Friday, January 1, 2021

Health check: Lookin' good

The decline in everything related to movies, which has been prominently discussed in 2020, has already been underway for a number of years on movie blogs.

That might be in part just the blog format itself, but I feel like movie blogs in particular have taken a hit, what with there being all sorts of entertaining YouTubers who discuss and review movies. I know many of the blogs I read when I first start blogging have ceased to exist, while others continue to plug away in the same sort of semi-anonymity that my blog has. 

Two years ago at this time, I myself wrote this post, commiserating the slow and steady demise of the movie blogger. It was after a particularly anemic 2018 on The Audient, in which I wrote a mere 171 posts. That's less than one every other day, and it was the only time I'd written fewer than 200 posts other than 2013, the year I moved to Australia and my computer situation was in chaos for a large part of the second half of the year. That year I managed only 151. It was the only time under 200, that is, until the very next year, when I wrote a mere 190 posts in 2019.

Twenty twenty has been a different story. If I wrote my second fewest posts all time in 2018, I wrote my second most in the year just completed.

That's 234 total posts, fewer only than the 264 I wrote in 2010 -- which was only the second year of my blog, when the ideas still felt limitless. Somehow, the ideas where limitless as well this past year, as I slid just head of the 231 posts I wrote in 2016.

It started with my record consecutive days streak of posting on The Audient, commemorated here. And since I never do more than one post per day, that meant that I wrote 40 consecutive posts from January 6th to February 14th. Once those were already in the bank, I probably only needed to have a relatively average output for the rest of the year to reach these heights.

Certainly my prolific production had to do with the pandemic. For sure, being at home from March 24th onward made it easier to squeeze in a cheeky blog post during working hours, when no one was looking over my shoulder and shaking their head at my failure to be dedicated to work. 

But you still need something to write about, and for this entire year, I had that something. I don't remember forcing any posts; if you force yourself, you can write something every day. But I've generally only written blog posts when I've had something to say, throughout the history of this blog, excepting only a time here or there where I'd gone a whole week without writing, and felt like I just needed to post something to reassure you I was still alive.

Will this carry on into 2021? Your guess is as good as mine. But I see no reason why it shouldn't. I'm feeling limber, and except for a callous and some resulting numbness on two fingers due to an ill-advised, high-impact Christmas project, my typing fingers are ready to go.

Stay tuned, and see how I go. 

I suppose this post wouldn't be complete without the requisite wishing of Happy New Year! to you. We did that about eight hours ago in Australia. And even if I wrote a lot in 2020, it's a year I am eager to put behind us. Looking forward to you doing the same in a few hours. 

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