One of the biggies in the convo was how my original motivation to create this job has flipped. When I first came up with the idea to go public and studied how to create a launch platform, it was out of desperation, a means of distraction to keep me from drowning in depression. Some of my best writing has come out of the sheer need for escape during high pressure social situations, like holidays. That didn't happen this year because I didn't go through my usual aspienado shutdowns and survival maneuvers into FOCUS! and instead actually participated nearly 100% throughout the holidays. I could moan about this being a writing problem, or I could feel elated that I've broken through a very serious social deficit problem I've cringed through for many years. In short, this job I've created, whether it reaches financial success or not, has successfully helped me integrate my whole self into demanding social situations that normally have me going through avoidance behaviors, yay!!! So right away, that's a big ol' plus on the assessment agenda.
So now, one of my goal revamps will include a new (and presumably more emotionally healthy) writing plan. This is no longer a job of desperation, but of joy. I really like that realization, although sadly for friends, this means less time playing on social medias and more time doing actual work. Some of you, like me, nearly got stuck wondering where to put commas in that last sentence. When in doubt, throw commas out. That's my motto. The most properly written way would have gone- "although, sadly, for friends, this means..." Riiiiight.
Hang on, need a break here. Yes, this song. Not just for Benedict.
You know when people ask who you'd want to play yourself in a movie? I always say Austin Powers.
Ok, back to the assessment. Over this last year I've injected $1300+ into my ongoing projects and my tech exec has invested $2200+ on equipment upgrades, so that's at least $3500 just this year on a goal I set 3 years ago. By now we're probably at least $8000 in. This year I tied my properties into google analytics and discovered my web rankings are getting pretty sweet, besides my content being picked up by other curators. I'm still struggling with EU cookie compliance on my older blogs that are still in server move recovery, but nearly everything is verified for ownership, and the next step, once I reach sales, will be promotion. Every bit of this is organically done, not one shred of it has been done for me by a hired service or paid staff. Three years ago I was sharing the challenges I had starting this up, but with hard work and diligence, my overall health continues to improve and I'm managing to keep up with the daily disciplines of writing and checking on my social medias.
I've set and readjusted several goals, keeping in mind that family and 'real life' take priority over work, even though work is the distraction that soothes the continual problems I have with ASD complicating several triggers with anxiety and depression, and over this last year I realized that powering through isn't the answer when one is writing delicate material. I'm learning to oscillate in and out of a more singular focus on one blog in favor of the compulsive scattering across the broken slew of blog personalities I used for several years sorting myself out. I feel I've made significant personal growth with reintegrating #allmystuffs and focusing more easily on holistic thinking. I could have finished this first project on the side, disregarding what this could mean for a better product, but I'm glad I didn't. I feel slowing down and taking more time will mean a better quality finished product. I decided from the beginning that returns on this first project isn't the goal so much as the quality, which will hopefully boost returns on subsequent products.
By the way, I've had a few private offers to help get this done, and while I really do appreciate the offers, I just can't imagine using fundraising investments to do this. Giving me money won't make this move any faster, point blank. Some people can hire housekeepers and babysitters and office staff, but they miss everything about the writing process doing that. The whole point to live blogging through my process is to share my personal challenges and personal growth, my path through the jungle, as it were. Some people might be able to discipline themselves into regular work hours and so many words a day, but I have days where I easily do 5000+ and even 10,000 words, just not all on one project. And then I have days where I barely get a blog post done over several hours with lots of help from a Bunny. I missed so much of my kids on real jobs for many years, like games and dances and even my youngest graduating, so no, there's no way I'm going to miss a single second of Bunny.
Lotta big words. Let's take another break. This is me working on my first book irl.
There are a few changes I hope to make over this next year. It's obviously a huge year for Lexx fans, and I need to put at least as many hours into writing for Lexxperience that I do for my Walking Dead live tweet reviews. There's no Lexxcuse for slacking there when I've put so much free time into other movie and TV show reviews and discussions. Part of writing for a worldwide fandom means paying more attention to the fans involved in the fandom, so I'll need to figure out how to reallocate some more of my time for personal interaction in fan groups.
Enough of the big stuff. Where am I at on the particulars? Numbers are fun!
Top post ever on Lexxperience currently at 491 views is Heresy in the First Degree- Thodin of the Ostral-B Pair, currently 14,371 total overall over its 16 month history.
Top post ever here on Pinky blog currently at 377 views is rats, after all that I forgot to title it, currently 39,997 total overall over its 16 month history.
Top post ever on Spaz currently at 278 views is things that have dramatically impacted my depression and anxiety levels, currently 7791 total overall over its nearly 5 year history.
Top post ever on Surveypalooza at 248 views is Future Survey, currently 4552 total overall over its 15 month history.
Pinky's Sox has only 6 posts and 2106 total views over 12 months.
Blogger makes it pretty easy to weed out spam and bots and watch generalized stats.
I've come to intensely dislike WordPress and haven't spent very much time on those blogs, despite owning two domains over there and using gravatar to help verify other sites connected to WordPress. I should probably download the kit and do it correctly... We'll see what happens over this next year. Who knows, I might go into a brain spasmy fit and suddenly obsess over it. I've seen some other very nice WordPress sites, but I fail to be jealous and inspired to do the same. If Blogger ever streamlines more toward WordPress style, I will go into a severe depression and weep.
We must take another break and cheer me up.
I kind of let Klout slide earlier in the year until I discovered YouTube playlist hits jacks it back up, so I'm holding pretty steady again, which is preferable since I'm listed in some serious twitter lists regarding higher klout scores. I think it's kind of silly, but some jobs actually hire and fire over social media scores, believe it or not, so I may as well keep it up there. This is from today.
But I think the most fun I've had this year (yes, even more fun than stats) is all the smashing on youtube. It's not enough making fanvids and shipper vids any more, now it's about taking the DJ pop and rap smashes and smashing several fandoms into those smashes. I've found hundreds of awesome vids this year, but if I were to boil one favorite down, I'd pick this one because the simplicity is so elegant and the irony is delightfully exquisite.
