Uphill Writing surpassed 700 posts yesterday. So what, you say? Fair question.
It is true that hitting this number, or any future number, isn’t that big of a deal—not in the overall scheme of things. Still, if you’ve blogged for any length of time you know what a passionate business it is, and what kind of battles one must fight, on a daily basis, to keep it going, the number might have some small significance.
My blogging guru, Dr. Bill Belew suggested that a Tipping Point of about 1000 posts and about 1 year is where you begin to see real growth in a blog. He has the numbers and comparative charts to prove it.
I’ve seen a steady growth in readership of UhW over the past months, and can point to clear times when each new plateau was reached. For a fairly new blogger, this is pretty exciting.
So, now, without further ado, the Top 10 of the last 100 posts:
- Is It Possible to Tell a Story Without Fantasy? Can we keep our beliefs and prejudices out of our writing? Should we even try?
- And Now Comes the Heart Part. Crafted emotional impact is a good thing, but what about those times that your emotions jump in and stir things up unbidden?
- The Character’s Journey: Where Will It End? I suggest that some of the most satisfying stories we read are those I think of as “Journey” stories. Whether the journey is physical distance, or emotional and personal growth, the changing of the protagonist is gold.
- Side-Stepping the Obvious: Making Dialogue Flow. As with movies and television, dialogue in books cannot be real. Real is boring, repetitive, slangy, and often just uninteresting. It must, however, give the feeling of being real.
- The Things That You Have to Do In Order to Do the Things You Need to Do… Ever find yourself being sucked down into a whirlpool of trivia? You know the feeling, the “I can’t write with a cluttered desk syndrome”, and its many cousins.
- The Best Way to Keep One’s Word is to Not Give it. We all make promises. We promise pages to our editors, we promise to find a way to bathe the cat that doesn’t require bandages, we promise… we promise the moon. But in writing we are held to a responsibility higher still.
- Does Writing Ever Get Any Easier? No, but here is the reason that’s not so bad.
- Stringing Your Reader Along. Let’s talk about foreshadowing, one of the most potent tools in the writer’s bag of tricks.
- Take Him Away He’s Got Nothing To Say. If your personal philosophies leak out into your story, is that a good thing?
- Language: The Thriving Skill of Miscommunication. Ever been amazed that your friend or spouse totally misunderstands something spoken in the language you have both shared for decades?
Well, gang. That’s it for this edition of the Top 10. I hope to see you here for the Eighth edition. After all, it’s only 100 posts away.
Filed under: Kudos, Shout-Outs!, Top Ten | Tagged: 700 Posts, Looking back, Review, Top Ten
Well done Richard.
Blogging is indeed a passionate business that’s not understood by those who don’t blog. Some of my non-blogger friends think I am quite insane; to them I can only quote:
“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.”
Angela Monet
Keep up the good work
Thanks, Cin. Oh, and I love that quote.
I think I’m going to have to go back and review the top ten. Congratulations, RikScott on reaching another plateau.
Thanks, Loreen. I cannot help but wonder what the next 100 will be like.
Excellent effort & and somewhat miraculous milestone given the relative infancy of your blog.
Post 1 article a week for 13.46 years –> post #700
Post 5 articles a week for 140 weeks –> post #700
Post 2 articles a day for 350 days –> post #700
Or do what you did . . . post 700 articles in 5 months at the rate of 4.67 articles a day.
Pretty damn impressive, especially for someone of less than tender years. : D
Congrats!
Eh? Speak up, girlie!
Oops. Sorry. Slipped into my “less than tender years” mode.
I’ve got the feeling that SLtW is doing pretty well numbers-wise as well. Curse you for not installing a sitemeter (grin) so I could keep track.
For awhile I was doing 7 posts per day (average), but as other writing requirments (eclectic-engine.com, and others) have worked their way in, I’ve cut down to about 4 per day.
YOU on the other hand seem to be cranking out 3 or 4 per hour these days. Damn. No rest for the weary.
I’ve been posting 100 posts a month, on average ~ just passed 400 posts in 4 months of blogging.
Sorry about the sitemeter, Rik. I decided that it would be one more “distraction” for you, for me, or for both of us.
LOL : )
I did add a “blog stats” to my widgets ~ currently 15,494 hits and climbing daily.
Way to go! You’ve worked hard to get here and now the end is in sight. Keep at it.
Hardly an end, Jodi. More like a plateau.
You know what I meant – your goal of 1000 posts is becoming a reality. I can’t wait to see what happens when you get there.