9 Months Gestating My Blog Baby: Nourishing a Platform

Two crazies does not make a sane.  

I just passed 50,000 views, which if you asked me before I read up on this stuff, would've seemed really impressive. For nine months--like a pregnancy--I've been pumping my blog full of vital nutrients: stories, opinions, features, nonsense, idiocy, useless tips, and tiny pieces of my soul. Thank God I can't carry a real baby, it'd probably be a little like Dennis Rodman. And we don't need any more Worm-like personalities in this US, spouting their moronic world views to nuclear armed countries.

Diplomacy skills aside, I've learned mucho in 9 months. I started this website because all these fancy personalities said that having a strong platform is the ONLY way to get published nowadays; and since I spent a year writing a book, getting published seemed like an important goal. Oh, sure, there are still the random stories of somebody getting paid six figures without having a manuscript written, but for the most part, the publishing industry is only interested in people already with a huge following: sure-fire bets.

Many do not know the end times prophecy:
"for man will grow dumb in the last days, he
will seek entertainment in the form of "fail
videos."  I will smite them with books. Big
Russian books."  

I wanted to be one of those bets. So I started building. And you started coming. And something grass roots began developing. I thought, like Jay Gatsby, if I can just "run faster, stretch out {my} arms farther...one fine morning---" I would finally make it. One of these blogs has to go viral eventually, right? I mean, everything goes viral. Videos on Youtube that literally make your brain want to divorce your visual cortex get millions of views. Surely, If I write something relevant and funny, and thought provoking, I'll get noticed by a big wig, and within a week, I'll be smoking cigars on Airforce One, talking about Kim Jong Il and letting it rain pages of my book.

I didn't really think that. I don't have that much of an ego. And I don't like ripping up books (especially ones that might be mine).

But I did think, man, if 50,000 people found my website in my first year and read my stuff, and liked, and linked, and commented and became followers, then surely that would impress a publisher enough to take a chance on me.

Who knows, it may happen yet. I'm not holding my breath. It looks like the industry is forcing people to take chances on their own via self-publishing or e-publishing. Which is fine. Make the artist market his goods. No risk, no reward; it's capitalism, baby.

Going out on the streets selling my books would give me ample material to keep writing books.  

But something else happened along the way.  I learned I actually like doing this.  My first blog was titled Blogging Is Dead.  I really thought the concept of blogging had faded away like LA Gear shoes.  Then I met some writers on their blogs, and commented, and they started commenting, and before I knew it, I cared more about reading their blogs than I did reading the Huffington Post, Fox News, or ESPN.

The news, lately, has became even more impersonal, while my blog friend's lives and stories became relevant. I shouldn't be surprised, I'm always looking for ways to make curriculum relevant to students, so I should've seen this coming. I guess I'm attracted to anecdotal stories.

Long story short--I started this blog with selfish intentions. I cared about my daily numbers and gaining followers, and getting likes and becoming viable on Google, and trying to impress a publisher.

Blog Party--BYOH: Bring Your Own Hotspot. 

Then I realized that starting a dialogue with other intelligent humans on any number of subjects; writing whatever the heck I fancy that week; and having a spot to test my ideas on an unwitting audience---well all that is priceless.

I also made some friends along the way.  So happy gestation period everyone. Thank you for supporting and reading and putting your two cents into my little world. Together, we've made a very unfortunate baby, but I love it anyway.