The last few weeks have been illuminating for me, blog-wise.

Two of my recent, marginally political blog posts — on controversy over GenCon’s Industry Insider Program and on the Carl Brandon Society — went viral, drawing in a vast number of viewers (far more than I’m used to, anyway) while several posts pertaining to my personal life barely get any reaction at all. While this is not too surprising — how riled up can one get over a post about me wanting to find a permanent home for a plant, or about rescuing an injured hummingbird, after all — it still leaves me scratching my head a bit.

All the best advice out there about blogging says that, as a writer, building an audience should mean sharing more about one’s own life with friends and potential readers. While I strive to do that in all my posts — adding my own personal take or connection to give readers a little more of a glimpse into my life or my brain’s inner workings — I still can’t help but feel my blog would be more popular if I stirred up shit more often.

Well, I’m not going to — not often, anyway. Given the current tone of political discourse world-wide, there’s plenty of shit flying around now as it is. I try not to get too preachy in my blog posts, but I will continue to support people and organizations in my blog that I feel are worthy of support, and I hope my readers will at least check out the links I provide to see what I’m talking about. Probably what all this means is that I’ll include a little less personal stuff, as the difference in traffic between the two types of posts is dramatic.

One thing I intend to blog about in a bit more detail are the things I’ve worked on. Truth be told, there’s not always interesting anecdotes to relate about each and every project. As a freelancer, I work from home, which means I have very few current, amusing co-worker stories — unless you count stories about my cat vomiting on the bed or staggering drunkenly thanks to new medication — and for the most part I have very little direct contact with most of my collaborators.

I hope you’re enjoying my blog, and I hope you’ll take a moment when you read a post you particularly enjoy to share it with friends and associates who might enjoy it as well. I’ll take all the help I can get: being a writer is harder than ever these days, and it falls to ourselves to promote ourselves, as publishers just don’t have the budgets to promote writers much any more.

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I’ll be at Motor City Steam Con in Livonia, Michigan the weekend of July 22-24. While I’m not on any panels or doing readings, I will be flying my geek flag at this Steampunk-themed event. You might even see photos of me in costume here and there across the Internet, and rumor has it a kilt might just be involved. Stay tuned!