Just Call Me Little Cocky

Did a bit of decompressing today, in short. Been immersing myself in so many different things lately that I basically just took time out of the bathysphere to chill and let the music of the spheres guide me for a bit. Which is to say I sat around on my lazy ass and did a whole lot of nothing much. Just, you know, dicked around and did some reading and researching, some cooking and some cleaning, some sleeping and some waking. Don’t really have many posts burning in the back of my head at the moment – just some sketched out that I’d like to get done – so I’m just going to ramble on about my thoughts here to preview what might bubble up tomorrow from today’s splinters:

The other day I made a point in my lonely little comment thread (Not that I’m complaining or anything, a single comment in only four days worth of time is better than a lot of other blogs have managed, I’m just getting a mite greedy and more than a little confident. It won’t last, trust me.) of being a little apologetic about correcting my first commenter. He thought the volume of posts listed in the archives to your right was the result of a solid month’s worth of effort. When, really, it hasn’t been more than a week. And, as I said then, I’m not certain just how this blogging thing works and my production is a little on the unsustainable side at the moment. Not so much that I can’t given everything else I have to do just that I can’t do all that and still remain in my comfort zone of insanity for long. So, expect light days and heavy days, I’m saying, but I’m averaging about 8 posts per day. That’s fan freaking tastic according to Mr.Sifry over at Technorati. He says, “There is a strong correlation between the aging and post frequency of blogs and their authority and Technorati ranking.“ And I paraphrase here – go read that link it’s (fascinating stuff – that there’s a positive correlation between just how long a blog’s been around, just how many people link to it, and just how many posts it makes in a given day. All of which can be used to measure the success of one blog against another, relatively. Well, I might not have too much water in those first two jars but I’m pumping raw, cool ocean breeze into the last. And coming up with the content is usually the hardest part for any creative enterprise. Hanging around for a while (Mr. Sifry says the average age of a limitedly successful blog is around 250 days.) and getting a lot of links (Say, 10 or so) will come with due diligence and in their own sweet time. Yet, those marks are only slight increases over the baseline blog which averages 235 days of age and 6 links. But the amount of posts they make is a 150% increase. Hence, I would think the numbers are telling any struggling blogger, a legion which I certainly include myself in, to post. Post like the wind. Everything else is out of your direct control but if you hang in there and put some good posts out on a consistent basis you’ll build an audience which will help you to hang in there and increase your reach across the blogosphere – without you even telling them to! It’s the same principle that motivates authors or recording artists or journalists or anyone else who wants to sell a lot of a little thing. Interesting, if you’re thinking of running your blog as a business.

Also, while traipsing through the NaNo boards – and, yes, I’ve been neglecting my novel again – I did a bit of calculating and realized just why I’m not worried about finishing my novel just yet. It’s not just that I’ve internalized that the goal of the “contest” is to get my pen moving in any number of ways. It’s that I’m going to be one hell of a sprinter as the deadline approaches. To reach the finish line at this point from what I have so far – which is a solid framework and a bunch of notes – then I’d have average something like 3,000 words a day. Well, if this blog has proved nothing else it’s that when I put my mind to it I can churn out a lot of words in a day. Easily more than 3000 worth just today when I was puttering around and not really trying. I’ve calculated that 2000 (I an hour shouldn’t be too hard for me to reach. It’s just a matter of sitting down and cracking my own whip to get the hard work of having fun done. Write just two hours a day for the next ten days and, well, I get my certificate. Hole myself up in a cave during the last week and I only need three hours a day, give or take. I’m not trying to brag or anything here, I realize some people have other commitments and backgrounds that limit their output to far, far lower levels. But, well, some people have churned out a 50,000 novel in one day and I’m just trying to psyche myself up as I’m a proud member in good standing of the NO QUIT! Club. Ladies and gentlemen, what I’m getting at is that I have begun to write but I haven’t been spending a lot of time on the novel. With the right motivation and a little bit of time that sucker’s getting done if I have to nail myself to this chair to do so. And, now, that’s looking a lot more possible. Wouldn’t recommend my by now customary “wait until the last minute to think of something good” approach to everyone but, well, it works for me.

And fell down the wiki hole and delved into one link too many so, in the back of my mind, there’s the history of TV which was predated by radio which was predated by ever faster methods of printing…

*Snaps together*. I get it. I get it! Oh, yes, we can do this my future selves. I can do this. So can you.

On whatever day you should happen to think past upon this long gone iteration with some measure of fondness – and think well of me, please, I tried my best – trapped in the archives as if they were amber know this: I thought of it first. You just forgot. Now quit your moping and go out there and think up another few million comment ideas! We’ve got mindchildren to feed!

To everyone else listening to the crazy person ramble on with kindness before taking me back to that padded room I like so much, well, it boils down to this: I shouldn’t have been so quick to apologize for posting a lot. It’s not that I’m just a bit weird and off-putting because I do things in my own little way. It’s that I just might be the new breed. The next best thing. And you’re here on opening day. The blogosphere is growing older, bigger, and better every day and every way. It’s evolving. Maturing as a technology and a medium. And in a place as distributed and diffused and undisciplined as it was made to be, well, I think I just realized that I might just have a shot at making it to the varsity team. Stranger things have happened.

Outlook: I am the greatest blogger in the history of blogging to this date in time. It’s just everyone else doesn’t realize it yet.


[1] – Bah, completely over my self-imposed time limit not even including the time to track down a link and some editing. But, man, I don’t even care at this point.

[2] – Ack! Forgot to hit the magic go juice button!