Progress Report #1
It’s been almost three months to the day since I launched this website.
At the time I began I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about, whether anyone at all would read it, and I had a (hilarious) goal of writing every day. Thank you for not laughing.
I’ve learned so much since then.
I’ve learned that the themes of my writing so far include;
I’ve learned that brevity is not my strong suit, I love a good list, writing about both race and myself scares me, that sometimes you have to take breaks, and that it’s incredibly hard to start again when you take a break.
The last three months have been joyful, and terrifying, and fulfilling.
Most importantly I’ve learned that for me, the only thing more uncomfortable than hitting publish is remaining silent.
And I’ve learned about you.
Since I started, over 3000 different people have visited this site.
That might not sound like a lot in internet numbers, but that’s enough people to fill The Roundhouse theatre in Camden (where my arts career started) standing up.
If I had to stand on a stage that size and say everything I’ve said here, I’d freak out.
I can see that you come from 59 (!) different countries.
Half of you are in the UK and a lot of you are in the USA and Germany, but the rest of you are all over the world, from Oman to Somalia, Haiti to Colombia. Which is one of the most beautiful things I can imagine.
Almost 43% of you are aged 25-34, and 33% are 35-44. I guess ‘Millennials’ do like reading.
I know that 44% of you have found this site through Facebook, 30% directly, 21% through Twitter, and only 1% through Instagram. I also know that half of you read this site on a mobile, and that I really need to fix the weird three column view on the blog front page.
You really want to know The Reason People Are Ignoring Your Work and you care a lot about racism and how it works in your own life. And I know that this site has helped some of you, because you’ve told me.
My Top Ten Favourite Comments
“I wanted to thank you for your beautiful writing, it's really helped me get back on track after having a lot of ups and downs with my music. I've also shared it with our Producergirls group and women in music in India as it's so inspiring, especially to women I find”
“Just off to rethink my whole life”
“Read all of these today. A great reminder. Some of these you should work into prints so can have on the wall”
“I wanted to thank you for the gift of all your recent daily posts - I feel like I'm hearing your voice and little pieces of all too real wisdom, which I have been secretly reading each day and appreciating very much”
“A) this is an excellent piece of writing and b) some advice you gave me 3 years back changed my career path in a profound and life changing way. So thank you!”
“This is such a great post and I've just gone through your statements and highlighted the ones I need to work on in red the ones I'm sometimes doing but need more growth on in orange and the ones I feel I am doing most of the time in green it has given me perspective thank you.”
“You're killing it. And I'm trying to gather my life.”
“This post is amazing! Just what I needed to help me figure out where I'm at and what I need to work on...Thank you!”
“this is a great series of posts. kudos! we all can do with sensible reminders to keep us on track in this distraction heavy world. do i sense a book in the works?”
“I love them all, but this one hell of a drag”
Why am I writing a progress report?
Because I really meant it when I said Recognise Your Damn Self.
I’ve noticed that everyone has “award winning” in front of the word “blogger” at the moment, probably because blogging is looked down upon by so called proper publications. That’s fine, but my goal here is to learn about myself, to challenge myself to write, and if I can help some people along the way that’s even better.
There is no award out there that will encapsulate that.
Since I’m recognising myself, I get to say some thank yous too. Thank you to all of my nearest and dearest for supporting me, and thank you to you, for reading, commenting, and sharing. I plan on continuing to show up, and I hope you will too.
Big love,
Amelia
Let’s Meet
I really want to get to know my readers better, so I’m running 45 minute one to one Skype sessions between October and December.
