A Million Ducks?

 

Today I noticed that Laws of Silence has had over a million hits: 1,001,035 to be exact.  What began as a way to oblige myself to gather my thoughts and set them down coherently has evolved into hundreds, if not thousands of pages dealing with a wide range of topics.  Some of it is, in retrospect, disjointed.  Some of it is filler.  And then there are gems which I think contain insightful and original reflections which, if pursued and whipped into shape, could form the kernel of a dozen or so doctoral theses.  And by whipped, I mean really flogged.  The diamonds are more than in the rough; they are buried a foot deep in a sand trap.

A few figures

Aside from myself, The Gid has written a number of popular posts.  Since 2007 we've acquired a massive 2 followers!  We've written 723 posts.  We've received and made 2012 comments.  For some reason ": Matter and Spirit, or Venus' hand mirror...." has led the charge with 73.1k hits.

2010 was productive, with 125 posts.  That's an average of almost 10 and a half per month!  But depression takes its toll.  In 2019 and 2020 there were 3 posts each year.  But in 2022 we roared back with 79 posts.v  We've had 7 so far in 2023, but part of that is due to the creation of a blog dedicated to the documentation of the characters and events of a fictional universe, generated by AI. For deets, pleas visit AI, Cap'n!  As far as I know, this will be the first work of fiction to be written in the form of a blog.  A companion, perhaps, to Plastic Tub, the first work of fiction written as a Wiki.  The Tub's not dead, but sleeping, and clocks in at over 600 pages.

 

Ripoffs and props

Since monetizing the blog I've made about 140 euros in ad revenue.  Our work has been shamelessly copied and passed off as the work of others. We've had our feed systematically posted to another blog with better SEO to steal our hits.

On the bright side, many serious blogs have linked to us, and we've been mentioned in at least one academic conference and cited in a a doctoral dissertation. Some posts have appeared in bibliographies.

We've made some friends but aside from a few criticisms, no enemies. I'm proud of many of these posts, and it represents a significant part of my work as a writer.

The requisite sentimentality

Inshallah, we will continue to learn about fascinating shards of history, or tempests in teapots as one reader once remarked, then write 'em up, and break those laws of silence.

Thanks to The Gid.  He's authored a few of our ten most-visited posts, and even though he doesn't write often for LoS today, he still reads drafts s and suggests edits and ideas when I'm feeling stuck or floundering.  Thanks, Dave!  

Keep on reading, folks, I think the best is yet to come...