The Third Lie

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

- Mark Twain

I've been up for one year now, I see. Funny, how time flies.

In one year, I've produced 191 different blog posts. That means that I've written 0.52 posts a day, or that I put up a new post about 3.66 days a week -- both of which are pretty healthy numbers.

From my recent count, my posts have been coming at a regular pace: Slow and steady for the first 7 months, and then a spike in April that brought me to my current level. I've noted my summary below:

September: 11
October: 13
November: 13
December: 13
January: 11
February: 9
March: 11
April: 19
May: 21
June: 20
July: 22
August: 18
September: 10

Seeing that this marks my 11th post for September 2005, I think that I'm still on track to write a total of around 20 posts -- more or less -- this month. The numbers aren't actually goals of mine; They're more like observations.

In an interesting development, someone recently called my attention to BlogShares, which is an online "stock market" where users can buy, sell or trade fictional shares in various weblogs. I don't know exactly how BlogShares locates and secures new blogs for "trading", and I haven't given the system a try yet, but "To the Tale, and Other Such Concerns" appears to be prime commodity for some reason. Over the last few months, this blog's "stock price" has skyrocketed, and the site is even currently valued at over five thousand fictional dollars. (That puts me far ahead of all the other blogs I frequent, which is pretty amusing.)

I also have exactly ten unpublished articles floating in "draft" status, which is to say that I either haven't found the time or the opportunity to finish them, or that I finished the articles but didn't post them for any number of reasons. These include:

- Three short stories on Antaria
- One piece of independent fiction set for rewriting
- One discussion on what makes writers, writers (discarded because it felt too vain)
- One treatise on rejected titles for blog posts
- One whiny article on how it felt to be busy at work (trust me, this was whiny)
- One discussion on Jose Maria Giner and his ill-fated moves to hack various government web sites in late 2004
- One feature on obscure artificial languages and the people who still speak them
- One discussion on the OS-Tan initiative (a curious blend of computers and Japanese anime), which had the dramatic title "Their Titanium Casings"

Yes, I think about some funny things sometimes. The weirdest part is that I consider some of them fit for reader consumption. Perhaps I'll resurrect these posts someday... but then again, perhaps not.

So I've been around for a year now. What does that mean?

I suppose that it means that I have too much idle time on my hands, and that I should really work a little more. However, I'm also aware of the fact that too much work can literally kill you, and I consider myself lucky enough to have a way to kill my work right back.

It also means that I've had enough resolve to put my thoughts to virtual paper for the last year, and I'm thankful for the people who constantly drive me to do so. This blog may not exist if it weren't for the readers who analyze every word I write, and who note their responses (satisfied or otherwise) in the comment boxes each day.

It means that -- now that I think about it -- I'm a full year older. For that matter, it also means that I now have to look forward to possibly more years of simply talking about whatever's on my mind at the moment, and wondering if the rest of the world will find it as interesting as I do.

In other words, more writing.

Oy vey.