I hope that any established bloggers reading this can remember how it felt to attain their first blogging goals. I also hope any other newbies like me who are reading it and who finished the A to Z 2013 Challenge are feeling equally chuffed with their achievement.
I have read some blogs over the last few days that discussed the decrease in likes and comments as the weeks passed and the difficulty of remaining motivated when this happened. I too almost gave up at one point when two of my posts were not viewed by anybody, let alone commented on, but a couple of days later three more people who had left nice comments on earlier posts signed up to follow my blog so I ignored my own self-doubt, analyzed why I suddenly felt the need for validation of everything I wrote, got over it and carried on.
I had no idea what to expect when I wrote my “A” post on The Enchanted April but I set myself some fairly low targets for views, likes and comments (there’s no point building-in disappointments for a new venture, these arrive quite quickly enough by themselves) and reached them by letter “L.” I then set myself new targets which I did not reach but I came close enough to be happy with the end result. Much more importantly, I have found several blogs that really interest me and I expect to keep following them for a long time.
A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL THE ORGANIZERS OF THE CHALLENGE AND ESPECIALLY TO THOSE CO-HOSTS WHO VISITED MY BLOG
![survivor_[2013]](https://lynnerevettebutler.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/survivor_2013.jpg)
lynnerevettebutler 
Don’t forget, people keep reading your posts. One post I wrote a year ago is among the most read posts on my blog. (“Italy: It’s 4 PM. Have You Had Your Gelato Yet?”) That surprised me. I thought old posts went to the graveyard, but with search engines and key words, they can be easily resurrected. Keep on blogging.
Congrats on finishing the A to Z. Now there’s the “Blog Every Day in May Challenge”!
I wish I had time to do the BEDiMC but I have a major work commitment this month. It’s interesting to me that one of your early posts about Italy is among your most read as my first proper post, The Enchanted April, is about Italy and gets more regular views than any of the others.
Great job on the A-Z challenge! I’m back and forth on whether I should give it a shot next year or not, but in any case it looks like a lot of fun.
Though I’ve been blogging for a while now, and probably have close to a hundred followers, my blog stats don’t interest me all that much. What matters to me is that I put something interesting up there once in a while, and that people interact with me and my content. I like to interact with other interesting bloggers as well, and it just seems to grow on its own over time. It is good to be patient with it.
I totally agree with what Janice Heck wrote. 🙂 A week or so ago I had someone look at every single one of my one hundred or so posts! It was the biggest hit day I’ve ever had, and was so gratifying to have someone enjoy my writing that much.
Just keep putting the best stuff you can up here. It will pay off, in terms of your own growth with your writing and growth in your audience.
I hope you decide to take on the A to z Challenge next year; I shall enjoy having time to work on a theme for it in advance rather than jumping on board at the last minute. I have analyzed my blog’s views for April to see which topics generated the most interest but I agree with you that, ultimately,worrying over the daily stats is not a good way to spend time. I think it must be unusual to have someone read every post on a blog; a wonderful tribute to your writing. Did they make some interesting comments?
I felt the same way as you when I sometimes got discouraged about lack of audience and then I remembered why I signed up to participate, I just love to write! It’s always nice when someone else appreciates it but there is just something cathartic about writing and it gives me new perspectives that I might not otherwise have thought about. Congrats on finishing the challenge and thanks for the award:)
I love to write as well; the multitude of thoughts swirling around in my brain often only begin to make proper sense when they become written words. Sometimes a 15 word sentence is all it takes, sometimes I’m still working it out 200 words later. Until January 2012 I had done very little creative writing since leaving full-time education (a long time ago) and I really enjoyed writing the first draft of my manuscript; both writing my own blog and reading others for the past 5 weeks has really helped me get to grips with the editing and re-drafting issues that were causing me problems. I am looking forward to reading lots more of your posts over the summer.