2019 in a Nutshell
I’m not one for new year’s resolutions, but I do love documentation. As a perfectionist, I like to have thorough records. And as a perfectionist, I spend so much time feeling that I’m not performing to standard that sometimes it feels nice to look back and realize, “Hey, I actually did a lot.” So here is a quick summary of the work I did in 2019.
The Year in Paid Work
At the end of 2018, I said I wanted to pick up more policy/technical writing in 2019 and … that didn’t happen. But I did manage to add the roster of direct contracts for content marketing. And I added a significant new publication to my list of bylines, which I’d wanted to do for a long time. I felt like a newbie writing for Seattle Times, but they ran 14 of my articles last year, so I guess I can say I write for Seattle Times now.
In fact, looking at my spreadsheet from 2019, I realize I wrote 143 articles last year. Fewer than half a dozen of those were of the “will work for tickets” variety. I also edited/co-wrote nearly a dozen articles published under the names of professionals in non-writing fields.
Hey, I actually did a lot.
And I even managed to take not one, but two real vacations last year. (Okay, I worked half days on one of those vacations, but it was still far from home and filled with adventure.)
Publications
The publications I wrote for the most in 2019 include:
Click the links for a complete list of everything I wrote for them.
The Year on the Blog
I’m still unhappy that I switched to self-hosting the blog. It added a lot of work that takes away from my writing time, and if it wouldn’t take even more time away from writing, I would probably move the blog back to WordPress.com. And yet, she persisted.
Despite technical headaches, I published:
Total Posts: 155
(For a lifetime total of 927)
Last year I included total word count and average words per post here, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how I figured that out last year. So if any of you know, let me know, and I’ll figure it out.
Anyway, 155 is quite a bit lower than the 200 I did the previous year. But considering how much paying work I did, I’m not going to feel bad about it. Even if I didn’t do any new Constitution posts, which are super time-consuming. But they are also still some of the highest ranking posts on the site, so maybe I’ll try to get back to them this year.
Top Posts
The most-viewed pages/posts on my blog in 2019 were:
Carmina Burana at Pacific Northwest Ballet
Pacific Northwest Ballet Director’s Choice 2019
Should You See Porgy and Bess?
Traffic Stats for 2019
Busiest Month: October
Total Views: 7,737 (compared to 6,134 in 2018)
Total Visitors: 5,588
Okay, I guess that’s enough word nerdery for this year.
About The Author
GD
I'm a freelance writer in Seattle specializing in parenting, arts and the environment.