My blog is officially
two today, and just like last year, I thought it would be interesting
to do a post that is more for me than anyone else. A post that will
let me see what I did in the last year, and how that improved on the
year before. It will also include some shout-outs and thanks, as I didn't do it alone.
The year before last I wrote 43 blog posts. This past year I did 75. I’m pleased that I
almost doubled my output, even though I know quantity is no assurance
of quality. I will aim to double it again this year.
I went from around 25
Twitter followers to around 300. I’m not chasing numbers as it’s
all about quality followers, not just slack-jawed “I’ll follow
you if you follow me’ers.” Twitter is nice but I don’t think
I’m social enough to really take full advantage. Even so, my goal
for this year is to pass the 1000 follower mark.
My blog traffic went
from around 2,000 hits to around 21,000. It’s nice to see some
traffic, even if a lot of it is just automated bots and crawlers. I
think this year my goal will be another 10X increase to around
200,000 hits.
I managed to get an
article into every edition of the Geek Syndicate Magazine, and
thirteen articles/reviews for the website. I will aim to continue
that level of contribution to the magazine (as it is beyond my power
to make it come out more frequently) but I will try to increase my website
contributions.
I wrote 9 film reviews
for the Generic Movie and TV blog before I decided to part company
with them and put my effort into my other areas of interest. I did
have a look at letterboxd but think that I will just keep the odd
film review to my blog.
I wrote 17 pieces of
flash fiction for #fridayflash. Fridayflash is a great community of
writers and it has only really been the second half of the year that
I have been able to fully take part and commit to publishing a story
each week. I think it has helped my writing a good degree to have
something weekly to aim for.
I entered 5
competitions gaining various places/mentions in each, which won me a
free ebook (Grey Matter Press) and my stories featuring in 3 print and ebook anthologies (Darker Times).
I had only entered one competition before these, and that was before
this blog even existed. I am committed to keeping the competition
entries flowing as I feel that they are the main way to gauge my
progress and, if won, the main way to get my name out more. It was also very nice to be able to hold my work in printed form, something physical to show for the effort. On a larger note, I aim to plan and complete a novel of some kind in the next 12 months.
I joined the Horror Blogger Alliance, which has led to three review requests from people
that found my blog and asked me if I fancied reviewing their
books/films.
I was given a Liebster
award by Steve Green which was very kind of him. It wasn’t my first
but the first one I was able to accept. Paul Dail gave me my first
but it came at a time where I couldn’t meet the criteria for
accepting it and so it fell from my mind. I appreciated the gesture
though.
One low point was that
I did sign up to do NaNoWriMo but just couldn’t get started with
it. I had a couple of ideas for novels that I wanted to follow and
the indecision ended up putting too much pressure on me so I just let
it drop.
As usual, I would like
to thank my good friend Paul Brewer, who has tirelessly commented on my posts when I'm sure he has had much more interesting things
to be getting on with. Thanks as always Paul :).
Thanks to everyone who knows me, reads my stuff and lets me know that I am not writing in a vacuum.
Casey.
