I'm headed back to school in the morning, and not only is it the dreaded end of summer, but it's always the moment where I have to finally reevaluate my priorities (and begrudgingly enter back into the scary world of adulthood). I'm going from damn near having all the free time in the world, to maybe an hour or two a night. And that's if I can keep my eyes open.
While August is what I always consider Career Reevaluation Month, it's also the end of my Summer Movie/Blogging season. Suddenly, staying up late and writing twelve hundred words about Pixels seems...daunting. If not altogether foolish.
Which begs the question, when does it end? And I ask you fellow blogger, do you have an exit strategy for your blog? Have you set aside a number of years? Number of posts? Personally, I've always thought it would be cool to call it at a million pageviews, but at this rate, that will be in 2030. And I'll be 50. Damn.
Oh, but then there's this little tidbit: I don't think I can stop doing this. Ever.
So, friends, let me hear from you. If you are going to walk away, how will you do it? A quiet smile as you push Publish one last time? Double birds to your monitor in an angry rage? Or in some bizarre fashion, like pounding on your chest like Mark Wahlberg in Fear?
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| This is how it ends for the Yays. |
Which begs the question, when does it end? And I ask you fellow blogger, do you have an exit strategy for your blog? Have you set aside a number of years? Number of posts? Personally, I've always thought it would be cool to call it at a million pageviews, but at this rate, that will be in 2030. And I'll be 50. Damn.
Oh, but then there's this little tidbit: I don't think I can stop doing this. Ever.
So, friends, let me hear from you. If you are going to walk away, how will you do it? A quiet smile as you push Publish one last time? Double birds to your monitor in an angry rage? Or in some bizarre fashion, like pounding on your chest like Mark Wahlberg in Fear?
Jesus Christ, you people need to stop with these fake out 'goodbye' posts!
ReplyDeleteYou totally Cavill'd me here. Answer the question, Claire.
DeleteThis isn't a goodbye post, but I'm just thinking it's gonna get real slow, real soon.
But, I really, really want to know if you have an exit plan or not? C'mon, spill it.
No, because If I won't have the time to blog then obviously I won't have the time to compose a thoughtful 'goodbye' post. Honestly, posts like these strike me as melodramatic.
DeleteYou certainly took this the wrong way. My intention wasn't to be melodramatic, I just wanted to know if anybody has a plan as to when they'll give this up.
DeleteSo, when you stop writing your blog....you won't turn out one last post? I'm not buying it.
I didn't say you were, I said that treating this like something that has to end and writing some big post in the end is. I don't expect to stop writing my blog, why would I? If I'm dead maybe but I don't think I'll be able to publish from beyond.
DeleteOkay...I guess it just seemed that way.I agree that blogging doesn't have to end...but I can't imagine doing it the rest of my life. Can you? And if that moment comes, all I was wondering was how you'd go out...assuming you had a say in the matter.
DeleteAs for being dead? Shit. I'll probably type faster.
In all honesty, if I couldn't publish Rambling Friday anymore my head would just explode from containing all those thoughts.
DeleteYou freaked me out. Not cool, man. Not cool.
ReplyDeleteBut to answer your question, I have no plans on stopping. I actually have my Thursday Movie Pick posts scheduled all the way until Dec 31st. I suppose when I do decide to quit, I'll make a nice goodbye post where I cry over all the great blogs I found. But hopefully that doesn't come any time soon.
Ha! Inadvertent dick move, I know.
DeleteWait? You've already written that many posts? Are you f--king kidding me? YOU'RE A MACHINE! I've never set a post ever. I publish 'em as soon as they're done. I can't imagine being...ahead.
A Goodbye Post would be pretty epic. It'd be like resigning from a job you love.
DON'T LEAVE US FOREVER, MARIO!!!!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I could ever stop, but I'm trying to taper back a bit because life is so crazy ATM. BUT, if I had to stop, it would be with a quiet smile and a sincere post to my fellow bloggers...and probably a link to you and the rest of the bloggers I love the most.
Dude, you're the one leaving. Well...sort of.
DeleteThat's how I'm going to go out to. A nice post thanking all of you for the support over the years.
Oh, and an epic dick pic.
It's hard to imagine not doing this. It's become such a huge, fun part of life. Please, don't quit. Even if you just post like twice a month it will be okay.
ReplyDeleteJess! You're basically a professional, so I get that you couldn'r do it. Losing a super legit site like FTS would be a crushing blow. It's like...what you do.
DeleteIt's very interesting to see that none of us can escape this (not that we'd want to). I love it. I've told my son he can take over when I decide to call it.
Imagine that!
Yes, I'd love to read your son's million Yays for Pixels and million Boos for like any drama movie or other boring stuff. Hey, maybe he'll be a movie reviewing prodigy!
DeleteBrownsy!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txuWGoZF3ew
DeleteI think about stopping from time to time. Going to be hard to give it up completely, but I do think about slowing way down which I might so I can get some other things done. No actual plan, though.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dell. You have been on a tear! It's madness.
DeleteI consider it every now and then, only because of the time burden that we all face. I love it too much, but even if doesn't seem like it, this shit takes me a long time.
Good question. For me it's all about priorities. My film career comes first. Anything I can do to further that takes top priority. Then there's relationships, fun, ends-meet gigs, then the blog. Two years ago I was averaging 22 posts a month, now I average 5. That's because since moving to LA, there's a lot more that can be done with my film career. So basically, I don't have an exit strategy for the blog, but I know I'll never get back to posting as much as I did. I've always blogged for myself, an open film journal. People reading and commenting on it is a very humbling and encouraging bonus. But if I get too busy and the blog falls off, then, you know, it'll be for good reason!
ReplyDeleteThanks, AW. I see a lot of myself in this answer. Well, other than the whole move-to-LA-and-have-a-film-career thing.
DeleteBut seriously, I hate slowing down on this thing. Like you, I consider this site more a journal than anything, and it bums me out to not have the time (or sometimes, the drive) to keep churning them out. I guess if you keep it in the proper perspective, it's likely only to die for the best of reasons.
I can live with that.
I've thought about giving up many times, and even put up a "goodbye" post once or twice, but in the end I always return...usually with a strong presence to start then shit starts dying down, like recently. I can honestly say if I ever give up for good, I won't bother with a "Goodbye" I'll just simply delete the blog, contents and all.
ReplyDeleteI've been reevaluating my priorities a lot this summer. My #1 concern has always been my family & friends, then work, before myself and the blog. In the coming weeks I'm shifting the focus of Mike's Cinema to simply being a film journal, a place for me to literally ramble on about whatever film I've watched and then at the end of the year or 10 years later whenever I re-watch the film hopefully it'll still be around to try and decipher whatever I wrote to compare. I'm no longer going to concentrate on how many followers or hits I have.
Mike, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this comment, but let me tell you - I loved it. You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Sometimes I begin to fade, but usually I'll then come back with a vengeance. I can't imagine ever just deleting the whole thing. That's f--king hardcore.
DeleteI really gotta stop worrying about followers and hits, but I'll be honest...I check it out daily. It's not I'm not ECSTATIC with the people that actually read and comment (no bullshit - I love them all), but I'm always curious about which posts people read, and which ones they don't. Sometimes I think I've got something good...and nobody reads it. There is no magic formula, I suppose.
I'd love to do ten years, though. That'd be rad.
I started my site with a semi-specific end goal in mind. It's only semi-specific because they keep making movies, but at some point I hopefully will have reviewed every superhero and comic book movie ever made and will only have the new ones that come out each year. And even though people claim it's "too many superhero movies!!!" it's only a couple dozen at most which is very light for a typical movie blogger. I've thought about trying to collect it into a book, but I'll likely just expand it to similar movies so I can keep writing. At this point, it's hard to think about stopping, but even if I did I think I'd leave a nice little accomplishment.
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic. I love your plan and wish you the best with it. Can you imagine if you actually caught up? That would be AMAZING. You could just sit there and wait for new releases, having full ownership on the genre. That's brilliant. I pretty much have a similar thing, I guess, but instead of superhero movies, I just watch really bad movies.
DeleteHmm. It might take awhile to finish all of those....
Thanks for the comment!
(oh, and I love the book idea! I've thought about doing that, too)