Hello!
Where has my hypothetical audience gone?
I suppose that since they are only rendered as  statistics, I can't actually individuate them as separate people, but they are. Moreover, these people have names, interests, obsessions, bizarre personality characteristics that they hide from the rest of the world, tiny, middling, or humongous, drug habits, chemical or otherwise, and sexual fetishes that are never shared. Of course, none of this has anything to do with weather or not anyone reads this blog, which--as it was only conceived initially as an archive--should not be importnat, but it is. This is partly atributable to the fact that, like most struggling writers--especially those existing within specialized fantasy corridors deep in my brain--I tend to feel as if I am working in cxomplete isolation. Even the readings that I do, and the writers workshops--whose collective chemistry is always skeward towards the biases of the individual running said workshop(s)--are brief respites where thirsty self-defined literati (I know, the term sounds so precious and fragile, like a 6-year old Thai king sitting insid a tiny carriage carried across jungle terrain by numerous silent litter bearers who await his every bark-beetle sized utterance) gather at a partially drained waterhole like an assortment of dehydrated animals from a nature documentary, only to fight tooth and claw over verb-choices and arcane standards of word and comma usage. It is simply too litle and way too much trouble for any person who thinks him/herself talented to have to endure. This is why I check my own stuff, often compulsively, on various literary sites, to see if anyone has commented--even critically, so a I can ascertain what effect my writing has on other humans. Tghen, of course, if I dont like their response--for reasons both valid and not-so-clear--I can simply dismiss it out of hand, or apply part of it to my next project. Still, if you are an unconventional writer--as I am--it is difficult to bear criticisms that assume the privliged status of certain canons and narrative structures, to which youyrs truly doesn't apply, enshrine or embrace in any way. Art, afer all, iis quite evaluative and has multiple levels of criterion; but, here I am talking to the converted, and the most likely disinterested...
PhlegmTurtlePalace steward, wondering why the drawbridge is down, but no one appears to want entry...