Whiners Never Quit

This is a warning. I'm going to do some major whining today. If you don't like to listen to overfed ad brats whine, I don't blame you. Now would be a good time to abort.

One of the characteristics of blogging that makes it different from most other forms of writing is that you get almost instantaneous feedback.

Each night, I post the next day's blog at midnight PDT. I wake up each morning at about 6:45. After I do a few of those nasty things you do when you wake up, I go over to my computer and check on how many visitors I've had.

By checking my visitor count at 7:00 a.m., I can predict pretty accurately how many visitors I'll have to the blog that day.

Yesterday morning I woke up and was very disappointed. I spent a good part of Saturday writing yesterday's post. I actually re-wrote it three times. I had a very good feeling about it.

I thought it was both interesting and entertaining. I thought it was controversial and snarky enough to attract attention, but thoughtful enough not to be dismissed as just immoderate bluster.

In other words, I thought I had written something good for a change.

While it did get a lot of comments, it did not attract a lot of readers. I was surprised and disappointed.

I could have written one more "5 Reason Why Twitter Sucks" post and gotten 50% more readers (those posts always get big numbers.)

Writing can be a very frustrating experience. Sometimes you write something you think is good, and no one pays any attention. Sometimes you write something very trivial, and you get massive response.

Can you imagine how real writers feel, who spend 5 years on a novel that no one ever notices?

Somewhere deep inside I know I'm supposed to believe it's the quality of my readership that counts and not the quantity. But I guess being in advertising all these years makes me a little uncomfortable when something I do doesn't get a good response. I mean, besides foreplay.

To atone for all this whining, I have posted something less self-indulgent below.