Who Goes There?

Hey You! Yes, YOU! The one reading this. Don’t go anywhere. I have a favor to ask. It won’t take long. Just a minute or so. I’m asking that you identify yourself. Not necessarily by name, though that would be cool too. I want you just to say where you are writing from, and what brought you to reading this post on this particular blog. Can you do that for me?

Here’s the thing. One of the reasons I started blogging was to force myself out of my writing cocoon. I’ve been writing for decades – stories, opinion, my journals...lots of stuff. Except for my letters and emails, though, hardly anything I ever wrote was read by anyone. Yes, I got the odd story or article published. But basically, I’ve been a writer without an audience

Now, with this blog, I’m developing a small audience. According to the stats that blogger generates, I get twenty to fifty to a hundred “pageviews” for each of my posts. That’s 2-300 pageviews a month on average. It’s not a huge number, but it’s a satisfying number. It’s good to know that what I share is received, that thought provokes thought, and feeling generates response. The number of readers has been growing steadily over the two years since I started, and there are indications that some people like what they read and keep coming back

The thing is, I have no idea who most of you are, and I would like to. More than half of the comments my posts have collected have come from 3 people. These three are all friends. One of them is a colleague whom I see fairly often, but the other two, I never see. Some of my other regular readers are also friends, or family (my brother). They never leave comments, but they comment when they see me, or through an occasional email.

But as to the rest of you, I HAVEN’T GOT A CLUE.

So please, take a moment to help me get a sense of who I’m writing to when I post these reflections and essays and thought pieces of mine. I realize that not everyone feels comfortable commenting. And I know from my own inner “to-comment-or-not-to-comment” debates that I sometimes don’t because I don’t think my comment would add anything. Sometimes I’ll comment just to say I like something, but that too is rare (though I’m now working on doing it more often). Your response will make a difference to me.

Another thing my stats page tells me is that I’ve had readers from more that 40 countries (most of which show up on the Flag Counter at the bottom of my page. That stat astounds me. I’d really like to know who found me from Ukraine or Pakistan or Brazil or South Africa! And WHY? Of course I will also welcome anything else you’d like to share: opinions, a review, a peeve...whatever. It’s really easy, and you can make your comment anonymously if you’d like. And if commenting on the blog itself is an issue, you can always send me an email, to kobsidian@hotmail.com.

Thank you in advance for this favor. And even if you don’t respond, well...keep coming back anyway, and keep reading.

Yours Truly,

Kirby Obsidian