Tag: write on edge

Thirty-One in Thirty-One

~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

Check this out:

Pretty cool right?  I don’t know if I’ve ever accomplished that before.  Possibly a millenia ago when I first started blogging on my old and long forgotten, top-secret blog.  I think that’s pretty neet though.

I said I was going to make an effort to write more and clearly I did.  Some of it was fluff, but hey, I can’t imagine you want to read deep and insightful every day any more than I want to write deep and insightful every day.  And yes, I’m giving myself credit for being deep and insightful even if I’m not really.  LET ME HAVE THIS!!!  🙂

It’s been a pretty fascinating experience too.  I’ve actually seen my blog readership grow this month.  Crap! I swore I wasn’t going to do this!  I find it kind of annoying when people write about how many people read their blogs but in this case it seems kind of important.  See, I used to want to be a big famous blogger.  I wanted to have thousands upon thousands of readers and I wanted to make money off my blog and I wanted to be able to quit my job and live off the revenue.  (Oh, who’m I kidding?  I still want that, but it’s not going to happen.)  I realized that I don’t have the right stuff for that.  I don’t have an interesting enough life, nor the ability to be all cute and quippy about my life, nor an endless influx of blogging material to draw from.  I also don’t have the business acumen or the social skills to promote myself enough to make it work.  (That’s something that may become a problem for me, which I’ll be discussing further in the near future.)  And don’t even get me started on my lack of technical skills when it comes to web development and making all the different features and applications and websites at my disposal play nicely together.

So I know I’m not going to be a big, rich and famous super-blogger and I’m okay with that.  But here’s what I am.  I am a writer.  I write about my feelings.  I write about my experiences (however uninteresting or few-and-far-between they may be.)  And I write about my views.  Nobody asked me.  And nobody has to read my opinions, but that’s why this is my space and not someone elses.  And that’s all well and good, except, I AM a writer and as a writer, I want people to read my words.  So I like to watch my statistics and see the numbers growing.

Last month, I assume due in part to my increased activity, I went from four blog subscribers (2 by e-mail – and both the same person – and 2 on WordPress.com), to 29.  (Don’t be fooled by the 372 listed at the top of this page.  WordPress is being generous and including my twitter followers in that number.  I guarantee you, most of them are not coming to my blog.  Hell, half of them aren’t even people.)  In addition to the subscribers, I seem to be getting a lot of people randomly coming across my blog through search terms, or because they’ve saved my URL as a favorite instead of using a reader or e-mail subscription.  The truth is, the most hits I’ve gotten in a single day is about 45 and that’s rare, but my numbers have still climbed considerably from where they were a year ago (or even a month ago.)

Thanks to my participation in the Write on Edge community, I’ve gained some additional periodic commenters; it’s no longer limited to only Terri.  It’s awesome to see more participation on this page.  I’ve also been more actively participating on other people’s blogs leaving comments more regularly…  That may have helped with bringing people here too…  Maybe.

Anyway, it’s really been a lot of fun, this month of writing.  It’s been surprisingly invigorating.  I remember, now, that writing is something I need to do.  It’s why I’m on this earth, I think.  (It may not be the only reason, but it’s certainly a reason I can’t ignore.)

So I’m grateful to all of you who read this.  I’m thrilled that you’ve stumbled across these pages and that so many have continued to come back.  I hope you’ll tell your friends…  No really.  Tell your friends.  That’ll be relevant later when I get around to that problematic, self-promotion thing.

Write On Edge: Salt Water

~ riggledo ~ 11 Comments

This is another Write on Edge piece.  The prompt this week was “salt water”  In this piece of fiction, the salt water was to be used to solve a problem:

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Hunter awoke from deep sleep as a ray of light played across his eyes.  After a long stretch, he sat up in bed, casting his gaze toward the bay window.  The skies were clear.  The sun already shone brightly at 6:30 on this Saturday morning.  Today was the day.  Hunter cast aside the cobwebs in his mind and lunged from his bed, anxious to awaken his roommate, Cal.

They shared an over-priced flat that looked out over San Francisco’s Ocean Beach.  The price they paid in rent, the endless days of fog and gray skies, they were all worthwhile when they got a clear day like today.  They both liked to make the most of it; a run in the sand, a game of Frisbee, a lay out in the sun, it didn’t matter.

The beach was empty this early, too cold to lay out, but a rollicking game of Frisbee sounded just about right to them both and they played hard.  Suddenly, Hunter let out a shout of disgust.  “Why don’t people clean up after their dogs?” he groused to Cal as he hopped on one foot, not wanting to step on the crap again.

Cal approached his friend and after ducking under Hunter’s arm helped him to the water’s edge.  “Here,” he said, “use the water to wash off.”  As Hunter splashed in the water and rubbed his soiled foot on the sand, Cal stared out at the rolling waves.

Hunter looked at his friend.  When he saw Cal’s posture, squinted eyes, head thrust forward at the waters, he asked, “What is it?”  He turned toward the sea, “What are you looking at?”

“Look,” Cal said, pointing at the tumbling form, approaching through the froth.  “What is that?”

Soon, their questions were answered as the body, broken and battered, washed ashore, near their feet.