10 things to obsess about your new blog

Since starting this blog, I find myself consumed. It is in my nature and how I learn. If any of you have ever watched a chicken scratch and pick in the same place you may understand. The only time I was so petrified and ecstatic all at the same time was when I moved here from the farm. These are probably very common obsessions but I thought I’d share mine.

1. Stats! Stats! Stats! How many hits have I got this past half hour? This day? My F5 key is getting worn out.
2. Where do they come from? Since I got ClustrMaps, I love looking at my map to see where the next little red dot is going to come from.
3. Who is referring me? I still haven’t link-loved to any great degree but there are aggregators and search engine referrals. It was obvious that with this particular blog title I would get some unsavoury referrals, porn is the underbelly of the interweb.
4. Which aggregators are relevant? trendy? They of course come with their own stats counters, communication tools and community. South African aggregators include ‘blogs’ that are collections of blogs. If you suffer from the mildest sense of competition once you are part of any community you will  look around and see what the ‘competition’ are doing. You may feel it’s unfair this group blog thing.
5. What’s my ranking? This is the obvious result of the need to contextualise the numbers that you are obsessing about.
6. How can I drive more traffic to my blog? I laughed when I found myself googling this. Wasn’t my reason for this to improve my writing skills? Then, like wavering meditation,  I find myself wondering how much I can abuse my twitterfeed to get hits?
7. What gadgets can I add to my blog? I did a bit of research before choosing this WordPress platform over its arch rival Blogger and one of the selling points was the plugins. This does not apply to wordpress.com, the blog hosting website but rather the web publishing platform that you download from wordpress.org and configure on your own dedicated site. On the site you get what are called widgets. They are limited in their functionality but there are enough toys to play with.
8. Am I spending too long on my blog? Am I spending too little time on my blog? These somewhat contradictory feelings come like day and night. I suppose in time I will settle down to an anxiety- less rhythm.
9. What can I write about today? I’ve noticed that some blogs are a line followed by a picture or link or any other eye-candy. Somehow that feels like cheating but I’ve already laughed at my alpha male behaviour. Can you blame me? I live in a house where I am the only male, even the cats are female. There is the human man who feeds me but he doesn’t count. The positive thing about this obsession is that it makes me focus in my day – the texture, the conversation, the observations.  All this makes me more immersed in writing, which is the ultimate aim of this blog.
10. Will anyone even care what you are writing? This is that feeling of being a lone light in a Johannesburg summer storm. If I remember why I’m doing this, when the rumbling, torrents and thunder subside, I’ll be able to bask in the warmth of light and hope of new beginnings.