Nonsensible Shoes Anniversary Coming Up.

October 31st, 2009: Halloween will mark the end of my first year of blogging. My first real post went up on November 6th, and I set the blog up months earlier, but November 1st was when I seriously started looking at blogging as a creative outlet for my political views. I wrote a few drafts of things and by the time they were published, it was a November 6th.  In my mind though, the anniversary of my blog therefore has always been November 1st.

A couple of months ago, in the midst of a readership doldrum, I took a look at what I had accomplished and realized that I hadn't set any specific goals when I started out, so I set myself a goal - 20,000 visitors in my first year.  It was a bit of a stretch at that point: having had some great success early this year, the readership had pulled back considerably over the summer.  Since then readership has picked up and so has my day job in terms of amount of time.  Blogging has become that much more difficult to find time for.

But in true rugged individualism style, I rolled up my sleeves and continued to plug away.  The counter on my site has me almost within 640 visitors with 14 days left to go.  I just might make my goal.  If you know anyone who might be interested in conservative political commentary, combined (hopefully) with some intelligent thought, let them know.  I'd love to make my goal, and I would appreciate your help.

That said, coming up short of my goal, will not put a stop to my blogging career.  I plucked the number out of the air and it may be a smart goal or a stupid one, I still don't know enough about blogging to know if that's a good first year result.  I do know that it's not a financially rewarding result, but that's okay.  That wasn't part of my reason for writing (although clearly I need to get better at monetizing this thing some day, because I'd much rather be writing full time).  I'm writing to spread conservative thought in America.  The country needs it.

What's next for Nonsensible Shoes?  I need to establish some goals for Year 2.  Beyond that, I want to keep writing in more and more meaningful ways that hopefully will contribute to the American political dialogue.  Maybe a site layout re-design at some point. Maybe a new unique domain.I've been meaning to ask Kevin Jackson at the Black Sphere how that's been working out for him. The blog is still up, but he's added another registered site. Of course he has a book and at least one Fox News appearance that I know about.  So it's really not apples to apples. But his success has been inspiring. As has that of other bloggers like Gateway Pundit and Robert Stacy McCain.