OK, this is a little weird.

I’ve created a monster.  Well, not just me, but it’s at least largely my writing.  Not that even my own sister could tell that.

See, the Ballistics by the inch project has been really successful.  Really successful.  Like over-a-quarter-million-hits-in-the-two-weeks-since-we-launched-it successful. I won’t know the actual number for a couple of hours, but already yesterday it was past that mark.

That’s more than twice the number of hits I’ve had to the Communion of Dreams site in the entire two years since it launched.

The Bbti blog now gets more hits daily than this blog does.  And that’s with just a handful of posts and comments over there.  Compared to the two years worth of writing and commenting here – some 565 posts, hundreds of thousands of words, hours and hours and hours of hard work and pouring out my soul.  And in two weeks that other blog is doing better.

Now,  I don’t begrudge other writers their success.  We each do what we think is important, write for an audience of one (ourselves) and if others respond to our work, that’s great.  But I feel like the guy who ghosted the Clinton autobiography (either one – take your pick), watching the thing skyrocket to the top of the bestseller lists, generating millions of dollars in sales – his (or her) work, but little or no credit, and the response is purely due to factors out of his control.

Well, OK, I do get credit on both the Bbti site and the blog.  My name is all over those.  But when my own sister called to tell me how cool the main site was, she was stunned to find out that I did virtually all the writing there.  She was surprised to find that the light-hearted tone, the easy going humor, was all my writing.  She loved it, mind, but she just didn’t recognize it as my writing style.

Man, talk about having mixed feelings.  Um, thanks?

Well, anyway.  It’s weird, being resentful of your own success.

Jim Downey