For the past few months, it’s been pretty quiet around the site. Less updates, with gaps of silence between each one. It seems breakthroughs in my personal/professional life and the frequency of site updates are inversely proportional. The more going behind the scenes, the less I find myself writing about matters that divert creative energy from those endeavors in a public forum. Or wanting to write about them at all, actually.
I suppose such reaction works counter-intuitively in practice. Certain happenings could be interesting to outsiders, but my tendency to be quiet about major developments in the moment is just something I do. Often by the time I make peace with some weighty events and reach a place where they stop drawing down so much mental and creative energy, the prospect of posting about them seems a step backwards. Really, the world has bigger issues than my problems coping with good or bad news, does it not?
Maybe such reasoning is moot given the frenetic posts on Twitter that have consumed the collective Internet consciousness in the past year. Lately it seems anything, including finding scratchy toilet paper in a friend’s bathroom is notable–even while attending a party where one made the shocking discovery.
All I can do is reach for a balance that works and feels right. Somewhere between period check-ins and noting what’s on the end of my fork is probably the answer.
In the meantime, here’s two points of interest:
Met with Steve about the video project. He’s going to make some very surgical tweaks in the next few days, and then apply a nifty filter that will make the digital video look more like film. And insert some little surprises for the super attentive.
I’m writing again. Ahh.
I’ve heard from more than one writer who keeps a blog that the number of posts, and the number of comments on their posts, has been gone down quite a bit in the last few months. Myself included. I’ve noticed almost a complete drop-off of comments on my site, although my Google Analytics says my web traffic is still pretty much the same.
These other writers mentioned Twitter as being the cause. It’s not something I would have guessed, but it does make some sense when you think about it.
I’d be more upset about fewer people commenting on my posts if said posts were more exciting than they are. I suspect things will shoot back up once I sell a novel and actually have stuff to talk about, or maybe when Twitter is replaced by the Next Big Thing.
While Twitter definitely is diverting eyeballs this year, I think another component in the trend might stem from economic uncertainty.
Lots of people have very real concern about their continued ability to pay their bills and that can dampen one’s interest in less exigent pursuits.
I’m not sure book sales drive site traffic, either. Most of the top selling authors spend very little time online, though in their case it’s probably more indicative of their writing commitments than apprehensions about making the mortgage payment.