Slow Down + Blog Assessment + Writer Interviews + Posts You May Have Missed

Slow Down

Too many posts consume time. I must slow down. I have stories to write and submit, so enjoy what's here.

Blog Assessment

The last assessment was in December of 2012. I've been at this since Dec 2009--a little over four years (although I also blogged at s1ngularity:criticism and Mundane SF blogs before this). With nearly a thousand posts, that's about two posts for every three days. When I get bogged down at school, I post less frequently.

For two and half years, page visits have grown ten percent or so per month, which amounts to a twenty-fold increase. The per post view-rate has grown since last year from 35 to 55 or so, not quite a sixty percent increase. This is more dramatic when you consider the early posts with few hits are factored in (the hits were probably my mama who accidentally hit the refresh button a few times.

A year ago, one post--"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid--outstripped all other posts and accounted for ten percent of the traffic (it's now five). I guess it's a good one. Fifty to a hundred folks stop by each month to take a look. Trent Zelazny's interview posts may have been the only posts that overtook her monthly lead.

Interesting to see which classic stories people are still fascinated by. Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic Gods" and "Thunder and Roses" have drawn hundreds of readers in less than a year, but the other Sturgeon stories only about two dozen each.  I'll  be interested to see which stories of the big three--Arthur C. Clarle's, Isaac Asimov's and Robert Heinlein's--people are still fascinated by.  William Gibson and Ursula K. LeGuin drew less attention than I would have supposed although I need to do more or theirs..

In retrospect, part of the blog's growth was not only the quantity of posts but also the quality of their presentation. I changed presentation when I reviewed and interviewed. Take note if you blog.

Popular posts can be viewed on the right.

Writer Interviews

On file are the following:

1. Loralee Leavitt
2. Christopher Barzak
3. Trent Zelazny
4. Kenneth W. Cain
5. I have upcoming interviews with G.O. Clark and Dustin Lavalley.

Posts You May Have Missed

These are posts I thought there might be more interest than they've received: 

1. A Scene-by-Scene Analysis of the Movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey*
2. Analysis of Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott*
3. A number of James Patrick Kelly posts--one of the best writers of speculative fiction in the 90s and 00s. I didn't put much time into pretty-fying them, focusing on content. Maybe I'll revise them one day.

* These two might make a nice contrast, treating religion from opposite ends of the spectrum.