An Open Letter to My Readers

Dear Visitors,

Some of you have frequented this blog for months, while some of you have discovered me only recently. Whatever path brought you here, thanks for coming by.

This site is a side project from my other work; it helps me explore what humorous angles resonate best with a self-selecting, refined audience—you.

And your response has been more affirming than I could have imagined. This week your comments hit the 1000 mark and the average page-views-per-week passed 100. I’m less interested in pure numbers, however, than in specific feedback; thankfully, I’ve been getting loads of that lately, too.

Your e-mails and comments have inspired me to keep this gig going. A big shout-out to my steadiest long-term supporters, such as David (whose skill and intelligence inspired me to start this blog), The Phoenix, Jane, Laurie, Ben, Stacy, Metal Mark, and Perplexio. More recent visitors—including (but certainly not limited to) Armaedes/Dirk the Feeble, ChickyBabe, BarBarA, FredCQ, Zen Wizard, and Curare Z—continue to flatter me with frequent comments.

There have been other encouragements. Siren and now Fuzz have offered me two opportunities so far to guest blog on Beauty vs. the Beast. Folks like Jamie and Jay have implored me to post here more often despite my time constraints. Everyone else reading this, lurkers and commenters alike: the fact that you take time to read what I write is humbling. Truly.

And when Miss Kitty summarized my site recently, she used words that capture precisely what I’m aiming for: “David Amulet … combines his sharp wit and twist-of-phrase to ‘make-you-think’ while still making you laugh.”

That’s a lot to live up to. I hope I do.

But I pay just as much attention to criticism. That includes ApostleRadio’s remark at my most frequent wisecrack artform: “Puns are the lowest form of humor,” a thought echoed by the self-appointed Comment Police.

More scathing was the review by the no-holds-barred I Talk Too Much critics, who lambaste many sites. So I wasn’t fully surprised to see this reaction to my site:

“Yay more musings. Musings from a writer. *another dejected sigh* Standard Blogger template, one of the unoffensive ones. Standard Blogger sidebar, also unoffensive (but do you really visit all those blogs?). Reading his posts, I feel like I’m reading a newspaper. It’s not the content, it’s the writing style. Very stiff. Stiffer than- well, I’ll let you finish that sentence. Interesting topics somehow get mired into textbook-like writing and I find myself losing interest fast. Zzzzzzzzz… He usually picks good topics to write about, but damn I just can’t finish reading it because, well, I read enough fucking textbooks in my schooling years to last me a lifetime.”

Even though I’ve heard much worse things said about my work, pride tempts me to retaliate.

Instead, I’ll reflect. Perhaps my essays really are too long, too stilted, and too stuffy.

But I wonder … if they feel this way about my writing style, would they also assault the lengthy, stimulating posts of two of the bloggers I respect the most, Rocky and The Phoenix? These gentlemen are among the most solid, intelligent writers in Bloggerland; if their sites would be condemned simply because they dare to show some respect for their readers, then I wear that review’s attack as a badge of honor.

Still, I’m trying to pull something useful from these critiques. For that, I ask for your help.

I’ll be taking a short break this weekend to finish moving. Newer readers: I urge you to explore the archives. Everyone: I’m willing to tweak a few things here, so let me know what you think of the following possibilities:

(1) Stay the course—keep posting similar essays averaging around 500 words about twice a week;

(2) Develop each essay further—even if that means they come only once a week;

(3) Post more often—write shorter entries that can be read/responded to more quickly, and get up them up every two or three days;

(4) Do nothing but write blog posts—quit all other work;

(5) Quit blogging—focus on markets that pay.

I thank you in advance for your input. Maybe with your help, I will be able to fully earn the title DebbieCakes recently bestowed upon me: “The Jon Stewart anchorman of Blogger.”

(Hey, it’s better than being the David Spade of Blogger, isn’t it?)

All the best,
David