Writing as Planting Trees

Or, What Google Is Teaching Me About Patience

At the end of the year, many of us get retrospective, looking at the accomplishments and lessons of the past year. 2020 taught us a great deal, much of which we will be processing for years. But in this post, I want to reflect on a writing lesson that has been its parting gift.

Over the year, I published more than 40 writing-related blog posts and book reviews on my website. It seemed like a good idea to look back and learn which were most effective or had the biggest impact.

Impact is tough to measure, so let’s settle for something simpler: traffic. For that, I refer to Google Analytics data on my website traffic and behavior: which posts did people land on and read most often?

Here’s what I found.

Google’s Favorite Posts in 2020

These are the top ten posts on AnneJanzer.com, in order of their online popularity. Look at the list and then we’ll dive into the lesson of it.

1. Defining tone, style, and voice in writing