Dear Rebels,

wow.

I genuinely have no words for today and for what happened.

We passed 300 views.

Three. Hundred. Views.

I never thought I was going to see that number this soon.

And today, Rebels… wow. We actually passed it.

I have no words to explain how I’m feeling.

…

Just kidding.

I have many words.

In five different languages, actually, because I’m exactly that kind of Imperfect Rebel who feels the need to casually remind everyone that she is a polyglot.

Sorry.

I just had a brief moment of pure narcissism in which I placed myself firmly at the centre of the universe, declared myself its belly button and felt terribly important.

It passed.

Mostly.

Back to Earth.

Although I am still writing this with far too many emotions running around inside me because…

YUPPIIIII.

HURRAYYYYY.

I am so, so, so happy.

Unbelievable.

Actually, no.

I believe it.

Mostly because I can see the bloody number sitting there on the screen.

305 views.

And I keep looking at it.

Then looking away.

Then looking again as if WordPress might suddenly say:

Sorry, Lupe, clerical error. It was 35.

But no.

Still there.

And the part that really gets me is that those 305 views came from 84 visitors.

Real people.

People who decided to dedicate a little piece of their day to coming into my chaos laboratory and reading something I made.

And that makes me ridiculously happy.

Because the happiness isn’t really the number.

The number is fun. Of course it is.

My little dopamine-addicted brain is looking at that graph going upward and screaming like it has just won Eurovision.

But what actually matters is what the number represents.

You came.

You read something.

Then some of you stayed.

You opened another page.

And another.

And another.

Maybe a review.

Maybe a chapter of The Chosen.

Maybe Before October Ends.

Maybe one of these ridiculous Journal entries where you discover far more about the contents of my brain than any normal person should reasonably know.

And somewhere behind my screen, I was looking at all of you appearing in the statistics and thinking:

Please like something.

Please find something interesting.

Please stay.

And you did.

So thank you.

Really.

Thank you to every single person who gives me a few minutes of their day.

Because time is probably the most valuable thing any of us owns, and you decided to spend some of yours here.

That matters to me enormously.

And apparently the rest of the internet had coffee today too

Since this is still an experiment, I suppose I should behave like a responsible scientist for approximately thirty seconds and document what actually happened.

The website finished the day with 305 views, up 247%, and 84 visitors, up 133%.

Instagram reached 9,435 views over the last thirty days, and 48.8% of them came from people who don’t follow me.

That number fascinates me.

Followers already know I exist.

Strangers don’t.

So nearly half of those views coming from people outside my little circle means my work is travelling farther than I am.

Facebook, meanwhile, apparently woke up and chose violence.

Views are up 3,545%.

Engagement is up 608%.

I have absolutely no idea what Facebook ate for breakfast, but please somebody keep feeding it.

And Spotify?

Oh, Rebels.

Spotify did something very important today.

Spotify made me money.

I shall not disclose the amount because some things must remain between a woman, her accountant and her rapidly expanding media empire.

But money appeared.

Real money.

My podcast plays and downloads over the last seven days are up 153.8%.

And apparently people have spent more than 26 hours listening to me talk during the last thirty days.

Average consumption time?

One hour and thirty-two minutes.

Which is perhaps the most Imperfect Rebel statistic imaginable because apparently neither I nor my guests know how to shut up.

And I love that.

I never wanted the podcast to become ten minutes of:

“Tell me about your book.”

“Thank you.”

“Where can people find you?”

“Goodbye.”

No.

I want conversations.

I want people interrupting each other.

I want laughter.

I want us to start discussing a book and somehow end up talking about the existential consequences of soup.

That is the point.

And apparently some of you are staying long enough to come with us.

Meanwhile, I actually worked

Because somewhere between staring lovingly at statistics and imagining myself ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange after earning my first podcast money, I also had work to do.

I answered nine emails today.

Nine.

And today I started translating The Chosen into Italian.

Or, as she is now called:

La Prescelta.

Rebels…

I love her.

Italian does something completely different to this story.

It sounds darker.

Older.

More sensual.

More dramatic.

More gothic.

A sentence I already love in English can suddenly make me feel something completely different in Italian.

And I realised something while working on it:

translation is not enough.

You can translate every word correctly and still lose the feeling.

You have to translate the silence.

The rhythm.

The tension.

The little pause before something goes wrong.

Sometimes you need a completely different word to create the same shiver.

And I loved doing it.

I really, really love what I do.

That may be the most important number in today’s entire experiment.

There isn’t a dashboard for it.

But I wish there were.

I think I’m addicted

Rebels, I don’t really know what else to say except:

keep reading me.

Because whatever this feeling is in my chest right now…

I want more of it.

I am addicted to feeling happy.

I am addicted to feeling positive.

I am addicted to resilience.

To determination.

To discipline.

Especially discipline.

Because inspiration is lovely, but discipline is the engine underneath almost everything I have managed to build.

There are days when I’m inspired.

There are days when I’m exhausted.

There are days when I would happily throw my laptop through a window.

And then I sit down anyway.

I write.

I answer emails.

I edit.

I translate.

I post.

I check things.

I break WordPress.

I repair WordPress.

I break WordPress again.

I drink Coke Zero.

And somewhere inside all of that chaos, things slowly move forward.

Working alone is definitely no walk in the park.

But it is also kind of amazing.

Mostly because I can stay in my pajamas all day.

Corporate life never gave me enough credit for this particular benefit.

Sorry.

I need to return to it once more.

Three hundred.

I feel like a Spartan.

There I am standing with my 300 behind me.

THIS IS SPARTA.

Except instead of swords we have books, WordPress, podcast microphones, analytics dashboards and probably far too much caffeine.

Okay.

Sorry.

I did it again.

My moment of grandeur has returned.

Someone remove me from the centre of the universe immediately.

Important scientific development

Starting in October, I have decided that we are introducing another very serious KPI to this experiment:

Coke Zero consumption.

Yes.

Every day I will document how many Coke Zeros were sacrificed in the creation of this increasingly ridiculous empire.

And then, sometime in November, we shall gather the evidence and write a very professional email to Mr. Coca-Cola Eastern Europe.

I will arrive with graphs.

Statistics.

Performance indicators.

Possibly a PowerPoint.

I shall explain that Lupe Farkas has developed her own Coke Zero KPI and that their product appears to be an integral component of independent publishing infrastructure.

What could possibly go wrong?

But that is October’s problem.

Tonight…

305.

I still can’t quite believe it.

Thank you, Rebels.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for clicking another page.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for coming back.

Thank you for making this strange little experiment feel increasingly less like me shouting into the internet and increasingly more like there are actual people sitting on the other side of it.

I hope you can feel the forehead kiss from wherever you are.

Because there is one.

For every single one of you.

Love you, Rebels.

Ciaooo. 🖤