I’ve mentioned it before, but I was educated as a scientist.
A crappy scientist, granted, but I studied physics for a very, very long time, and a lot of that has seeped into my life in interesting ways. I can my educated hypothesizes about almost anything, I quickly adapt to new information to replace old incorrect data, and I am always fascinated by numbers.
To that end, I tend to keep a pretty close eye on the numbers in my life. My grades, certainly (81.5% at this point), my bank account constantly (enough to pay for editing for the next three novels, although I will have to start paying for my account fees again if things don’t change), and book sales (none in the last week).
I also pay attention to the traffic on this website. It’s not usually indicative of much, although often if the website traffic trends upwards I will land a few new book sales that week. And this week there was a day with twenty times more visits than normal.
Technically, twenty-five times more than normal.
That’s a big blip! And nothing I can see that would direct that many eyeballs towards my work (I don’t think I released any podcasts, that I’m aware of, or new videos of me other than my usual Thursday “talking about board games” that I do at my paying job). It’s weird… I even checked my advertisements I’m running, but no huge traction there either (which, honestly, was a little bit of a relief… my ads are still small potatoes, but that big of a swing in numbers if I had to pay for it would be remarkably pricey!). So I am left to wonder why a whole bunch of people, or one very, very determined person I suppose, showed up out of the blue last week.
It’s a weird business, being a writer.
Anyway! On Saturday (yesterday morning) I did a presentation for some funding from my university which, if successful, will let me do some good in my community. Provide funding for a couple artists, a secure deposit on a physical space that my writers group meets at, and provide subsides to the other members of the group (I think it’s only fair that I don’t receive any of the funding myself, since that would be a conflict of interest. But being able to help other writers is a reward on its own). I’m almost positive I won’t receive it, or if I do it will be staggeringly reduced in scope, but hey, miss all the shots you don’t take.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!