I accidentally clicked on "Send to Blogger" this morning on a Google Reader post when I intended "Send to Buffer." So, I canceled that and then actually logged in to Blogger to ensure I didn't steal Michael Hyatt's post this morning. I like to post links for other people's blogs, but I certainly never want to just repost their work. After all, most of us measure whether we're making an impact by two things: comments and traffic. No comments, no traffic, that means we're wasting our time. And if I re-blog his post, I get his traffic. That's not fair to him.
Long intro to this point: I looked at my "posts" list on the Blogger dashboard, the area from whence I can control my blog, and I see that I have 999 blog posts. Two caveats: no, none of them endorse Herman Cain's tax plan; yes, one of them is a pre-scheduled book review for next week.
That, however, makes this blog post #1000 on my own blog. I've guest-posted a few times and places, but this makes 1000.
If I had paid attention, I would have made a huge deal about this, given away something (maybe not), and focused my topic about making your efforts matter and some such nonsense.
I didn't even realize it until this morning, when I'm already behind because I like to post early and I'm posting late. So, I haven't looked to see what the "most popular" post has been or "most commented" or anything else.
It does have me reflecting on this, though—for some time, my goal has been to average 500 words per post. Some are shorter, like the Monday sermon round ups. Some are longer, like yesterday's. The average may run about 500 words, though, so we'll use that.
500 * 1000= 500,000. 500,000 words. One half-million words on the blog, written and delivered. Factor out book reviews, which are probably 20% of the blog. 500,000 * .8= 400,000.
A good book runs between 80,000 and 125,000.
If I had written as diligently but piece by piece to write a book, I'd have written 3 of them. Or a book and a dissertation, and I'd be a Ph.D.
Instead, I'm a blogger. Which is not really a bad thing. I enjoy venting my thoughts out into the void. The thoughts run a little scattered, but they are what they are. I think I'm finding my rhythm in writing, but not perfectly yet.
So, to those of you who have been through the 5-plus years it's taken, thanks. I'll try to get to 2,000 a little quicker. Maybe 4 years or less. For newcomers, welcome aboard. I'm not the world's most amazing blogger (that link is here) but I try not to disappoint.
Doug
No comments:
Post a Comment
To deal with SPAM comments, all comments are moderated. I'm typically willing to post contrary views...but I also only check the list once a day, so if you posted within the last 24 hours, I may not be to it yet.