Throwing in the April Towel--A to Z Reflections

That's it. I'm done.

I have three blog entries sitting here on my desktop: X, Y, and Z. Maybe someday soon they'll appear on the blog.

Some serious life issues popped up during April. Every week that went by the weight seemed to get heavier and the quantity increasing. Imagine trying to catch random drips of acid in a teaspoon. On a windy night. In the dark.

Yeah, kinda like that.

This isn't blogpression. This isn't a call for a hiatus. I just can't finish up April right now. I want to focus on my own game. I want to finish up a miniature painting project. I want to focus on helping my 14-year-old who's starting his first campaign as a DM (proud of him for that, btw). I want to focus on Stronghold #2.

Besides which, I noticed an interesting phenomenon this April. My page reads have actually decreased throughout April. I know that many readers go dark for April for a dislike of A to Z April posts. But every other year I've actually seen an increase in traffic, even if only a slight one.

Not this year.

To be honest, I rarely go to other A to Z sites simply because I don't want to risk unconscious plagiarism.  I've always found my own posts to be a creative spark, a spur to actually produce something.

Not this year.

Gives me something to consider in the coming 11 months. I put a lot of thought, time, and energy into each post every year; maybe too much time? Maybe there's just too many blogs involved? The topic tags are a good idea, but I don't think that everyone is using them. Maybe it's just the gaming readers don't want to deal with A-to-Z posts. Maybe, maybe, maybe. There's a lot of maybes. I don't know. In the past I've never been too concerned about the readership, partly because my blog is largely for me alone, but partly because traffic has always been steady. Plus, I have to admit that the freakin' Challenge Logo was just HUGE; it took up a lot of space. Maybe I'm just feeling like I let myself down; I'm the only one that was policing my work, after all.

I'm sharpening my pencil and getting back to real work. Thanks for sticking by me.