Did You See ALL of These?

As the minutes count down to the end of 2016, a look at my WordPress Stats for the year shows me that I’m about to break 3000 views, which isn’t much in the overall scheme of blogging but a hell of a lot more than I achieved in the previous two years (about 400 each). My views per visitor also increased from 2 to 2.4 which means that my lovely visitors are clicking on additional posts once they (you) land. Either this means you like what you see or that you’re so aghast you have to check its awfulness is sustained in other material on my blog. So, um, thanks. I think.

I have just written a post that basically rubbishes 2016 but having looked at my Stats I was overcome with the desire to break them down into genres and let you know what was the most popular and what sunk like a stone. I am, after all, an analyst by profession and you can’t stop me from geeking about. I wonder if I should make some charts in Excel…

Anyway, excluding bits of chatty news, reblogs from other destinations and items that only made it on to my blog in the last few weeks, I’ve posted about thirty items which are mostly short stories and micro fiction with some art, poems and articles.

Two posts were way ahead of the competition and by a whisker the most viewed post for 2016 was the short story “Broken Sign” which probably owes a lot to the lovely Diana Peach reblogging it and subsequent shares and retweets. It’s a bitter-sweet, humorous tale of an electronic road sign that is unwittingly given self-awareness.

At number 2 is a post I didn’t even write this year: from March 2015 it’s “Faking a Piano”, a post that describes how I built a cardboard piano. If you haven’t heard about this, where have you been? I suppose I do keep banging on about it (hence its position at number two in the babbitman chart).

Coming in at numbers 3 and 6 respectively are two articles about how stupid I am (falling for a “Con Artist”, and deciding to wear something and then “Losing It”). At 4 and 5 are a couple of short stories: “The Party” is a nod towards elections (and I re-blogged it in November which pushed it up the charts a bit), while “Old Man Spider” is a 100 word kids’ story for the annual Halloweensie competition.

Top Poem for the year was “Still Life?” at number 10 while at 11 is another micro-fiction story, “Male / Female”.

A couple of short stories that probably passed people by due to them being early in the year are at 16 (“The Reunion” about a band reforming years after their heyday) and 22 (“Late” which was my first attempt at a short story in years, possibly decades).

Here’s the full list:

Title	Genre	Description
Broken Sign	Short Story	A road sign gets smart
Faking a Piano	Art	I built a piano out of bloody cardboard!!!
The Con Artist	Article	I got conned by an old lady
The Party	Short Story	Forced jollity at a crucial time
Old Man Spider	Micro fiction	Trick or treating with 8 legs
Losing It	Article	I can’t find a shirt because I’m an idiot
Props (more fun with cardboard)	Art	Record player and stove using cardboard
Taken To The Edge	Short Story	A very dark piece, not for the faint hearted
Logic Violation	Short Story	A sci-fi horror tale
Still Life?	Poem	Mortality as art
Male / Female	Micro fiction	Football, but hopefully with a twist
A Tantalising Prospect	Short Story	Hades visits a nice restaurant
My Old Art	Art	Stuff I found in my loft
Food Fight	Micro fiction	A Laurel & Hardy skit
Worldshifter	Short Story	Fantasy based on Diana’s original tale
The Reunion	Short Story	One of my more emotional stories
Solitude	Poem	A humourous poem about peace & quiet
Clowning About	Micro fiction	Clowns are definitely scary
After ‘The Listeners’	Micro fiction	A poem’s scenario with a twist!
Swan Song	Short Story	Greek mythology and a couple of lads
National Poetry Day	Poem	I probably wasn’t taking it very seriously
Late	Short Story	A bit of Victorian spookiness
Birds Eye View	Micro fiction	Aussie seagulls go motor racing
Grin and Bear It	Micro fiction	A polar bear in the Towe of London!
Flowery Verse	Poem	Valentine’s Day nonsense
I Don’t Believe It	Article	Internet hoaxes & how to spot them
After ‘Tarantella’	Micro fiction	A drunk poet is ignored

What does stand out, apart from cardboard masterpieces and the odd short story hit, is that you like to read about when I was an idiot. Thanks.

Thanks to Diana W Peach, Al Lane (the man responsible for all this), Ffion at LionAroundWriting , Sarah at Prejudice & Politics and many others for pushing some of their readers my way – much appreciated!

I wonder what I’ll get up to in 2017…  hopefully something idiotic so that I can tell you about it.

Hope you stick around to find out! Thanks for reading

 

Nick  🙂