Some days you ask a question, expecting it to never be answered and the next day, BAM the answer hits you right between the eyes.  I have (along with my occasionally smart mouthed and very smart webgoddess/ procrastinating editor) been working this blog for about 2.5 months.  I make it really about 2 months of work given some odd events that have great negatively impacted production.  A real newbie you say?  Damn straight I reply and the conversation threatens to become a flame war.  Ok, maybe not, but for page hits I have learned very few things generate hits like a nice flame war.  Alas, that isn’t all I have learned AND I never get FWs started.  

The question I asked myself was, “What is the standard for general success on Technorati?  I had no idea until tonight when I ran into a blog called PROBLOGGER.  His article “The 4 Pillars of Writing Exceptional Blogs” has this frightening factoid in it, “I’m often asked how I got 12,000 readers for my blog, Zen Habits, and made it into the Technorati Top 500 in 5 months…”  

                                                                             HOLY SMOKES!!!

Now I have the necessary motivation and unreachable standard that motivates me to drink, and drinking lets me write, and writing lets me have unreachable standards -  the circle of write.  Take that Pumba and Timone, Hakuna Ma-Something — made up word, (yes I have kids). No worries here either, except, getting to 500.  I have been casting about in the hits doldrums for a bit now, I mean heck, I went from 9 MILLION to 50k on Technorati pretty well, how hard can the last 40K be?  Harder than one would have expected, especially as a writer and not a tech dude.  All that said, much of my blog growth is, I think, attributable to my webgoddess/editor who suffers greatly under my words.  How shall she suffer in the future, well, I bet she knows better than most.

But I am sure she will think that once again I digress, sure why not, I shall digress right to a beer and keep up my end of the bargain.  What is that end of the bargain I am responsible for?  Content.  Her favorite phrase is “Write Boy Write”, hence the derivation of Writer Boy.  But I like to think I can provide something more than that, which relates to the above in that I get lost on my own blog.  Now I am no tech god, or even a minion, but I am a user and my confusion led to discussions on re-designing the PlotDog Pres blog.

She, being the trouper and being tied up as she was and will soon be again, still managed to find us a new format and we are implementing that as soon as possible (keep peeking back over the next week to see the progress).  The process of reformatting, what goes where, how do we do what, what should work with what type of picture was amazingly draining on me and more than a bit dispiriting.  See, the problem is I see LOTS of great blogs out there and I want to be one – a stellar one. And I know I speak for us both when I say we really want to produce quality work.

All along, with every comment or ridiculous question I ask, she would try to answer and then sort of mumble, “Write boy write”.  At first I wondered if it was a distraction technique for the tech chick to make the wordsmith not pester her with goofy ideas, then I read the PROBLOGGER post and finally got it, content makes the blog.

So with our new page, please, if you like it, send the poor girl some comments.  I have been a constant pain in the butt for her, and I am pretty sure I will still be that way later, in fact, she can bet on it.  I know I do.

So, the page and posts have been a bit slow, that my readers is all on me.  The new design will be attributable to her extraordinary efforts.  Please, once you see the show, tip the Goddess and tell your friends.  PlotDog is barking at 500 hits a day and with your help, reading and comments we hope to be at 1000 or better as soon as possible, because if we get that far, I will have been forced to provide good content that you can use and enjoy and the rest.  Well you know who did that.  Thanks for sticking by us during tough tech times and now, I should get back to writing so you have something to read tomorrow.

Write on

PlotDog

(photo by plotdog)