You have entered the realm of a writer.

Welcome to A Writer's Landscape!

You have entered the realm of my mind where words play with the fabric of our existence. This is the map of my imagination: the very foundations of inspiration, musing, and thought splayed for your wandering eyes. Dive deep into the tides of these forces and experience my reality, my fantasy, my world; and if you should be so inclined, share your words with this land.

Peace and Love!

J Hart F

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Anniversary!

One year ago my life changed. My perspective about writing shifted so dramatically that, for a moment, I believed I would never accomplish my dreams and feared the inevitable rejections that are sure to come from many agents and publication houses. I am, perhaps, still afraid of the unknown responses I will receive from sending out my manuscript, but that's not what my focus has been over the past year.

Aside from the necessities of life (school, work, relationships, etc.), I have been primarily focused on A Writer's Landscape. A year ago today, I posted my first blog and began an interesting journey of self-realization. Looking back over these many posts, I've noticed several things:

~ I really do enjoy writing poetry (which is a good thing because I'm not in a poetry class!)
~ When life is strenuous, I lay off my writing. This is an unfortunate side effect of stressful schedules and hardships.
~ I dive into something so intensely for a while, and then abandon it quite abruptly. Examples are my Haiku and "The Changed Earth." I can't decide if this is a good thing or if I need to focus more. On one hand, I get to experience and work with many different genres. On the other hand, I might leave things unfinished.
~ I am writing more now than I ever have in my life.

Lets see... Shall we analyze the statistics of my blog? The easiest one to show is what I've actually written. I made a commitment (several times) to write a blog for every day of the year. This would accumulate to 365 blogs. Unfortunately I didn't quite make it to this beautiful number. However, I did write 249 blogs in 1 year, bringing my 'grade' to a 68.2%. Is this good or bad? I feel like it's an accomplishment for me! This year, perhaps, I can break 70% and hit at least 75% of my goal (which still stands at 1 a day for a year since I didn't really manage to complete this commitment).

On another front, my Facebook fan-page currently has 251 fans. This is about half of the number I want before I start courting an agent. Of these 251 fans, approximately 120 of them are 'active users' of my fan-page, which I believe means they at least read my posts and/or look at my fan-page. The only saddening thing about my fan-page is how little anyone uses the discussion boards. I think one of my new goals is to refocus the discussions and get my fans to be more active on them! I want to discuss my work. I want to dive into what I write (cause sometime's my words are very subconscious and I don't really know what's going on in the verse).

Finally, my statcounter, which is clever and creepy, informs me that the average time spent on my blog is approximately 2:31 minutes (given the last six months worth of data). I've watched this number rise and fall and stabilize. At one point, I was down to 1 minute. I felt tragically demoralized; but I figured there are a lot of look-i-loos who just happen to stumble upon my blog and aren't looking for literature. I hope the time starts to rise again. Six months ago the average was 8 minutes. That was a beautiful number! The longest stay on my blog, which I think I have to thank Chad for, was 45 minutes (according to my stat-websites). WOOHOO! I like the look of that. (LOVE YOU). And the spread of the viewers has diversified greatly. I don't think there's a region in the United States that doesn't have someone looking at my blog occasionally. Then there are the foreigners as well: Australia, Russia (oddly), Denmark, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil. I would say this is a good spread, though I'm not sure how they came upon my blog, or whether they stayed for any duration. C'est la vie.

I guess the question before me is: "Where do I want to go from here?"

The answer is a little more complex than I anticipated months ago (when contemplating my blog's big birthday). I want to interact more with you, my readers. I want to know what you want to see. I want to know what you enjoy, what you don't like, what could be improved. I want to talk with you all, and have those conversations be available for others who may stumble upon my creations here. I want to see more active users on my Fan-Page who have questions or want to have discussions about things. I want to write more, and I want to know what you want to read.

However, for myself: I will keep on writing. Seeing as I'm in a poetry class at the moment, I'll be putting up a vast array of poems that we'll be working on. There will also be a lot more critiques of what I'm reading for that class. And as I'm going through a major life change right now, there will be a lot of deep, symbolic things to come (which I know are harder to understand, but that's how I deal with things).

I'm honored and thankful that you're joined me on my journey over the past year! I hope you stick around and continue to find enjoyment in the words I'm writing.

With Much Love and Happiness,

J Hart F

2 comments:

  1. I got a mention?! By name?!?! That. Is. Awesome!!
    Unless it isn't actually me, but like... your cousin Chad or something. I suppose I shouldn't be presumptuous...

    Whatever- I'm very proud of you! I can't believe it's been a year but at the same time I remember your first Changed Earth post and it seems like FOREVER ago. I'm very happy that you continued on with it and I hope you finish. If you need motivation I can always start hounding you again. It's totally what I do to myself. Now I have completion issues which is usually a good thing, but can be a burden as well.

    Like when I watched the movie "Splice"? If only I could have convinced myself to turn it off halfway through. *shudder*

    I digress...

    Anyway, I'm very proud of you and your blog.

    Do you realize that we barely knew each other until you put your writing out there. It's kind of responsible for you being one of my most beloved friends. And that? Is pretty special.

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  2. I didn't realize that until just now. That's amazing... We've grown so much over the past year! And we're all the better for it!

    And you suffered through "Splice" all the way? I haven't seen it yet. I'll have to check it out... or not... lol

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