-and counting...

I've been blogging for four years now. In context, this is freakin' unbelievable. It's longer than I've actually played any of the games I talk about, longer than I've been breathlessly, fanboyishly "into" any of my favorite SciFi authors. It's led to me trying to write fiction again, a decade after I threw out my old high-school story-writing notebooks. Hell, it's longer than I've actually held any one job. I used to scoff at writers declaring writing addictive, used to deride it as mere foppish navel-gazing by artistic personalities, yet here I am.

I've received nearly no reinforcement for this. I refuse to advertise myself except to redirect a few people here as I've argued with them online. Few ever find it. I've received more hits from algorithms crawling for keywords than actual people, even with Blogger hiding most of the automated hits from me. Of the few actual live eyes hitting this blog, those not driven away by my lack of talent or relevance within the first few sentences have no real reason to stay past the first post. From the start I decided my den would lack any real theme, knowing full well that "everything" blogs don't actually hold anyone's attention.

Under the possession of the Imp of the Perverse, I've refused to even write coherent series of posts, never lingering on one topic. Though I am naturally scatterbrained, I've also consciously switched from games to politics to movies, making sure every reader can get bored by my next interest. In an era of forums and social networks for every indescribably minute area of human interest, in these days when we're all so apt to seek constant validation from those who already agree with us, I find this self-destructive pattern on my part too deliciously iconoclastic to abandon. I find it most amusing to scare away both right-wingers and left-wingers, to alternate anti-religious or socialist posts with anti-feminist or anti-beatnik posts and just watch my bare handful of readers disappear every time, dragging me back into single digits.

Though, I must say, never since year one have I seen so few hits on the blog as this summer in the weeks following my post about the Civil War. Feminism and religion may have their detractors but Abraham Lincoln is sacrosanct - even outside the U.S. honest Abe is apparently more popular than God.

I like this. I like old-timers from ATITD randomly finding my post about the game and I like seeing five or ten fewer hits on my next post after I've scandalized some poor sheltered innocent by calling feminists dogmatic chauvinists. I get no reward or encouragement for doing this but damnit, writing is addictive! Even when you do it badly, as I certainly quite often ramble aimlessly, there's no true substitute for self-expression. Often I can't tell whether I'm learning how to write by doing or simply defining my own persona, but even as complete a failure as this endeavor has remained, I like it.

I am Werwolfe, hear me howl.
Or don't, whatever.