I’m 10,000

You know, the power of “hits” is a curious thing.
Makes one man weep, makes another man sing…

Sorry. Didn’t intend to start this blog entry like a Huey Lewis song. Honest.
It’s just that I’m quite delighted to have hit 10,000 visits. It’s a milestone in blogging, like the 1 yr anniversary, or the first 1,000 hit-mark. And it’s more palatable than working out how many thousands of words have been spent keeping the blog up to date (especially to a novelist, who should really be expending those 80,000 words on his latest magnum opus).

But ultimately blogging isn’t about the hits. If I’d only achieved half as many, I suppose I wouldn’t have been that bothered. You see, if you break hits down, there must be a percentage of random “hitting” due to accidents with the mouse button, or arbitrary Googling that have brought people to this blog.

For example, the Sheffield floods had brought a few Googlers hoping to get the low down on the state of the city. As did the blog entry on Scott Matthews, and Nik Markovina. They weren’t designed to attract unusual visitors, it’s just that these things were relevant to me at that point.
Hopefully those who have wandered here by accident have stayed a while and thought the journey wasn’t a complete waste of time. And if that has happened, then I have done my job. If that’s happened, the hits don’t matter because I’ve brought people in – if only briefly – into this barmy little world of mine.

So 10,000 hits, on… Sorry 10,000 and 4… and this blog rolls towards it’s end date, sometime at the close of August, when the new blog kicks in. I haven’t done any extra work on the “Macmillan New Writers” project recently - other things have taken over - but it’s in the post.
I’m at the point where I can load on the thumbnails of the books, including a little box at the top entitled “This month’s novelist” – and before anyone asks, no it will not feature the Macmillan New Writers in nude poses with nothing but their books to hide their blushes, no matter how much you protest.