Friday, May 28, 2010

A Life of Its Own

So you KNOW two days ago I blogged about BuNoWriMo, yes? Well a couple fellow Burrowers, and a couple more friends ALSO blogged, and several of us invited Facebook friends... yadda yadda yadda... that is how these things go. In the first 24 hours we had 24 participants. WAHOO.

And then the unexpected happened...

I ALSO Tweeted... which I do when I blog. Frankly, it is about the only time I Tweet... I am an incompetent twitterer, unable to find the hot conversation because... well... I don't have the attention span or something... (Honestly, it just moves to fast—I can't stay glued to a computer—I need a conversation I can come back to in an hour and see the answers. Some people spare ten minutes in a row and call it good. I spare a whole half hour, but over a six hour time span... see what I mean—Facebook is just far more my speed... or Blogging... Blogging is good—but I digress)

I Tweeted... and one of my mutual following friends (don't know how I found her or she found me... I am on a couple lists because almost all my tweets are about writing, so I am minimally annoying to fellow writer types, even if I am NOT particularly effective)--Debbie Omi of Inkygirl Retweeted me... but not only THAT, her blog that has more than 400 followers FEATURED US.

I had over 500 hits yesterday—that is about triple NORMAL. Bigger? 90% of those people (according to my tracker) had never BEEN here before and I had a much SMALLER 'view ratio'--meaning more than half the hits were single view visitors. Now that isn't great on the comment front—a commenter always counts as two viewers, but it IS great on the exposure front—almost 300 DIFFERENT people stopped in yesterday—HOLY CRAP! (I even have 4 new followers!)

It is BAFFLING what one effective person can do for us!And so unexpected!

In addition to my blog bump, we also now have 66 BuNoWriMo participants signed on—I'm willing to bet we can approach 100 before we actually set off the starting pistol on Tuesday. One of my friends asked yesterday how many we'd have. I counted the participants I'd noted and padded a little and guessed 30. But this is SO MUCH BIGGER! It's really exciting!

I'd love it if you'd all help me thank Inkygirl by following. It's a great resource for finding online writer events ANYWAY, and this just was FABULOUS!


And Howzitgoin?

FANTASTIC. In addition to HERE, and inviting Facebook friends broadly, I also sent some specific invites to some old Potterverse friends. It feels like having a big family reunion, only better. Why better? Well, for one thing, nobody is being rude to my husband.  *cough*  But there is more!  See, when we were back at the Wizard War thread on HPANA, we had a RULE... oh, I know... I'm not normally one to go in for rules, but see, it was an INCLUSIVENESS rule. Anyone who dropped in for the first time was GREETED, WELCOMED and asked to join in. It made for a super friendly atmosphere. We KNEW we were talking about stuff where people would disagree, but we also had a POLITENESS rule—okay to disagree, not okay to call the person making the statement a Dunderhead.

So even though there are a BUNCH of us at BuNoWriMo who KNOW each other, every time another person ventures in, they are embraced and included! I'm so proud of my HPANA peeps!


And then there's THIS

You've all seen this, yes? Well Joris made a couple alots for BuNoWriMo. They are FABULOUS!

So you are all STILL invited! Facebook: BuNoWriMo... I will approve you (or someone... handy thing about 10 moderators) quickly!

Happy Friday! And for those in the US, Happy Memorial Day! (I LOVE long weekends!)

22 comments:

Will Burke said...

Wow, that's really exciting! You must be bursting at the seams! Best of luck!

M.J. Nicholls said...

The BuNoWriMo illustrations are boss. They remind me of the artwork on my favourite fizzy beverage.

And this blog is boss. Now if only you would turn OFF word verification for comments! Arg!!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

How awesome for you!

Jan Morrison said...

ya blasto inta tha stratasphere! tho i'm a recovering nano type, I adore any challenges as ya know. so good pluck with the whole schmozzle.

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

Congrats on the new followers and the success of BuNoWriMo! I'm looking forward to the challenge. :)

Amber T. Smith said...

It's great how this is snowballing, yes? I've noticed nothing major on my blog views and such, but the last two days have given me a massive surge in friend requests on Facebook. Somehow it has to be linked, it's too much of a coincidence...

Hart Johnson said...

Thanks, all!

Mark--turned off word verification just for you. I know it can be annoying, but when I was new to this, it also felt like a safety net. But I'm steady now... net not necessary.

Jan- you made me snort. Sounds Scotish to me. Is that because it's Nova Scotia?

Marissa said...

The HPANA peeps thank you for the invite, they would have been to coward to approach on their own! (clearly I'm not speaking about myself entirely!)

Also, Joris' alots are hilarious. :D

Congrats on all the new traffic!!

Sugar said...

I'm excited and honored to be a part of the group!

Kas said...

You stole my BuNo avvie. *snicker* (Don't you dare change it though--it makes me feel special.) :P

Anyways.. I was having a hard time mustering excitement (I have a hard time mustering MUCH of any sort of emotion these days, but that's another story *cough*) but all the people and how excited you all are makes me more excited too!! Yay.

Karen Jones Gowen said...

Now I am really tempted to join FB-- what I said I'd never do-- just to be a part of this!! Should I? Shouldn't I? Do I even know HOW to join FB? I'm all about being part of the supportive writer community, and I DO have a ms that needs major work in June, so now I'm REALLY tempted!! I'm like you with Twitter. I signed up a short time ago and I'm not sure why. I'm using it for now but not sure for how long.

TreeX said...

*snort* Tamster, you spelled it wrong/right/wrong -- well, you spelled it "a lot" in any case ;))

Marc (it WAS Marc, wasn't it?), I'm glad you like the illustrations, funnily enough I do too ;)

Here's hoping we'll reach 100!! ;)

Jessica Bell said...

That's amazing about the hits! Awesome!

Hart Johnson said...

Rissa- we're so thrilled to have you!

You, too, Sugar!

Kas--YAY for excitement! I LOVE the adrenaline rush!

Karen-DO IT! You don't have to tell anybody you know in real life! (it's actually really easy).

Joris--HABIT--it's fixed though, innut?

Thanks, Jessica!

Karen Jones Gowen said...

I did sign up. With very llittle profile info. I'm just wanting it for the challenge, because I've got a wip that needs major work and I've been putting it off for months!! So send me an invite so I know what to do next, oK? I'm on there as Karen Gowen

Erica Mitchell said...

I'm getting excited for the event to kick off. It seems like the moment I get excited though I go into "blank" mode and think I have nothing to write. So not true! I talked to a fellow CC last night and she is considering, her WiP is already at 65k, but she is going round and round with the plot. I'll be talkin to her more about it. Also Chimera's wanted to ask you a few things but think I will email that so this post doesn't go into tommorow.
I promise to try not to be shy on the BuNo FB page eek! But I am excited. Did you ever find a cool word count widget I keep forgetting to ask that. Thank you for the birthday comment =)

Cheeseboy said...

Hey, happy Friday to you. Maybe you will have as many hits today as yesterday because hey, I am here. But I am a little confused as to what this "event" is.

btw, LOVE the Stinky Cheese Man.

Dawn Ius said...

YAY for word-of-mouth advertising. Wishing you all luck on your June challenge.

Hart Johnson said...

Karen-to INVITE you we have to be friends and I tried to find you for a friend request but there are several Karen Gowans. You can either friend me (Hart Johnson) and I will invite, or you can search BuNoWriMo and request to be added and I will approve (or both).

Cheeseboy-my writer's group (the Burrow) is hosting a WriMo in June (50K words in 30 days, just like the other) but smaller, and on Facebook--you are welcome to join!

Thank you, Dawn! I was AMAZED!

Ella said...

Amazing and exciting!!! Thanks for lining up the dots; I thanked Inky Girl and I believe Rayna had something to do with this; I need to Thank her as well! I can only imagine; seeing that many tweets! I am off to check it all out~

Did I say, Thank you! ;-D

Julie Musil said...

We are kindred spirits with Twitter. Too fast! Too much going on! I can't keep up!

I see inkygirl tweets all the time, she's great.

Julie Musil said...

Thanks for visiting my blog! Your comment about ice cream cracked me up!

Mmmmm....bumowrimo....thinking about it....