The Unwritten Word turns two!

Because I did it last year and because numbers are fun, some selected stats from The Unwritten Word's second year:

Best month: July 2013, with 870 unique visitors and 1,523 total page views

Average unique visitors per month: 443

Average page views per month: 906

Most referrals: Squarespace 5 doesn't track this stat for longer than a month, but I feel confident that, second to Google, most of my traffic this past year came from the grammatically meticulous and always funny writing/copyediting blog Fangs and Clause, which is written by my friend Independent Clause. Thanks, Indy (IF THAT IS YOUR REAL NAME), for all the link-lovin'! Hopefully I can return the favor.

For year three, I'm trying to think of a way to keep the "hey! let's write something!" spirit of the blog while moving away from the writing prompts having "weeks" and deadlines (the deadlines especially were not really catching on). In a sense, I've accomplished what I set out to do here—I wanted to get myself writing again on a regular basis, and that I have certainly done. But the things I'm working on now require most of my writerly attention, and keeping a weekly pace with the challenges on this blog only takes time away from what I am currently writing. But, I also want to see this project through.

WHAT TO DO...! Do I keep posting weekly prompts for anyone interested in trying them, but excuse myself from having to try them too? Do I abandon the prompts altogether and move into more of a meditations on writing/writing advice direction? Or some other, much stranger, direction...?

What would you like to see?

My anti-resume

In response to my post about Monica Byrne's tracking process, Independent Clause says:

I love the anti resume! I do not have anything near the math skills to figure out what my personal rejection rate is, but I'll try some awkward poet math and see what I come up with. I'll post mine if you post yours.

Heh, you're definitely going to win this one. Prior to this year, I submitted pitifully little: Agni and maybe Ploughshares right out of grad school. Some random online things: something called My Geek in the House that paid me $10 minus PayPal fees and then went bust. The Boston Theater Marathon off and on for several years.

But as of this year...

Boston Theater Marathon XV:
Accepted!
Hovey Summer Shorts Festival 2013:
Accepted!
Moments of Play Ten-Minute Play Festival:
Rejected
VisionFest 2013:
Rejected
Blue Slipper 10-Minute Play Festival:
They cancelled the festival indefinitely...? Not sure how to classify this.
Hit & Run VII:
Rejected
New Works Festival 2014:
Rejected

So that's two of out seven: ~28% acceptance? Or 33% if we're not counting ten-minute play festivals that died before their time through no (apparent) fault of my own. However, it does seem that I'm driving my average down by continuing to submit...

I actually had to look up several of these to find out whether or not I had been rejected. Turns out I've been so busy writing that I haven't had the time to compulsively hit "refresh" on all those festival websites.

That's a good thing!

Alright, Indy Clause. Your turn. Be gentle.

On running and writing (righting?)

From the always excellent blog Fangs and Clause, some Friday inspiration for the writers, runners, and writer/runners among us:

Even a little bit of writing/running is amazing. You are awesome. You ran two miles/wrote four pages without stopping? You are a superhero. A million people never even get that far. Sure, if you want to write a book/run a marathon, you might want to be more focused. But even super-runner Dr. Cougar started somewhere.

Read the rest here!

While punishing ourselves for all the words we definitely should have written by now but haven't, it's easy to forget that we're still in the lead compared to everyone else who does not write. (If writing were a race... which it is not... OR IS IT.)

Small, achievable goals, folks. Like, oh, say, 200 words on Week Twenty Three's prompt, perhaps?