See how I did that with the title? Nice.I have 2 points.
1. I'm very sick. I'm either miserable or drugged, and neither state is conducive to writing.
2. I can't finish anything! The image is of my desktop as I continue to start posts that I find promising, but then can't complete any of them.
In the beginning, I wrote this completely for me. That was a very good thing since nobody was reading for at least 2 weeks. The lack of notice in the beginning was lovely - a nice buffer between what I wanted to say and the real world. The chance of someone reading was thrilling, but the reality of keeping my thoughts to myself was comforting.
But as soon as some of you started to arrive, I took note. I keep a spreadsheet of visitor locations and my document has 2 tabs. One is for first-time visitors and it is vastly larger than the second. The next page are repeat visitors - some only twice, some almost every day. Every time I move a city over to my repeat page, I smile. I love having someone come back.
I tend to be moderately picky on what I read regularly. When first seeing a new blog, I like to read a couple of posts, and make some estimate of my interest in this particular person. I used to make careful note of when a writer last updated since I like active bloggers. But bloglines has eased that requirement. If you don't post, I don't read - easy and wonderous. So I rely heavily on someone's most recent work to determine if I'm going to make an effort to return.
I give an "oh, hello there!" to my regular readers every time certain cities pop up on my sitemeter page. It's a different kind of feeling when someone new arrives, and I always wonder, slightly nervous, whether or not that person will be back.
My concern is that my recent posts have not represented my best work. So if you're reading one (since I know they're long), then deciding never to return, I'm sighing at myself. So, in the interest of providing you with the opportunity to read something I think is of higher quality, I spent considerable time today making a Topics of Interest section of my sidebar.
Minor Revisions is only a little over 3 months old. But there is a relatively large volume of text here and I don't expect anyone to delve into the archives, especially on your first visit.
But if you have some time and want to view something I like, pick a link and read something older. When I start to feel less awful, maybe I'll finish something and let my most recent post speak for itself.
5 comments:
You've hooked me into reading along, even if you don't always realize it (you're in my google reader subscription list - an aggregator like bloglines - so it won't always show when I'm reading). your post on Tuesday was my favorite post yet, for what it's worth...
Personal fave of mine was the series on the boy in college. That's what really make me decide to continue reading (that, plus the women-in-science angle).
Aw...I'm either flushed with pleasure at the compliments or from my continuing fever. I'm glad you guys are reading! Especially since you seem too busy to update over at crazychicas. :)
And I loved the Gabe series too! Perhaps I'll do another crush series - I tend to like the boys I never got much more than the ones I did. It's a problem.
I read you through Bloglines usually, so I don't know if I show up or not. But I do enjoy your posts - I'm impressed at their crafted nature (and that's not to say that they sound artificial or anything - they're clearly something you've thought a lot about. I just kind of spew onto the keyboard).
You don't show up, New Kid! I'm glad to know you're out there - I had thought I lost my reader in your city. It was giving me a bit of a complex (because I'm super-cool like that), and I was thinking about it on my walk today. Very weird.
I enjoy your site very much, and envy you the ease of your posts. I try not to publish pieces that don't flow, but sometimes I fear the effort plays out in some of what I write. I think having so many readers speaks for itself - your bloglines subscriber list is huge! :)
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