One of the features of wordpress.com, the site where I host Writing by Ear, is that it provides statistics about the blog — how many people looked at it each day, how that compares to previous days, how that pans out over several months, what entries they read, what links they clicked on, and what search terms they used that led them to the blog. I imagine other blogging sites do the same.
By far, the search term I see show up the most relates to Fallingwater, the house Frank Lloyd Wright built for the Kaufmann family. People type in “Fallingwater,” “Wright house,” “waterfall house,” and many such variations and somehow hit upon the entry I wrote about my visit there this past May. (Six people looked at it yesterday alone.) Another frequent search relates to the entry I did last September about favorite toys from Christmases past — people find my blog looking for Baby Drowsy (or as one searcher typed: “doll that says I want another drink of”) or the Strange Change Machine or Green Ghost (“glow in the dark ghost toys”). Something called “bubble writing” shows up a lot as well — I’ve never done a search myself to find out what that is or why it leads them to me.
A hit here, a hit there…tiny numbers in the blog world. I know I’ll likely never have a huge following because my writing is all over the place, the same as it is in my Hack for Hire life. The best-read blogs seem to be devoted to one particular topic that like-minded aficionados can latch onto, like Pittsburgh or gardening or parenthood or politics. But every hit I do get is still exciting. And as my one-year blogging anniversary quietly came and went this month, I still find this whole self-publishing-at-will thing astonishing, let alone people actually reading what I write or finding me while searching for something specific. And if you search Writing by Ear on Google, guess what comes up first! Me! It’s probably the only time in my life that will ever happen — heck, I can google my NAME and not come up first.
So all hail the quirks of the search engine, the beauty of Fallingwater, the nostalgia for our favorite toys, and especially, especially the power of the blog.
The new phone book’s here! The new phone book’s here! I’m somebody!
~ Navin R. Johnson, aka Steve Martin, aka The Jerk
Writing by Ear 