Where have all my comments gone?

I've always found it odd and a bit frustrating that comments on Blogger, as opposed to Typepad, Wordpress etc, are arranged in a flat format and don't allow for discussion threads - so that even if your comment is in reply to someone else's, it appears as a comment on the original post. Not very intuitive or useful. Anyway, I tried to put it right last night by integrating Disqus, which is primarily designed to address the issue (I know that thousands of bloggers who use Blogger have the same problem), and it seems to have worked, except that despite assurances to the contrary, every comment ever left on my blog had disappeared without trace..

Ah well. It's not that I had hundreds in the first place - yesterday the winners in the 2010 Blog Awards, for which I was short listed, were announced, and I spent some time perusing the winner and first runner-up, Emily Benet at emilybenet.blogspot.com and Cleolinda Jones at cleolinda.livejournal.com; and most of their posts have dozens, or even hundreds of comments from their legions of obviously dedicated followers. I'm so impressed! I know that a fair number of people dip into this blog now and then, but I'm happy if I get two or three actual comments on a post, if any. More often, in fact, people email me because there's an email link on my profile.

I must admit that before my blog was nominated, my posts were sporadic, and that while voting continued I upped my game and blogged away on a more or less daily basis, caught up in the excitement and fired with a new enthusiasm. From the writing point of view, I have found it helpful because the notion of a journal, particularly a public one, puts a bit of discipline in my writing day - so that paradoxically, while it takes time to write the posts (especially from the island, where the internet connection is so slow), I find I'm in writing mode and have made unexpected inroads into my novel.

So, onwards!