One year of the Brick Bucket!

Today, The Brick Bucket turns one year old. This is an exciting day for any blog - proof that one cares enough about the topic and the community to continue updating the site day after day for 12 months. 

I will, of course, continue to update this site into its second year and beyond, and I hope for it to eventually reach the "higher ranks" of some of the web's more well-known LEGO blogs. In this post I'll talk a little bit about what I want to do in the future, as well as what the past year has been like for The Brick Bucket. 

So... one year.
This blog's first post was on May 17th, 2014. Back then it was known as Brickology. (As to why it's now The Brick Bucket, check out this post.) The rest of that month saw a further 25 posts, and since then I've averaged 24 posts per month - a pretty good track record. Real life has caught up to me a bit in the last few months but I've still put up at least 15 posts a month, on average one every two days. There's so many great MOCs out there to talk about and admire, and I want to post as many of my favorites as I can. (Even if they don't make it onto the blog, chances are they'll be on The Brick Bucket's Pinterest board.)

Sci-fi and fantasy MOCs seem to have taken a slight priority over town/city, Technic, sculpture, and other styles, though I try to feature a few of each every month for a good variety of posts. Since the beginning of 2015 I've started doing more set reviews and the like, but The Brick Bucket has remained (and will remain) primarily a MOC blog. After all, the heart of the LEGO community lies with fans' ability to create an infinite number of possibilities with a limited palette of elements - it's this creative spirit that drives the hobby and enables me to write this blog. 

What's next? 
In the next year, my focus will be on extending the reach of The Brick Bucket and hopefully attaining a larger readership. Subscriptions to the blog's feed (links at bottom of the site) and followers on Twitter and Pinterest are always appreciated. I also want to forge a stronger relationship with some of the other LEGO bloggers out there - there are some great people and blogs in this hobby and it's nice to know who I can depend on for advice. On a personal level, I also want to meet some builders, build more of my own MOCs, maybe make it to a convention sometime. My Flickr photostream is here and I would love comments - positive or negative - on my MOCs to help make me a better builder. 

The Brick Bucket started running ads in the sidebar recently and any income from these will go to one of three things: 1) site maintenance (non-Blogger-hosted domain?); 2) community contests and challenges (with prizes!); and 3) buying sets for reviews. As a TFOL I don't have the biggest LEGO budget but I'd like to try for a policy of one set review per month. 

There you have it - I'd prefer to not be too wordy and instead leave time and space for more MOC posts. Running this blog has been a pleasure so far. I hope reading it has been too.