The Reader's Ghost

Writing, they say, is a solitary activity. Sitting in a room, on your own, dipping the quill in the inkwell of creativity. Or hammering away on the keyboard of inspiration (somehow modern metaphors never sound so good).

But writers aren’t really alone. There is always the ghost of a reader standing just behind them. For writers are always accompanied in their frenzy of scribbling (or tapping) by the notion of a person who might, one day, cast an eye over their work.

And in the world of blog-writing, this abstract presence takes on a pleasantly concrete and quantifiable form. At the bottom of the page there is a counter, which ticks away totalling up the visitors.