dumb luck



Back in April, when I started posting longhand haiku and poetry here, I decided to host the images on Flickr. It was done to spare my web server in the unlikely (yet entirely welcome) event of a gargantuan traffic spike.

Such a spike has yet to occur, but the decision seems to have had another benefit. It’s helped make the material accessible to folks not prone to visiting indie sites like this one. Thanks to the ease of modern photo sharing on Flickr, a dozen or so of my longhand images are floating around on literally hundreds of Tumblr, Livejournal and Blogger sites. While only a tiny fraction of people who view my Flickr-based images ever come to this actual site, it’s pretty gratifying to know people are seeing and enjoying my output — it’s only a little bittersweet that most of them seem to be teenage girls.

My inner capitalist would love to convert the increased exposure into cold, hard cash (or at least a few more book sales?). Unfortunately, I have no inner marketing genius to figure out how.

Meanwhile, my inner teenager wants to know why I didn’t write more poetry for girls to see when I was actually a teenager. If only I’d had the internets and social networking back then…

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by howard

November 23rd, 2009

Posted in scrawl

Tagged with , , , , ,

  • PJ

    I bought your book and I love your haikus, despite the fact I'm no longer a teenage girl. I hope that's okay

    ;)

  • http://nonbreakingspace.com/ howard

    thank you, PJ. thats perfectly fine by me. i'm glad you enjoy them.

  • EllenS

    speaking as a former teenage girl, we're not worth the retrospective. we get less moody and more sane when we age. well, if we're lucky :)

  • http://nonbreakingspace.com/ howard

    speaking as a former teenage boy, i could have used every foothold possible in dealing with the teenage girls — hence the slightest of regrets ;)

  • EllenS

    Another response I'm keeping off the grid:
    so while I was on fb catching up with my mafia wars, one of my cousin N texts me (in general I am not a texter , but I answer them). It seems (among other bits of convo ) her 18YO daughter just came out to her and N was a little sad that kiddo was apprehensive to come out to her (which had me thrilled – always happy to see people being cool w/ the gay thing) but I also had this mental picture of (if kiddo makes coming out public) teenage hearts breaking everywhere – kiddo is just a beautiful blond girl with a real sweetness that comes thru in her pics. so, some of that mystery maynot be a bad thing :)

  • http://nonbreakingspace.com/ howard

    i'm not sure what you mean by “keeping off the grid.” are you insinuating something about of traffic on my site? ;)

    feigning insult aside, i'm glad your niece has such a loving environment to help deal with this, though i'm sure the apprehension is quite normal, regardless of the openness her mother has tried to foster. i hope her dealings in this regard as at least half as smooth down the road.

  • EllenS

    no offense meant, as you know – just a desire to not put my cousin's and her kid's sensitive info in a public place – I doubt Nancy would mine, but it's not my call

  • http://nonbreakingspace.com/scrawl/handwritten-verse-a-slideshow-recap/  (non-breaking space) | handwritten verse: a slideshow recap

    [...] mentioned before the unforeseen benefits of hosting handwritten haiku and poetry images on Flickr. Another benefit [...]

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