Returning the Gauntlet

It is pretty funny that I earn half of my money as a writer. I write all kinds of things - ads, newsletters, marketing kits, proposals. I spend hours and hours of my life writing, but somehow, I can't manage to write my own blog.

I'm pretty sure that much of the problem I have in writing is that I spend too much time examining my stats and comments. They are pretty low. They've always been low-ish, and it hasn't really ever bothered me. I figured 25 readers a day wasn't bad. Most of those people are my friends, a small handful are friends of other bloggers, and still some are people who just sort of stumbled along and liked what they saw.

These days, I'm down to about 5 readers on a good day, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't bothered by the drop. I think part of the reason I don't blog is because I know that even my own friends don't stop by more than once every few months. There is little interest in what I write here, and I guess that's ok - I haven't had the energy to write about anything much, even though I have a whole notebook of blog ideas.

Fred was never supposed to be about popularity, but that is exactly what it has become for me. I look at other people's stats and compare them to mine, and I get all jealous. These various other people are very creative and put a lot of time and energy into the crafting of their work, and I don't begrudge them their readership. I just need to stop competing with them.

That's why I'm getting rid of my stats counter. If I don't know who reads my blog when, I won't miss them when they don't show up for over a year. If that doesn't work, I'm killing the comments.

And if that doesn't work, maybe this whole blog thing just wasn't for me.