Next Stage on The Writing Journey

It really is about time somebody started making some noise about the ridiculously low viewing figures that appear to be getting more typical of the triond experience these days. If I was as bothered about maj=king money from my work as others appear to be, then I certainly would not be writing for this site. where viewers are almost as rare as hens teeth.

I get well and truly fed up of all those nice people offering me loads of encouragement to carry on posting here, because my work is so interesting, informative etc., but let us be honest with each other. In the wider world, this fan base is pretty small beer, and no incentive comes my way in the form of e-book sales to these supposedle GENUINE fans – I have discovered, in the past month or so, just who the REAL fans are, and I am so grateful to them.

It is not that I do not enjoy the cut and thrust of coming up with new ideas all the time, such challenges are meat and drink to any serious wru=iter, but when the most viewed of my 1300 posts has only had 1100 hits, and the average is less than 50, it does make you qy=uestion whether orr not a large slice of the one life we get to live is being wasted on what essentially is a largely unappreciative audience?

 It is not as if the readership are even bothered enough to post interestu=ing responses to this type of post, I am truly sorry to report.  There are just not enough of them out there viewing this to make relevant commentary, complaint or debate even remotely viable, another reason for being thoroughly disillusioned with the whole writing process as it is on this site.  Do amny of you so-called writers out there actually make any decent cio==oin for your scribblings, or are you having to earn money in other ways to make it worth your time and effort?

I know that when I post poetry or fiction on this site it ends up getting buried on Authorspot, the graveyard which is almost never visited by any discerning reader, so why do I bother, I wonder? I am seriously considering deleting all such posts from my triond portfolio simply because they never get looked aa anyway, and could have a more productive life elsewhere.

As far as the factual stuff is concerned, this site is pretty much as good as any other, but there is so much less creativity involved in such work, and I do love the creative writing process. If there are those out there who think me wrong, consider my rant to be the ravings of a whining, delusional fool who has no place uttering such things, then do feel free to tell me so, though in truth I expect this to get pretty much ignored by the triond masses, too self absorbed to give a toss.

We are, as writers, artists of a particular sort, and even if we accept that our art may not pay the bills in full most of rthe time, the least we should be able to expect for our efforts is some reward that makes us smile, do you not think? But as long as the search engines keep ignoring this, and indeed other wriing sites once thought more lucrative, we writers will be the poor relations of the on-line art world.

I get truly sick of trying at times, the brick wall of reader difference too tough an obstacle to keep battering with my head.  What to do is of course the big question, because with so many posts out there in cyberspace I always attract attention, just never enough and almost never the kind I want. If my nearly 1700 strong triond fan base were THAT bothered, they WOULD be spending the pennies it would cost them to buy my brilliant e-anthology, but they are not, and I am beginning to get the underlying message. 

I would be delighted if a host of peoiple were to read this and prove me wrong by commenting on this post, or otherwise proving to me that the writing life on the worldwide web really is worth all the effort and pain, but the pessimistic realist within me says that the likelihood of that happening is almost as vanishingly small as man cracking faster-than-light travel in the next 24 hours, so I will not be holding my breath.

I cannot help but feel that the next phase of my writing journey might, in large part, take me away from the constant struggle to be more han I currently am on this site. Perhaps the pure joy of creative writing, the feast that is fiction composition may be the answer to me frustrations and self-doubts. My wife and others tel me that fiction really is my forte, so perhaps the time has come to give it much more attention. Watch this space.