I launched my blog The Teri Tome on March 18, 2015, and for those of you who are regular readers, you know that the things I write about run the gamut from personal to political to fiction and anything in between.

And even though The Teri Tome is almost five years old, the angst over whether to click “POST” and shoot my writings through cyberspace has never diminished.

I was recently asked by a friend to sum up 2019 in one word, and my first thought was: POST.

Of all the words I could have come up with, POST was what came to mind.

I guess because everything I do these days always comes back to:

“I’m so going to post a blog about this…”

Whether it be the mundane, the insane, the ridiculous, the heartbreak…

I can’t stop posting. Even when I know it’s not in my best interest.

Every Sunday, I go to the backend of my blog and check out my page views by post for the week.

And it never fails, that I am always shocked at the results.

The posts I hope will be a “Hit” are usually not.

Don’t get me wrong, I always go into my writing frenzy, with the thought in mind that whatever I write will in all probability be a miss.

It’s the only way I can go through the exhausting routine without getting my hopes up that people will like my work, and then being disappointed.

Hit or miss, I write anyway.

And I’m not trying to cry a river but writing a blog post takes a ton of time and energy.

Particularly the posts that are not in my best interest. Those are the most challenging and difficult to write. They take added effort and stamina, but they mostly take courage and a grueling mental toll.

So today being Sunday, I checked out the hits and misses, not only for the week but for all of 2019.

At the end of last year, I put together the Top Hits and Duds of 2018, which included the best and worst of all Teri Tome time (2015-2018).

For 2019, I thought I would change it up a bit.

I wrote 36 blog posts in 2019, so I decided to highlight the top two hits and the number one miss.

And since I took the time and effort today to analyze my best and worst posts of all time (2015-2019), I might as well share the top two hits so that today’s analysis wasn’t a complete waste.

The 36 posts I wrote in 2019 generated over 140,000 page views, which I suppose is okay.

I say okay, because in 2018, I only wrote 18 posts and had close to the same number of page views, so for 2019, double the posts did not equate to double the views. Not even close.

Oh well, let’s hope for better results in 2020.

I’ll start with the worst miss of 2019:

#1 MISS 

MY STOLEN DIARIES: A NOVELOG: Okay, to be fair, I only wrote this blog post one week ago, so it will take some time for it to work its way through the internet. And I’ve only blogged one chapter so far! I am so hoping that this post does well for the main reason that it is excerpted from a novel I have been writing — for like a gazillion years. Plus, I invented the word NOVELOG to describe my novel-in-a-blog, and I am hoping it sticks as a solid description for writers out there who are looking for a word to describe their efforts to blog their novels. #NOVELOG

And now for my top two 2019 posts:

#1 HIT

U.S. SENATE SEATS UP FOR REELECTION IN 2020: I was super happy that this blog post was the 2019 top post. First, because people should care about which Senators are up for reelection in 2020, and second, because this post took hours upon hours, and then more hours to pull together. So thanks to my readers for giving back!

#2 HIT

TURKISH SOLDIERS DROVE MY GRANDPARENTS OUT OF SYRIA IN 1920: I was thrilled to see this post hit the number two spot because anyone who has had to suffer at the hands of murdering dictators deserves to get the sympathy and recognition they deserve. Plus, I am so sick of Turkey getting away with their denials and lies about what they did to the Christians during the Armenian Genocide.       

B.O.A.T. (BEST OF ALL TIME)

#1 HIT OF 2015-2019

BULLIES ARE COWARDS AND WHY I REFUSE TO TURN THE OTHER CHEEK: Year after year, this post continues to outperform all the others, and to date, has garnered over 500,000 page views. And year after year I’m thankful for the blog traffic, but the fact that “bullies” is my number one keyword says volumes about the character of our world. And as history has shown us there are way too many psychopathic bullies out there. And from my own personal experiences, someone with a psychopathic personality disorder will always display some sort of mental disorder topped off by a narcissistic disorder. As far as I’m concerned, all three disorders are little more than a convenient label for crackpots and social deviants who over-estimate and exaggerate their abilities, status, intelligence, and looks.

#2 HIT OF 2015-2019 

MY SUN PHOBIA—JUST CALL ME DRACULESS: Ironically, my number two Teri Tome post of all time also features a mental disorder, this one born from anxiety and fear. To date, the page views for this post has exceeded the 400,000 mark. And since this post is about me, I will confess that through therapy I long ago discovered that my phobia was indeed triggered by an unfortunate event although my trigger had nothing to do with the sun. I’ll leave the full explanation for a future blog post.

In reviewing my 2019 hits and misses, as well as my top two posts of all Teri Tome time, I’m at peace with the results.

And I’m prideful that I continue to push myself to put it all out there, and okay, I have some regrets.

But what I don’t regret is when I am long gone, there will be no doubt about who I was, or what I felt, or where I loved, or why I feared.

Because, the who, what, when, why and where of Teri will be present in each and every post, regardless of whether they hit or miss.

Happy New Year to my loyal readers. I wish for you a 2020 that will turn many of your hopes and dreams into reality.