The state of the blog and the week ahead for The Went Report

On the 30th April, I wrote a rather dispirited post where I acknowledged that I did not anticipate that I would be able to turn this into a fully functioning blog as I'd written precisely nothing in 8 days despite having given myself, as I thought, the freedom to do so.

Since that post I have  written 22 posts, comfortably exceeding my output in the previous 6 years! In addition , I have 2 drafts close to publication and a post with the best part of five thousand words nearing publication readiness. For an encore, I adjusted the settings on the blog and added some links so it functions like a real blog! Most of my posts have gained a small audience, smaller than what I am hoping I will have down the track, but better than nothing. My review of The Announcement has been picked up somewhere, as it continues to steadily add viewers, it is now past the 100 mark and gets a few views every day. Consequently, I  upgraded the post last week in response to that as it was a pretty thin review.

I usually advertise my posts on Facebook, and I have mentioned a couple of them on reddit and Stumble Upon and in varying Facebook forums. I will continue to do this and I hope some people will end up reading the blog on a regular basis.

I'm anticipating that my upcoming Bejweled Blitz series of posts will set some blog records for me. I think they are more likely than most of my posts to attract search engine attention over time and I think they will get  a fair number of visits from Facebook too, and the posts will remain topical for quite a while so  I'll mention them periodically on the Bejeweled Blitz fan forums. I'm thinking that a thousand views isn't an unreasonable expectation for them to get over time, and that higher than that is not impossible. 

My old list of possible blog topics has been organised, updated and is being added to as ideas occur to me. While I primarily write for myself I believe that there are other people who share some of my interests and feelings and will enjoy reading some of the things that I have to say. 

This week I'm looking to develop and post an account of my Tuesdays with Cassie, as I want a detailed post recording what she and I have done during her pre-school years to be available as she ages. I intend to post Part I of my Bejeweled series next Sunday, and publish the other parts on the following 2 Sundays. My book of the week post for this week will be about the Hairy Maclary books which Cassie and I have been having a ball with lately. My movie of the week for next week only needs some polishing and it's done, it's about the ESPN 30-30 documentary Broke.

This post actually started changing into something different about the nature of writing and the nature of my involvement with writing and I think it's the most deeply personal thing I've written, it's not done yet but I already feel the blood dripping onto the keyboard from the veins I opened up while I was writing it. That will be posted tomorrow.