It’s the Not Knowing that Kills You

A sideways look at age, Blogging, Colin McQueen - writer, Getting Older, Humour, My Life, Real life through the kaleidoscope of age 4 Minutes
Photo by Thiébaud Faix on Unsplash

Last week was a particularly disappointing one for my blog1 with views well below even my own normal paltry highs.  I would like to understand why this might have been because, quite frankly, I would like to try to do something about it.  I have read through the week’s posts (and I can only apologise) but I can’t honestly find any particular reason for such a drop-off in readership: everything chugged along just as aimlessly as ever it did.  Tuesday followed its normal eclectic2 path and last week I published a short sketch.  In days of yore I wrote sketches by the dozen.  There was a time when it appeared that people might be interested in them.  Sketch comedy, it seems, no longer exists anywhere other than between my ears, but I like it, so you may get more.  It doesn’t really matter; very few people read the blog on Tuesday.  It is the only day that I currently approach with no semblance of a plan.  Tuesday is me – a decrepit old mirrorball with half of the mirrors hanging off and a troubling amount of smoke coming from the motor that is supposed to make the whole thing turn – so that probably explains a lot.

Wednesday, as has become normal, was a little, nonsensical, vaguely zoological rhyme.  I started these nine months ago and I decided that I could keep them going for a year without quite realising how long that year could be.  Poetry is normally a ‘banker’ for WordPress views.  Mostly it does very well, but not last week.  Was it particularly poor?  Well, it depends upon what you compare it with.  Compared with anything that could even vaguely be described as ‘acceptable’, yes, it is poor, but compared with the rest of my own poetic output it ranks somewhere in the territory of not particularly worse than any of the rest of it, so again I am left without an explanation.  Perhaps it was a little sombre for a nonsense rhyme…  except, except, except, to know that, you’d have had to have read it and hardly anybody did.  Perhaps, dear reader, you have just become bored of the whole concept.  Maybe a year is just too big a stretch.  I haven’t yet given a moment’s thought to what will come on Wednesday this week, but it will be a ‘zoo’ poem.  Beyond that I’m not sure.  I will see out the year because that is what I set out to do.  After that I might bail out of Wednesdays altogether – so book your holidays now.

Thursday has become a regular ‘running diary’ although it is seldom, if ever, about actual running.  It is about… well, if I’m honest, I don’t know what it is about, but whatever it is, it normally occurs to me whilst I am running.  Now I haven’t been well for a week or two, so no running has taken place and perhaps the running diary has, consequently, lost a little relevance3.  I hope to be back running this week and whining about it by Thursday.  I cannot understand how my grindingly lachrymose recollections of a gasping trot through the village could possibly be anything less than entertaining.

And then comes Saturday and The Writer’s Circle.  I really don’t know what I am going to do about Saturday.  Last week’s little episode staggered through the weekend thumbing its nose at a readership that stubbornly remained in single figures.  It is not entirely unusual for these little stories.  Last week’s was a part two and as with all part two’s (except, perhaps, for Toy Story, Star Wars [although that, obviously, was actually part V] and The Godfather) it paid the price, but I have to recognise, I think, that I have created a bunch of people here – rather like the Shadow Cabinet – that absolutely nobody cares about.  I think I might have been mixing up ‘interesting’ with ‘amusing’ and winding up with something that is neither one nor th’other: clearly interusing does not buy me readers.

I feel that I might have to find a way of giving myself a kick up the butt without falling flat on my arse4.  It may not be quick and it may not be pretty, but I will try to find a way5.  Until then, I can only ask you to bear with me and, if possible, try to read everything twice, just in case it should ever improve. 

After all, you never know6…

1 I realise that for those of you who habitually read this nonsense, disappointment is a stalker: if you cannot get an injunction, you will find it an ever-present nuisance.
2 Tuesday does what it does.  I have no explanation for it.
3 I am uncertain as to what the loosest possible definition of the word ‘relevance’ is called, but this is undoubtedly an example of it.  Originally I used the word ‘urgency’ but I had to change it after I realised that I haven’t even approached any degree of urgency since puberty.
4 © MixedMetaphors.com
5 Although, for now, all that I really have to offer is a navel that has been gazed at so often it has just got itself an agent.  If only I was somebody else, what fun I could have writing about me.
6 At least, I never do, although, truth be told, I never did.

As ever, answers (in not more than your own words) on a postcard (or a stuck-down envelope) please…

Published by colinmcqueen

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24 thoughts on “It’s the Not Knowing that Kills You”

  1. I’ll hold my hand up to missing the Part 2, otherwise I generally pop along whenever a post of yours appears in the reader.
    If it’s any consolation, more people will read this comment than have visited my blog in its entire life so far, so it’s all relative, like that bloke with the sticky up hair says… no, not that one, the b/w scientist.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Always a joy to see your name. The lack of readers is incidental – I am fully aware of my limitations – it’s the ups and downs that I don’t understand and, as it says, it’s the not knowing that kills me. I write the blog because I love it and the fact that anybody reads it is a bonus (although not for them, obviously…)

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  2. Blogging for the intrinsic value suits me. Playing with thoughts and words. Plus, I think if others want to read them, they can dip in at their own leisure, in an as-and-when and for whatever their reasons. They might or might not get something from the blogs, and so be it. As for reading other blogs, it might not seem that I like them, for I rarely click [ Like ] even if I do. I think having to click [ Like ] is far too pushy and a bit too similar to Facebook, which gives me the bloody heebeegeebees!

    Actually, {{{giggle}}} that word heebeegeebees reminds me of Rab C. Nesbit see:

    Liked by 1 person

      2. Admittedly I have been on FB for a short spell, even under a pseudonym (oh my word I spelled the word right the first time, no way, I must be improving with age) and now my heads singing “Soo danim, Soo da nim, Sooooo da nim!” as if it was “Figaro, Fig aro, Fiiii ga ro!” {{{laugh}}}

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Thankfully FarceBrick is not compulsary, compolsary, compulsery (damn it, I knew the spelling things right couldn’t last) compulseary [looks on Google] compulsory.

        Liked by 1 person

  3. Based on an analysis of my readership numbers (which can often be done on the fingers of one hand!) I have come the conclusion that the number of readers is influenced by:
    1 – the title
    2 – the tags I add to the post
    3 – other random stuff*
    Actually, now I come to think of it, perhaps I have this list back to front, and “other random stuff” should be #1.
    * referring to stuff external to the post (ie world events such as famines, football and other f’ing things), not to the (possibly) random contents of the post itself.

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    1. It seems only fair that all manger of random stuff and other f*cking things should affect the readership of a blog that is full of all kinds of random stuff. My impotent inability to affect it all is the main reason for my impotent whine…

      Liked by 2 people

  4. I got nada for you. WordPress readership is a deep mystery wrapped up in blank faced complete bafflement for me as well. Toss out a complete travesty of a throwaway and suddenly you have a few more Vitamin pushing followers and followers from long ago coming, fleetingly, back. Put out something you actually look at with a little of your long dwindled pride with a measure of satisfaction? Something that has been wrung out from the deep well of human hard learned knowledge, and lay it at the feet of your salivating audience? And watch it die a cold and lonely death, whimpering on the frosty steppes of cold complete indifference. And your ‘poetry on WordPain as a banker?’ Well, this word mangler went bankrupt investing in that cra- stuff looooong ago. Understanding your readership? Why try, they/us/we will drive you/us/we crazy. It tizz wot it tizz.

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  5. I’ve just looked at my statistics and the most readers for any post has been four… However, on one day I had three readers and thirty five views!!! I can’t believe that each of those three read it eleven and a bit times each. It must be me constantly going back to the page that is generating the numbers. Sadly…

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  7. Well, I like your whole blog and read every post you publish. (Period. Or, rather, Full-Stop, to avoid confusion.) I don’t know how it all works, really, but sometimes I do read your posts in the Reader and if that skews the numbers, then perhaps we’re on something. Or onto something. I feel bad when you are down but don’t know what I can do to help.

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    1. Hi Herb. Thank you, I appreciate it so much. Actually not down, just frustrated that I can’t get a handle on why and when the readership fluctuates. I’m more than happy writing for my small, but very select, readership 😊

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  8. My stats fluctuate around sometimes. I really have no idea why. Post some stuff about how to get a lot of view and increase your followers and you’ll increase you’ll get a lot of views and increase your followers.

    Liked by 1 person

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