The lean, meme, writing machine...

I've been reading a book titled 'Epic Win for Anonymous' by Cole Stryker recently.
It's a, sort of, history of the Anonymous Hacker group and their rise to... notoriety, lets say... through the 4chan image-board network.
The book is a decent read if you like this type of thing, but that's not what this post is about. You see the first few chapters of this book explore memes in general and internet memes in particular.

  

Anyone heard of LolCatz? 

That's probably one of the most widespread Internet memes 'alive' today, and it was birthed from the rather fetid hive-mind that is 4chan.

Please don't be too tempted to go have a look though, as there are certain things you just can't un-see...


Anyway all this talk of memes got me thinking about how much our current memes are imbedded in today's writings, especially fiction writing. I think a lot of modern memes are present both in the finished stories and in the way we are now taught, or told, to write.

Anyone can be a writer!

...Or at least that's what a lot of the 'How To' books would have you believe. 
I read in the blurb of one such book that 'anyone who can write a letter can write a Novel.' But after looking at the ever-increasing pile of rejection notifications and  'one star' reviews I think most wannabe writers could be forgiven for being little sceptical of this advice.

Writing is a craft, and crafts can be learned and mastered. So in one real sense anyone could become a writer, that isn't a lie. But I don't think it necessarily means that anyone who can compose a decent letter can write a Novel. It's like saying anyone who can drive a car could become a top formula 1 racing driver. Maybe in theory they could, but unless they have the drive, not to mention nerves of steel, they won't get far in practice...

Is there anybody out there?

I've just noticed a rather drastic drop in my monthly page-view count this month.
For the last eight months it's mostly been a good few hundred posts over a thousand, and never fallen below.
last month it was only just over 200! Has something changed with blogger, or with any major site that links on to posts in blogger?

Surely my blogs can't have got that bad that quickley?
Anybody else noticed a drop in their page-views last month? Have I missed something?