400th Post!

Blog Post No. 400

Seven and a half years of writing weekly and a couple of years prior of ten spotty posts. Add them all together and you get 400 posts on this blog. Hurray for me. Looking back on the post for number 300, I remember not many people were impressed. That’s fair. As I say most end of the year posts, it’s a personal goal that means little to anyone but me. It’s probably more engaging for readers if I can make some of the things I write here interesting. (Which I hope I do). Achievements like numbers and years are for me. Maybe one day if I can find a following for my books, those readers will care. Though, again, I’d rather they care about the books than some blog that I scrape out each week.

Overall, I’ve been losing readers. Not just during the pandemic either. 2016 was my best year for visitors and views by far. It’s been a slow decline since then (this year being even worse). I hoped that with more books coming out that the views on the blog would increase, but to be honest, other than posting every week, I really don’t do anything to get people to come here and read anything. I share the posts on social media, but while I get likes on those platforms, they don’t usually translate to views or likes here. I don’t want to sound like I’m moping. If I were really concerned, there is a lot more that I could be doing to improve things around here and seek out readers. With the Invasion Novel so close to being written (first draft at least) and the next novella in The Synthetic Albatross Series waiting to be written in August, I’m not all that focused on much else.

So, I’ll keep writing my weekly post for now. It’s really the least I can do. Hopefully I can make enough of them interesting for enough people that the site doesn’t completely die. Though, my parents would still be here to read the posts, so even then I’d probably keep going. I have a long list of things requiring my attention and the ones that are writing related alone are enough to keep me busy for a long time. This blog is sadly low on the list, so other than basic maintenance, it’s not likely to change anytime soon. My social media is in the same boat, but worse in the pandemic since I’m actively spending less time there and I have even fewer things to share.

Brief update to lighten the mood. The Invasion Novel is over 121 000 words. I’m still afraid of the ending, but I made a muddled list of all the loose ends to tie up and I’ve been knocking them down one or two at a time. I hope to have the first draft finished by the end of the month so that I can start the novella in August. My goal is to speed up the novella process even more and get back to editing the novel before the end of the year. Ideally even sooner (as it’s going to take a lot of work). I’m still not good at juggling projects, but practice makes perfect.

That’s all for now. 400 posts! Come back next week for 401.