Content to be a Blogosfailure

I've come to the conclusion lately that, to be a successful writer of any sort, you either need to have a certain skill at boasting, or hire someone to do your boasting for you.  Whether you are a novelist, a blogger, or the proud owner of a shiny website, you need to be ready to speak glowingly about yourself.  After all, success is measured by how many people read what you have written.  If you are an author, success is measured in book sales.  If you are a blogger, success is measured in how many people "follow" you.  If you are a Twitter....er (Tweeter? Twit?), success is achieved if your comments are re-Tweeted.  If you run a website, success is measured in how many hits your site gets.  Therefore, in order to achieve success, you must constantly self-promote.

Sometimes writers make me laugh.  There is one in particular who cannot seem to refrain from saying, during interviews, "Well, in my last book titled (whatever)", or, "I just wrote an article on my website (insert site name here)".  It's to the point now where my husband and I refer to him by the name of his website.  Bloggers do the same thing, constantly referencing or adding links to previous blogs during conversation, rather than going through the trouble of actually saying it again. 

Now, I understand that this is just how it's done.  After all, what's the point of writing something if nobody reads it?  And sometimes, you have something that came to you as you were writing that really, really fits the current conversation, and it is simply easier to reference what you wrote earlier than to try to re-state it.

But I just can't do it.

Do you know, I have never once looked at my information to see how many people I reach, or from how many countries?  I don't even know if I have any followers!

So here I sit, writing up a blog article, not knowing if anyone beyond my husband will even read it and, quite surprisingly, not even caring.  Why?  Well, because sometimes writing helps me to think.  And because maybe there will be someone interested in hearing what I am thinking about.  But I'm also under no grand delusion that my thoughts or opinions or perspective are particularly unique or profound or important.

I'm simply writing to express what I'm thinking.

And if nobody else ever reads this, that's okay.  I know it's here, and that's enough for me.