10 Hits and Misses for 2012

Hits and Misses

Since I started this blog forty-two months ago, I’ve had over 545,000 visitors, 3300 on my busiest day, visiting the 745 articles I’ve written on

every facet of writing. As with most bloggers, I write what’s on my mind 3-4 times a week. It may be about the craft of writing, trends in the industry, or how my writing business is doing. I have regular features, like Tech Tips for Writers and Writing Tips. It’s a fast changing writing world. I’m just trying to hang on and share the ride.

It always surprises me what readers find to be the most provocative–as intriguing as what holds no interest for anyone but me! It’s usually a post I put heart and soul into, sure I was sharing Very Important Information, and I get three readers who slog their way through it. Talk about humility. Here they are–my top 10 and bottom 10:

Top Ten Hits

1. How to Describe Dogs–almost double last year’s top post which included a creepy picture of a spider bite. Yuck!
2. 178 Ways to Describe Women’s Clothing–describing the varieties in women’s clothing is challenging. This post helps you understand it and share it in your novel.
3. How to Describe a Person’s Clothing–same as above. I can see by how many writers stopped by these two posts that good descriptions is on the author’s mind.
4. 51 Great Similes to Spark Imagination–similes must be fresh, original, and evoke a picture much larger than mere words. See if these do that for you.
5. Characteristics That Make Your Character Memorable–memoriable characters are unusual, with quirky habits or appearances, or unique approaches to living life. Here are a few for you to ponder.
6. One-Word Characteristics to Spice Up Your Writing–I am pleased this one’s so popular. It has a few gems
7. Plotting a Story–with a Spreadsheet–this is my approach to organizing a story. Writers all have different approaches.
8. Book Review: Killing Lincoln–though I write about a book review a week, this is the only one that made the top ten
9. How to Do Social Media Right–while the top six articles dealt with the craft of writing, this is the first in the top ten to deal with marketing what you’ve written. Is that surprising? Not sure.
10. Three Reasons Why I love Research–most writers do a lot of research, especially in genres like historic and thrillers. That, to me, is one of the best parts of writing

Overall, the craft of writing was more popular than the business end of the job.

Top Ten Misses

1. Book Review: So You Want an Online Book Tour
2. Tech Tip for Writers #32: My Taskbar Got Moved to the Side
3. Tech Tip for Writers #19: How to Activate a Link in Word
4. Tech Tip For Writers #10: How to Undelete
5. Love is Just a Word
6. How’s My Story Going?
7. Do You Make These Writing Blunders?
8. Tech Tips for Writers #1: Create a Blog
9. The Questionable Future of Agents and Publishers
10. Writers Tips #79: Proofing Your MSS
11. Make Your Settings Memorable With These Details

If you’re a writer, what were your most popular posts about?

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Today’s Author and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and monthly contributor to Today’s Author. She is  the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, creator of technology training books for middle school and ebooks on technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.