Friday, April 22, 2016

State of the Blog Ventures 2016

Lately I haven't been keeping as tightly to the schedule of this little online publication as has been my habit for the last, oh, nine years. I have, in fact, been "phoning it in." The reason is that I "haven't been feelin' it."

Two years ago, I did an assessment of where we were in the various blog projects.  I was even silly enough to list other, new things I could do in the blog, such as starting to review movies again, or to talk about classical music. A handful of commenters said "yeah, do something with classical music!" so with my unerring instincts I started reviewing movies again.

Well.  Maybe it's just the spring, or even just an inkling that I might be better served by putting more energy into the home, friendships, career, or other aspects of so-called "real life."  Maybe I need to attend to my so-called "spiritual growth."  Whatever the case, I think it's time to take another good hard look at the blog content.  Doubtless the upshot will be a ruthless KonMari-ing of my little projects.

Ready?  Here goes:



The Infinite Art Tournament
56ish%
Believe it or not, we are already well past the halfway point of the Tournament. The Play-In Tournament is a distant memory, and of the 500 artists in the big show, more than 3/4 have already entered the ring.  Hell, more than 1/4 have already left it.

Will we finish the Tournament?  Well, here's the unspoken rule: a quorum is nine.  We've only ever missed it once.  As long as we keep hitting it, I'll finish the Tournament if I'm able.  I think it's grand.


Through History With the Monday Quiz
26%
This one has been a real crushing chore, and no one likes it much -- but I've learned an awful lot from the process, and actually want to carry on with it.  And anyway, it's reaching the point where it's going to be a lot easier to write, and maybe even to take.
 
Element of the Month
57%
Elements are kind of fun to write about and all, but it's been a long time since I really felt like I needed to write about an Element every month. 

Michael5000 vs. Shakespeare
There was a time when Shakespeare had the second-best blog all to himself. I notice, though, that the last time I wrote on a Shakespeare topic was 2013. So, I'm going to declare this line of inquiry dead.

Michael5000 vs. Dickens
70%
Sure, I want to finish reading all of the Dickens novels.  Other than the Christmas ones, anyway.  I'm at 10 out of 14.5 novels.

Michael5000 vs. The Beatles
23%
This sounded a lot more interesting then it turned out to be. I declare the project dead.

The Songs of the 50 States
36%
These aren't interesting to anybody but me, but they help me organize my odd travels and they stoke my interest in seeing new places and new museums. So, they're still something I might do occasionally.

Saint of the Month
As with elements, it's been a while since I really tried to make sure there was a saint every month.  But unlike with elements, there is always something new and interesting (to me) when I look into a saint.  So, I might still do these.

The Wednesday Post
These are kind of fun, and -- strange as it may seem to some of you -- have a constituency. 

The Free Box Tapes
It sounded like a good idea at the time.  I declare the project dead.

The Jazz Thing
This thing barely got off the ground relative to its size as proposed, but even so I learned a hell of a lot about jazz, which now makes up perhaps 15% of my musical consumption.  So that's a win.  I declare the project dead.

Movie Reviews
Don't know if you noticed, but I put up a movie review every Friday for a year.  That was fun.  But it's also been kind of fun not trying to make that deadline.  I declare weekly publication at an end, but that's not to say I might not like writing about the occasional movie still.

(Other Blog Projects)

Michael Reads the Bible
I'd actually kind of like to go back to this someday.  Maybe after the Tournament is finished.

State of the Craft
This was the most popular blog I did.  But, it's hard to keep interested in blogging about quilting when you don't quilt so much anymore.

Michael5000 Runs
For about a month and a half there, I was writing daily about the elaborate system of tracking and incentives I use to motivate my running.  I think I got that out of my system.



Conclusions

OK, here's what we'll do for now:
  •  Mondays: Will bring a Monday Quiz, if I feel like it that week.
  •  Tuesdays: Will continue to be a Tournament Day
  •  Wednesday: I'll do a Wednesday Post, if I feel like it that week.
  •  Thursdays: Will continue to be a Tournament Day
  •  Friday: If I feel like it that week, Friday could be an Element or a Saint or a Dickens or a State or a movie review or, you know, anything else I felt like writing.  And if I felt like writing a lot, maybe I'd throw some of that stuff at a Monday or a Wednesday too.  
  •  Saturdays: Will continue to be a Tournament Day.  The specifics of Tournament scheduling will need to be tinkered with soon, but that's another story.
OK.   I feel better for having talked this out with you.  Thank you for reading my little blog, as you apparently do. Even on days like this.

2 comments:

Morgan said...

I like the Monday quiz!

Ben said...

I like the Songs of the 50 States!