I am fighting on two fronts at the moment, the one being my ongoing battle to shed excess weight, which has completely stalled, even to the extent of having gone slightly into reverse, while the other front is my continual fight to reach a level at triond where the views I get and money I make maintain some sort of consistency, though this is a much more difficult ambition.

I looked down at the weighing scales this morning, disappointed, to say the least, that I had actually GAINED 100 grams last week! I know this is only a tiny amount, but it is the first time in five months that the trend has shown a tendency to go back up, so I feel that I may have given in once too often in the past two weeks to temptations I should be avoiding, and I really need to get back on track.

Then again, the disappointment that I felt about the temporarily failing dietary regime was tempered somewhat by the discovery, when logging onto triond this morning, that I had reached the 50 articles submitted barrier for May, and gone past the 10,000 views mark, two things worthy of celebration, I thought, though I still believe that the views question is one which needs some looking into, because I re-post the same things at Bukisa and seem to get more views there for the same content?

That particular element of the triond life is one that bugs everyone who contributes to the site, but no solution is ever forthcoming, because in spite of keywords, SEOs and back-linking, you cannot force viewers to your posts but only guide them there. You can, as they say, take the horse to water but— The only thing to do, as I do continually, is to push the promoting of your stuff, via article marketing to social sites etc, and hope for the best.

It is with an eye to the next big targets that I have set myself the challenge of reaching 1000 posts before the end of the year, and 100,000 views, both of which ambitions are eminently achievable, at current rates of progress, though I still look, with envious eyes admittedly, at those members who have had in excess of one million views, wondering how on earth they do it?

Just as with the diet though, the only thing that gets any of us through to the fulfillment of our dreams is the determination not to be beaten, and the belief that we have something to say that is worth listening to. If I was not convinced that my writing would amuse, inform and entertain those who read it, then the exercise would be pointless, but  I know that it is good, because so many of you tell me so.

Every time I get stalled for the next idea about which to write, I go out into my garden, and sit quietly communing with mother nature, watching the countless birds visting the feeders I have in several places, the longing in the eyes of watching cats, the disdain of the grey squirrel, sat atop the high fence chewing merrily, and I feel invigorated, because the imagination can take flight again, and the ideas flood in.

I have been with the triond family now for almost six months, and I enjoy it as much today as I always have, the friendship and the feeling of belonging. There may be faults with the site, and at times the whole thing seems heavily biased toward a favored few, but all the same I enjoy being part of it, and having a bitch is really good for the soul, now and again. May progress on the one hand is stuttering, while on the other it forges ahead, and that is the front that matters most, the climb toward the pinnacle as a writer. I WILL get there, in due course, no matter how tough it might be.