The Aftermath
So, what was the final count on the story that got linked by Instapundit? My blog software says that over 4,500 unique visitors have clicked on the story. That's roughly equivalent to three times the population of my hometown. So, what has it done for me?
Next to nothing.
Nobody at my job knew or cared about it. I'm sure my wife is getting tired of me talking about it. It didn't make me a better husband or father, nor did I make any money off it. So, what did it do for me?
This experience gave me some much needed self-confidence in my writing. 4,500 people read the article and about 35 or so decided to leave comments on the site. Of those 35 I would say that about 80% were positive. A couple were blatant trolls, and some disagreed with me. However, the discussion was civil and nothing bad came of it. It made me feel a little better knowing that I had an article that was well-reasoned enough to merit a law professor linking to it and the population of a small town reading it. So, knowing that I'm a little more willing to forge ahead.
And on the heels of this, I would like to announce that I'm going to have an article published on the Youth Ministry Exchange in May. When the article goes up I'll link to it (I'll post it here a month or so after it goes up there) and would welcome any comments about it.