Happy Blog Birthday 2!

Today Just the Fiction Ma’am is turning two years old! Isn’t that cute!

(Actually, its real birthday was yesterday, but I was busy dealing with a crisis coffee cake situation and didn't have time to post this. Don't tell it, okay?)

To celebrate, I put together a “Best of” post. If you want to catch up on a year’s worth of my blogs without actually reading the 104 of them from this year, here’s a great summary. (And here's last year's roundup if you want a few more.)

Most Popular Post:

The Problem with Sexy Disney Princesses. This was the runaway winner, with almost 1,800 views, mostly because it was posted on the Facebook and Twitter of Christians for Biblical Equality. But also because comparing Disney princesses to porn stars is interesting.

Although, in a surprise dark horse candidate rush at the last minute, A Letter To the Church From the Lonely is  trying to surpass this one. We'll see...

Best Keywords That Sent Someone To My Blog:

“Why sarcasm is a sin.” Three people have searched for this, only to be directed to Christian Satire: Is Sarcasm a Sin? To give you a sense of their great disappointment, the first sentence of that post is “No.” Maybe they learned not to prooftext their opinions via Google search. Or maybe I’m just being optimistic. 

Best Title:

Go Shopping, Fight Nazis. Who says Hitler and Black Friday don’t mix? Also, I am seriously considering naming my hypothetical first daughter Julie because of the awesome old lady in this blog post. 

Most Informative:

By all rights, given the topic of this blog, it ought to be something related to writing. But no. The winner in this category is: Bacon in World Religions, where I explain why I think Christianity is the only major world religion that allows its adherents to eat bacon. It’s based on the final paper for my Eastern World Religions class, so I actually did legitimate research instead of looking stuff up on Google. That helped up the informative quotient.

My Top Three Posts:

Based entirely on blatant favoritism, in no particular order.

Mourning Inspector Javert: In which I talk about my favorite character from Les Miserables and why his story had such an impact on me.

Seeking a Homeland: My way of coping with change. Turns out, our early 20s are a time of instability and insecurity. Actually, a lot of the posts I've written over the past month have been my favorites, probably because I have more time for introspection than I did while in college.

When It Is Not Well With Your Soul: What to do when you can't honestly sing the words of your favorite hymn.

Most Controversial:

You’d think this would be the one where I talked about gay marriage. Or the one about bikinis. Most of that debate took place via Facebook and private messages, so you can’t see it. But not everyone agrees with me on these two. Which is fine with me.

But, really, my most controversial post was Four Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Write Letters. I had over a dozen concerned people ask me via Facebook message and in person if I was really boycotting sending mail. Sometimes I forget that satire doesn’t always translate over the Internet.

Most Unusual Format:

Be a Heretic Monday Starter Kit. Where I basically ask a ton of perplexing faith questions and don’t answer any of them. Let me tell you, that was fun.

It's been a good two years. There might be changes in store in the future. Because, as you might have noticed, almost every single post that I really enjoyed was not about writing, the ostensible subject of this blog.

Let's just say that I might have a new blog in mind. Still in the plotting...I mean, planning stages. But I'm looking forward to what comes next.