My website regularly informs me of statistics. Sometimes those statistics are about traffic (or lack thereof), and sometimes they are about milestones.

Turns out, last week, my website turned four.

Now four years isn’t a lot of time to be writing. Don’t get me wrong, it feels like forever; it’s been long enough to reassure me (many times over) I will never get anywhere with said writing. But four years is a solid amount of time. In those 200+ weeks, I’ve never once missed a day. I started writing three days a week, then pushed that to four days a week. Site traffic has been a roller coaster (in a decline recently), but in those 208 weeks, I’ve posted over 750 pieces.

Not bad for something I’ve never made a cent from.

I often don’t like writing. It feels like a chore. I wish I was better at it. I wish I had more style.

I wish a lot of things.

So I keep trucking on, driving blindly towards…something. I hope.

Sometimes I ask myself if I even want to write. Sometimes I don’t know. But when I look at those numbers, that consistency, I feel this can’t be simply momentum. If it was momentum, I’d have crapped out long ago.

Something keeps me writing.

I have no idea what it is.

I read a lot of books. I have a huge appreciation for great writers. I have a huge appreciation for writers who have style. I think of Bill Bryson. I think of Raymond Chandler. I think of a lot of other writers whose work I’ve loved. It makes me question my own writing.

I believe I have a relatively good understanding of language and grammar. I think I can construct a reasonable sentence. I know I’ve gotten better (or, at least, less cringy) since I started four years ago, but I still don’t think I have style in my words. You can’t take the “fake it ’til you make it” approach to style; you either have it or you don’t.

I’m not sure I’ll ever have it.

I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never known. I just do it. Here I am, four years later, no further along than I was when I started. Taking a pause, it’s depressing as hell. So many hours of my life have been put into writing and this website and I can barely get people to look at it. And I get it; there is so much content out there vying for a person’s attention. I am a teeny tiny site in a world of content more interesting and valuable. I get it. I keep trying to improve this site and do what I can, but I sometimes wonder what I do that for.

When I started, I wanted to write about games to connect with people. I wanted to promote interaction. As the years go by, it seems like less and less people comment either here on the site, or on Facebook or Twitter where I post links to each of these pieces. If I can’t promote interactions about games, I’m not really sure what I’m doing. But to the people who do comment: you have no idea how wonderful that feels to get a discussion going and how much I appreciate your words.

It’s times like these I think about putting writing aside and trying to work towards a more practical job.

Who knows. Who knows what will happen.

I know I don’t.

I have this site paid for through next summer so I suppose I will keep at it until then. But I have no idea what I’m doing or why. I just keep doing it.

I’m either tenacious or a moron. Or both.

See everyone back here tomorrow.

If you are here and reading this, you will never know how much your time and attention mean to me, but I’ll say thank you anyway.

Thank you. Sincerely.