When I considered writing this book, I had to rely on encouragement from Goethe to get past my fears. He reminded me, “What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
I pulled myself together, plucked up my courage (plucked?), and secured my Blogger name.
In the first days and weeks of writing and posting, I was so busy, it was all new, and I was full of the confidence that Goethe had breathed into me. It was all about the experience. Even if not a soul was reading my words, there was value in the process, in the endeavor.
That creative high didn’t wear off exactly, but I began to have tiny breakthrough moments of wondering if anybody was reading my stuff.
Early on, a small cadre of friends and family, and I do mean small, signed up on my blog to be “followers”. This amounts to a public statement of “like”. I found temporary nourishment in these connections, still stalwart in my conviction that I would write the book even if I were one of 6 to read it.
Surely, there were others reading my book-blog; but who, and where? I wanted to believe that the-world-according-to-Kristofer-Young was spreading through the universe, forming webs of connections.
I tried, I really tried, to feel my connection to humanity and to the universe, but on October 27th I gave in to Google Analytics, the cyberspace wizardry that counts, graphs and maps the visits to my blog site, and to each blog post, and lets me know in real-time whether or not the world is connected to me.
Within a couple of weeks of activating Google Analytics, my blog had been visited by 42 individual readers from 4 countries, and from 8 of the US states. I was excited! The world map showed colored dots in the US, Canada, Great Britain, and Germany. On the spot I got over my disappointment at my inability to feel oneness with the universe, and was happy to be using this Google cyberscope to better know how the world and I were getting along.
Today, December 4, 2010, 5 weeks into the Analytics, I have 173 unique readers/visitors from 7 countries and from 20 US states. What will the numbers look like 10 months from now as I complete the book?
I may not always feel the connections, but I certainly know them better, thanks to the Internet and to Google Analytics.
Let me close with a plug for net neutrality; equal-access internet. Just like libraries, the Internet should remain equally accessible, to all. Powerful corporations and wealthy individuals should not have any greater access than the average person, to the information found on the Internet, and to its capacity for sharing information. Support net neutrality by going to: http://www.savetheinternet.com/
Who knows, one day you may want to connect with the world through a book-blog.
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