Justine Larbalestier

reading, writing, eating, drinking, sport

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This is my thousandth post!!!

Since May 2005 I have written a thousand blog posts!1 Those posts contain around 300,000 words which is longer than any of my novels, though, fortunately not longer than all of them put together.2 I am verbose! Yay for verbosity!

And yay for blog statistics! Here are some other numbers:

The posts here average 13 comments each. Given that when I started I was lucky to get any comments at all that number startles me. Of course, I have all of you to thank! Yay readers and commenters and lurkers and the occasional drive-by visitors. I love youse all.

The numbers of words in the comments is approaching 800,000. Astounding, eh?

I’ve averaged just under a post a day. But in the beginning I did not post nearly as much as I do now. The addiction has crept up on me slowly. Now going a day without blogging leaves me jittery and discombobulated. Must. Blog. Or. Die.

My most popular post by a very big margin is How to Write a Novel. Every day people arrive here to imbibe my novel writing wisdom after googling “how to write a novel”. So I recommend all writers post their own thoughts on same and give it the same title. Cunning, eh? Though maybe you should be less silly about it than I was.

Other than “how to write a novel”, my name, and titles of my books, the most popular search terms that lead here are “quokkas”, “Jill Grinberg” (my agent), “crazy writers”, “Sheryl Swoopes”, “Andrew Symonds”, “how to rewrite” and “what should I wear”. I feel that’s an excellent representation of the blog seeing as how writing and publishing, fashion, quokkas, women’s basketball, and cricket are some of my main topics. I am saddened, though, that “zombie” leads so few people here. Must work on that. Expect oodles more zombie posts.

When I first started this blog it was read by my mum, my dad, my sister and a few of my friends. Now I average over a thousand visits a day from people I’ve mostly never met. Who’d've thunk it?

In the olden days a thousand visits in one day meant that John Scalzi or one of the other internet gods had linked to me, now it’s standard and seems to be on the rise. Yay! And THANK YOU!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but I love blogging. LOVE it. I love the speed and ease of it,3 having an idle thought and being able to publish it almost instantaneously. And I especially love the responses. The comments you leave—even when you’re completely wrong—yes, I’m looking at all you lunatic car and coffee worshippers—not to mention Diana and her crazy outlining love—make doing this way more fun.

It’s such a contrast to the novel-writing. I write the novel, send it to a few first readers, wait and wait, get a few responses, rewrite, send to agent and editor, wait and wait, rewrite, send it back to editor, wait and wait, rewrite, and so on, until it makes its way through copy editing and proofing and finally at least a year later winds up being read by more than that small handful of people. Is maddeningly slow. The instantaneousness of blogging keeps me sane while I wait.

Because of blogging I get to enjoy people’s thoughts and responses and teasing and off-topic musings. I watch conversations emerge and go in places I never would’ve expected and I get to join in and generally feel less alone. Tis a wondrous thing.

Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done without blogs. Not just my own but all the other fabulous blogs out there that make me laugh and think and keep me informed and giggling and more in touch with what’s going on at home and elsewhere.4

Bless you intramanets and blog world. I adore being part of it.

Here’s to another thousand posts. Another billion!

  1. I am only counting the posts here, not my previous musings, which go back to 2003. [↩]
  2. Because that would be embarrassing. I should admit that I’m cheating slightly by including the novel I’m writing now in that total. I could have cheated worse and included the two unpublished novels . . . [↩]
  3. Well, most of it. Sometimes I take ages to write a post like the How To ones. [↩]
  4. I would link to some but there are too many! Check out my blogroll for the blogs I love. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 14:31, 30 June 2008 under Bloggery/Internetty Stuff, Search Terms | 19 Comments »

Comments

  1. Jessica Says:

    I’m happy you love blogging because i LOVE your blog and i think i would probably cry if you ever stopped. Sad but true. Coming here every day is a necessity. Like brushing your teeth, but ya know, real fun!

    June 30th, 2008 at 2:39 PM

  2. John Scalzi Says:

    Congrats!

    June 30th, 2008 at 2:45 PM

  3. scott Says:

    Justine rewls! Congrats on the first thousand, and many more.

    Wait, Jessica, you brush your teeth every day? Freaky.

    June 30th, 2008 at 2:56 PM

  4. Laini Taylor Says:

    Congratulations on 1000 posts! That’s a great number. Thank you for blogging; I come here often and always find something to inspire or interest me (except the coffee-hating day!) A few posts ago you wrote about how you get deeper into your fictional world and forget how to talk to real people (or something like that). That is very much where I am right now. My deadline looms so close I should REALLY not be here right now. But see, I came anyway! For the inspiration! thank you!

    June 30th, 2008 at 3:12 PM

  5. Jude Says:

    I killed my main blog a few months ago, but I’m thinking about starting another. The thing is, once you *start* blogging, your entire life becomes a series of blog posts as in “I’ll write about this” or “I’ll link to this” or “I’ll share this.” So I know I’ll end up blogging again. I subscribe to about 320 blogs, and they’ve enriched my life. I feel connected to the world even though I live in rural Colorado.

    June 30th, 2008 at 3:22 PM

  6. cherie priest Says:

    [:: terrorist fist jab of congratulations ::]

    June 30th, 2008 at 4:21 PM

  7. jen Says:

    “how to write a novel” is NOT a silly post, it in fact helped me immensely. more than once. (maybe it was me checking it a sandillion times that made it the most popular). This year I even *finished* writing a novel (gasp) in large part thanks to your helpful notes (“not checking the intermawebthingy” is the key advice)

    and now I feel a bit guilty about not ever commenting, so now I’m commenting. there. feel better?

    June 30th, 2008 at 4:35 PM

  8. marrije Says:

    oh yay, congratulations! this is one of my favourite check-even-if-i’m-on-a-strict-blog-diet blogs, all your posts continue to make me very happy. i think i may have been around here since the time of musings…hmmm, how time flies. hurray for justine and her blog. :-)

    maybe your book will be done before the tour starts, yes?

    June 30th, 2008 at 4:50 PM

  9. Merrie Haskell Says:

    Here’s to a thousand more!

    June 30th, 2008 at 5:03 PM

  10. Leahr Says:

    I’ve read that post before, and I liked it. I think the first post of yours I read was the one Sherwood Smith links to, too young to publish. I really like your blog though, even if I don’t get sports, I don’t mind when you talk about them. (If you’d start talking about them too much that would be a different story.) You make me love Australia! Keep blogging!

    June 30th, 2008 at 6:39 PM

  11. emily beth Says:

    Thank you, Justine, for devoting so much of your time to us! I love you for it!

    June 30th, 2008 at 7:22 PM

  12. little willow Says:

    Kudos. Stats/math = good times.

    June 30th, 2008 at 7:56 PM

  13. Brent Says:

    Congratumulations! Your blog is always worth a visit, which isn’t true of so many others.

    Blogs are kind of the “reality TV” of the written word. Fortunately the programming choices are much better. :)

    June 30th, 2008 at 8:16 PM

  14. hillary! Says:

    LOOK! I’m the 14th commentor(sp?). YAY! For ruining statistics one small step at a time!

    July 1st, 2008 at 12:15 AM

  15. Renleigh Says:

    Congratulations Justine! I’ve been reading your blog for some time (though I’ve only truly delurked lately, without announcing it as such) and it’s definitely been fun, and has led to my discovery of many good things (like John Scalzi, actually). So thanks for writing good stuff both online and off!

    July 1st, 2008 at 1:40 AM

  16. the dragonfly Says:

    hooray for 1000 posts!

    your blog is one of my favorite…tons of fun! :P

    July 1st, 2008 at 11:15 AM

  17. caitlin Says:

    Thanks for blogging. Your blog is one of my faves and I send people to it all the time. Thanks to your blog I was turned onto the fab manga series Emma and Chris Barzak’s One for Sorrow.

    July 1st, 2008 at 2:22 PM

  18. steve buchheit Says:

    Hurrah! Haven’t been around all that long, but it’s been fun since I’ve been reading. Keep going, Justine.

    July 1st, 2008 at 10:49 PM

  19. sir tessa Says:

    creation of blog singularity GOGOGOGOGO

    July 2nd, 2008 at 7:28 AM

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