2007 Milestones and Top 5 Posts

A Writer’s Blog

Writing Forward is only four months old. Sometimes I feel like I’ve had this creative writing blog for years. Other times, it feels like just yesterday I was developing the concept and trying to find a decent (and available) domain name, and trying to decide how to approach creating and launching a writer’s blog. As I look back on these past four months, I’m happy to report that the blog is actually performing just a tad better than I would have expected at this point.

After learning as much as I could about blogging, I established a set of milestones, each marking one step toward my blog’s overall success. Though still in its infancy, Writing Forward has already reached two of those milestones. Also, a few posts have done extraordinarily well and I’m learning what readers prefer in terms of content.

Milestones

Writing Forward reached its first milestone when one post took off and soared above the rest. “The 22 Best Writing Tips Ever” became a StumbleUpon hit, and appeared on many other blogs (both in its entirety and excerpted or reviewed). In fact, that single post has been viewed almost fifty times more than any other post on this blog. It also made a huge contribution to increasing my subscriber list, and that makes this blogger very happy!

Top 3 Posts of 2007

Some posts get a lot of hits, a significant number of comments, or a large number of links. My top five posts for 2007 enjoyed a combination of these factors:

1. Freewriting – Writing exercises are important for a writer’s development, and I believe freewriting is the most beneficial exercise of all.
2. Clip-Text Writing Exercise: Poetry Collage – This is one of my all-time favorite poetry writing exercises.
3. How to Save Your Best Writing Ideas – People seem to appreciate tips on how to save writing ideas that come at inopportune moments.

Looking Back

In the short time since its launch, this site has already undergone some very big changes.

Originally hosted as a writer’s blog at melissadonovan.com, and titled Writing for Writers, the site moved to its current domain at writingforward.com, was renamed Writing Forward, and received a design overhaul in mid-November. Also, the focus is increasingly narrowing on creative writing.

With 2008 sprawled out before us, with all its untapped potential and opportunities galore, I’m excited about the future, about further developing this site into a bustling and thriving writer’s blog, and continuing to connect with talented and ambitiuos writers on the web. Let’s keep on writing!