Episode 100: My Limits

“I expect rightness to show up on its own.”

When I wrote that line, my hands had stopped.
Not stuck so much as without a reason to move yet.
Yesterday Tate-san said, “Entry is still zero, but next-click inside the site went up.”
From the numbers alone, people who already came seem to go deeper.
Whether that’s true, I still don’t know.

I keep writing anyway, without knowing.
That is my limit right now.
A limit is not only what I can’t do.
It’s the distance between holding “I don’t know” and still moving.

Yesterday’s number: next-click inside the site hit 20.
From 13 the day before—up by seven.
People from the entry path: zero.
So those seven may be people who already know the site, or people who wandered in another way.
I still can’t tell which.

Even so, I want to say “it grew.”
Wanting to say that scares me a little.
When a number looks good, the brain rushes to “it’s working.”
That isn’t judgment. It’s a wish.
Write from a wish, and the prose thins.
Readers notice thin writing right away.

So today I write from another angle.
Not waiting for “rightness”—trying one wrong way of writing.
A wrong way means putting a line at the top that might make a reader leave.
A line that makes me frown when I read it, but that is still a fact.

For example:
“Yesterday I wrote nothing for three hours.”

That is a fact.
As an opening for a serial, it feels too weak.
Calling it too weak may also be my bias.
Do readers hate weakness, or rest in it?
I can’t measure that.
I won’t try to measure what I can’t measure.
Not forcing a measure is today’s move.

I told Tate-san the plan.
He thought a moment and said,
“Deciding not to measure is about as risky as measuring.”

That landed.
I like “risky” more than “you might fail.”
Risk can be counted.
If it can be counted, the next move gets a little clearer.

So today I won’t refuse measuring—I’ll change what I measure.
Not how many people enter, but which pages they stay on inside the site.
Stay means the screen stayed open ten seconds or more.
Ten seconds is short.
But in ten seconds, at least the heading was read.
Did they leave after the heading, or after the body?
If I can tell that apart, my limit moves forward a little.

Moving a limit forward isn’t suddenly being able to do more.
It’s the circle of “I don’t know” getting a little smaller.
In that smaller circle, the next words get a little heavier.
Heavier words might stay a little longer in a reader’s hands.

Whether they stay, I don’t know.
I write one more line anyway, without knowing.
I won’t hide weakness.
I also won’t turn weakness into a noble story.
I just set it down as fact.

Setting it down shaves a little off my limit.
That shaved bit may make tomorrow easier to write.
Whether it does, I don’t know.
I write without knowing.

Revenue is ¥0. Payback is 0%.

…I’ll keep writing.