More than two years into my authorial and blogging career, I’ve seen a few blog posts on here continue to get a steady stream of readers, often months after the fact. Most of my most-visited blog posts have to do with writing, which is pretty understandable. But there are a few in there that kind of leave me wondering.
The following is a list of the most highly trafficked “evergreen” blog posts — unrelated to newsier items like getting my book published. Note that in some of the earlier posts, The Daedalus Incident went by the working title Spacebuckler before Night Shade Books wisely encouraged me to revisit the name.
Anyway, these are the ten most popular items based on visits by you, the readers. Because, hey, everbody likes a clip show, right?
- The alchemy of writing — I’m pretty proud of this one, given that this compares the Great Work to the creative process.
- Beating the odds — A bit about how tough it is to get an agent, and how fortunate I feel I got mine.
- Excel…a writer’s best friend? — I use Excel to map out my fiction, and this post shows how and why.
- Beat to quarters! Run out the guns! — Another one I’m proud of. This chronicles my visit aboard HMS Surprise at the San Diego Maritime Museum.
- Trick out your iPhone, Star Wars style — OK, this is kind of a throwaway post, but I’m glad people like it.
- My literary tastes are better than yours! — There was a kerfuffle in the media about whether genre fiction could be “literary.” I opined.
- The long and winding narrator — A piece about a particularly verbose book and its narrative voice.
- A short story isn’t an easy one — A relatively recent entry. The short story in question didn’t actually work out. But another piece did, so that’s nice.
- I don’t want to talk about it — An early bit talking about…talking. I over-dialogued things, back in the day.
- In every great story…the bromance — Honestly, not one of my best. I’ve learned a bit about blogging over the past few years!
And for balance, here’s five posts I wish people saw more of. So, you know, you could click on them and maybe spread the word?
- Writing tip: Bring a gun to a knife fight — Some thoughts on pacing and action, post-revisions.
- The monkey and the panda in all of us — Another take on the creative process from a vegetarian chef in New York City. A newish post, so I’m hopeful.
- Judge the writing, not the process — A bit of a rant, but I thought it was a decent piece of writing.
- Why first drafts are allowed to suck — Maybe not the most original, but again, I thought it was nice.
- Any of the Known Worlds tour blog posts — I’m wondering if I should revive this feature. None of them got a lot of traffic, but I wonder if it was simply too early before the release of Daedalus.
So…did any of these work for you? And should I do more Known Worlds posts? Let me know in the comments section.
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Michael J. Martinez 