Failure is Always an Option

While I've already talked about abandoning stories, there are more ways to fall short of the goal than that.

Take this blog, for instance. It was created to expand my audience, but it seems to have done just the opposite. I get relatively consistent feedback from two people, both of whom I knew before starting this blog. I haven't had a comment from another passerby in months. My overall hits have more or less increased since the blog started, but the vast majority of these hits/referrals come from spam sites that hope to make me click their links in the Stats page so they can give me a computer virus. Not exactly what I would call popularity.

So, in all honesty, this blog is a failure. I was going to give it time, but it's been a year, and my monthly hits aren't even increasing. If anything, they've gone down due to the slower update pace—but I'm too busy to do much about that. I've already eaten through my three-post buffer, and I'm running low on post ideas, too.

That's not to say I intend to shut this down. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm doing here. If at first you don't succeed, redefine success, right? Maybe I can't get any new readers with this. I'm still letting a few that I have know what's going on, and I'm still keeping track of ideas. Writing prompts are a nice challenge sometimes (in fact, it took the last post for me to write anything after I finished Phoenix Wright: Ace Tribute). And rambling about writing has its advantages, too. I'm not entirely sure what, but I've never been one for a lot of introspection, and at least I'm writing something instead of playing video games or other such things that aren't productive in a straightforward way. Perhaps this blog itself isn't really that productive, but... It's still worth something, right?

Really, I'm not sure. I just hope that the few of us involved in this enjoy it enough to justify its other failures. I'm sure we can figure something out.