A 2018 Recap

The Year in Paid Work

Last year was my first freelance year without any government work. It was a nice break. But public sector projects pay well and I don’t want to let those policy-writing skills get rusty, so I’ll be looking for more of those contracts this year. I did a little bit work producing marketing materials for small businesses. But most of my income last year came from articles published online or in the regional print magazine ParentMap. All told, I wrote 118 articles for four publications. I’d like to add some new publications to my list this year.

And some of my articles found their way into a book. Put together by Elisa Murray, “52 Seattle Adventures With Kids” is in some local bookstores and on Amazon. Organized by season, it’s a week-by-week guide to affordable, awesome and nearby adventures to help families spend a #yearoflivingadventurously. Obviously, I’d love it if you bought a copy.

The Year on the Blog

Well, I think moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org was a mistake. It cost a lot of money and the new page requires a lot more maintenance. For a blog of this size, AdSense doesn’t actually generate any income to cancel out the extra expense. I still haven’t really gotten a handle on all these supposedly helpful statistical tools. And to top it all off, they changed the editor to one of those modern “so simple you’ll never figure out how to use it” deals. I just want to write, okay?

Posting Stats for 2018

So what did I write in 2018?

Total Posts: 200

Total Words: 107,776

Average Words per Post: 638

That’s quite a bit more than the average last year when I promised to try to tighten things up. But I guess all those Constitution posts led to bloated word counts. Sorry. On the other hand, Wednesdays were my busiest traffic days…

Besides the home page and my About Me page, the most popular posts were:

• Perpetual State of Director’s Choice at PNB The most popular post of the year published in March, which probably contributed to March being my best blogging month. This was probably my favorite ballet last season.
• The Looney (Tunes) World of Marriage of Figaro On the other hand, with only a few dozen fewer views, my second-most popular post in 2018 published in 2016. It has been in my top 5 posts every year since. Blog statistics are a dark and mysterious art I cannot hope to fathom. I’m just going to have to keep writing whatever I feel like writing about.
• Emergence Mixed Rep at PNB This was PNB’s April program, which followed Director’s Choice (that included “Perpetual State”) in March. So, I guess I write a ballet blog.
• Live Theater Film Experience: Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon I’m a ballet blogger, except when I write about anime fandoms, I guess. Actually, I did review an anime in 2017, and that post performed well, too. God knows I watch enough anime, maybe I should write more about it.
• Little Mortal Jump at Pacific Northwest Ballet No, I guess I’m in the ballet blogging business after all.

That said, my single best month on the blog was November 2012, when I wrote up my Iceland Airwaves experience. So travel posts are still an option.

Traffic Stats for 2018

Busiest Month: March

Total Views: 6,134

Total Visitors: 2,740

Views per Visitor: 2.24

Total Comments: 90

Average Comments per Post: 0.5

Sadness. There were more comments than in 2017, but half as many per post. Mostly I just want to write. But sometimes it would be nice to get a response. Unless they were mean responses. In that case, I’ll take silence.