Here are my statistics for March:
Number of posts written: 31
Shortest post: 220
Longest post: 2,150
Total words written: 23,345
Average post length: 753
Distribution of posts across my three blogs:
The total of posts here may not equal the number of posts written last month because I occasionally publish the same post on more than one blog. However, I have included each post only once in my total word count.
Last month’s featured post:
On Rereading “Anne of Green Gables”
This post generated a lot (well, a lot for me) of “favorites” and retweets on Twitter. At first I thought that might have happened because the use of the Classics Club hashtag targeted the post to a specific audience. But I published another review with the same hashtag within just a few days of this one, and the second one did not receive the same reaction.
So I’m guessing that the personal orientation of this post caused the increased reaction. The other Classics Club post was a straight book review, but this one emphasized my personal reaction to how reading the book now, as an older adult, affected me differently than had reading it as a child.
What I Learned in March
In February I focused on post length. In March I decided not to worry about length. Instead, I concentrated on writing however many words were necessary to cover each post’s topic. Here are the results of that change of focus:
- My total words written increased by 2,890.
- My average post length increased by 93.
- My number of posts of 1,000 or more words increased from 6 to 9.
The lesson I take from these statistics is that I should worry about each individual post and let the word count fall wherever it may.
The second lesson, which I take from the relative popularity of the post about rereading Anne of Green Gables, is that I should strive to incorporate more personal storytelling into my writing. I knew that, of course, at least in theory. That is why I chose story as my word for this year. But the interest in this post reinforced the lesson for me.
I continue to read more blog posts than I did before starting this blog post a day challenge. From now on I’ll make a more conscious effort to look at which ones most engage me and to learn how and why they do.
