Sharing the Love x 200

Over the weekend, Knucklehead! notched its 200th follower.  To say that I am humbled by this would be understating it by a wide margin.  I just wanted to take a quick second to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to read, laugh at (I hope), and comment on my writing.

When I started blogging a little over a year ago, I had no idea what I was getting into.  To be honest, I'd only vaguely heard the term "blog" and had no idea what they were or how to create one.  Then I discovered that an old friend from high school, Peter, had a blog called Plastic Bubble World (you should visit, he's a good guy . . . a little quirky, but a good guy nonetheless) and I thought to myself, "Hey, that looks fun."  I'd always enjoyed writing, and this seemed like a great outlet.

Little did I know.

For about a month, I had two followers.  Peter, and another friend of mine.  I kept writing, even though I knew that hardly anyone was actually reading my stuff.  One comment here (thanks, Pete), no comments there, I was hearing cyber-crickets in my head and pondering the old "tree falls in the forest" analogy.

Well, one day I was writing a piece called "Mary Ann or Ginger".  It sucked, which is why I didn't bring it over here from my original blog.  But while writing that piece, I Googled "Mary Ann or Ginger" to make sure I wasn't just rehashing someone else's work (I kind of was, but I'd added enough original ideas to not feel too guilty about it, and besides, no one was reading it anyway).  One item that came up on Google was another blog.

It was called Suldog.

I visited that site, and was captivated.  Not only did I see that his bit about Mary Ann and Ginger was considerably better than mine, I enjoyed reading his other work as well.  And I noticed that Suldog had about a bazillion followers and was getting a boat load of comments on every post.  "Hmm," I thought, "this guy seems to have it figured out."

I sent Sully an email, and he gave me some advice on how to build a readership.  He also told me he's a Red Sox fan, which called into question his overall character, but advice is advice, so I listened anyway.  It worked, and before too long I was visiting other blogs, leaving comments, and little by little my readership grew.  So thank you, Jim, I'm grateful.

And now we're two hundred strong and growing, which begs the question:

What the hell is wrong with you people?

Nah, just kidding.

I never imagined that so many folks from around the world (I've gotten several hits from Africa, which is just absurd) would be even marginally interested in anything I have to say.  Like I said, I'm humbled, and I appreciate all of you more than I can ever express.

I hope you'll keep reading, commenting, and e-mailing for a long time to come.  I'll do my best to keep you entertained.

Once again,  thank you.


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