to “An American life in Istanbul” because of Murat’s influence.

I have been considering this lately and thinking about how to be a successful blogger. I looked around at some other blogs that are successful and I realized that they all have a common theme. My blog has been rather unfocused. Sometimes I am posting funny things, sometimes just pictures, sometimes links… not really any one uniform thing. I am just sort of posting my mind at that moment onto the blog, which for me seems great, but I realize is not a recipe for success. Sunday night talking to Ant in Tophane and later talking online with Chen (a friend from high school and CMU) confirmed this idea. To be successful I must have a common theme.

I will therefore no longer be posting random funny things I find, emails from Beth, or anything like that. I will focus more on Turkish culture and my interactions with it. I of course will still try to meet my original mission of serving my family, but I will try to do so while providing cultural commentary. I will continue to post a picture of the week but I may make an effort to search for pictures that are tied to this theme (perhaps I will not always use my own pictures). I will probably continue to have entries here and there about only Turkish culture (geography, food, history).

This will mean that there will not be as many posts, but that they will be longer. This also means that I may run out of things to write about sooner or later. Let’s keeps our fingers crossed that this doesn’t happen. Lastly, please continue to enjoy my blog, post feedback, and share it with your friends and family.

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