Today marks eleven (cue Spinal Tap) years since I began posting to this webspace. As I write this next entry in my series of annual reports about the status of this site, I have published 1893 posts to this webspace (this will be 1894), as well as revising individual pages, attracting 294455 views from 101274 visitors. As such, in the past year, I have published 188 posts, garnering 88943 views from 39641 visitors (per “Reflective Comments about the Tenth Year”).
The following graphs present changes over time, noting posts, then views, then visitors.
It has clearly been quite a year for this webspace, certainly the highest-performing yet. There is still the spike in number of posts during the 2016-2017 year, but that was when I was working on serialized fiction, generating much material. Working on #NaPoWriMo2026 seems to have been a benefit to my post-count, and especially to my readership (along with pushing ahead the Robin Hobb Reread), so I do think I will do something similar in the future.
Such comments as these invite looking back at things, and I took some opportunity to do so, glancing not only at these comments’ parallel from last year, but also from years one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine. I’m glad to have done so; for one, I found a link between posts that needed to be corrected, and I took the opportunity to do so. For another, I find some comfort in seeing a snapshot of my development as a writer across time. While it is the case that I keep a lot of stuff, probably more than is healthy for me to do, it is also the case that I don’t look at it as much as I probably ought to, given how much I keep. So much is more true digitally than physically; I at least see my bookshelves as I sit at my office desk, but the files I have on hand in my hard drive and the posts I’ve left across more than a decade of blogging (here alone, let alone in other places such as this) don’t even get that much attention on anything resembling a regular basis. Consequently, I’m not often presented with the changes to my work over time; having opportunity to look back and see that it took me three years to start offering explanatory graphics in these reports, for example, is useful. Seeing that I came into a common pattern in the fourth year, which I adjusted in the seventh and have generally maintained since, is useful. Other things, of use to me and to others (because I don’t mind being used as a data-set for academic researchers, although citation would be greatly appreciated), could doubtlessly be pointed out, but the synopsis of how my writing, both in terms of its words and the paratextual situation of those words, has developed is good to see on its own; it’s nice to think that I have gotten better because it suggests, strongly, that I can keep getting better. And I can’t be the only one for whom so much is true.
I still look forward to continuing my efforts here, as well as to offering writing to order. If you’d like to hire some done, please fill out the form below!
Elliott RWI 