Residual enthusiasm and productivity

Note: I wrote this post more than five weeks ago, expecting it would post within a week. The reason it didn't is more proof of what I'm writing about. So I will leave the original text intact and add parenthetical responses written today, March 10th, in bold.

It's funny how cyclical blog writing can be.

A little over a year ago (more than 14 months ago now) I wrote a post in which I marvelled about the productive year 2020 just completed, in which I wrote more posts than all but one other year in the history of this blog. Then later in 2021, my updates got so infrequent that I wondered why I was even still doing this -- resulting in fewer posts than all other years but one since 2013, and third lowest overall. 

Well, as the cycle I alluded to in the opening sentence of this post would indicate, I'm back again. (Boy am I ever.)

There have only been 69 days so far in 2022, and I've posted on 65 of them. 

Posts are always in heavy supply at the start of the year, since that's when movies are most front-and-center in my life -- even more than usual -- as I look back on the year just completed. That's no guarantee, though, that I'll keep writing at such a furious pace after I officially move on to the new year. (Such a furious pace.)

But this year there has been residual enthusiasm and productivity -- even if those posts are just a case of writing about that very enthusiasm and productivity, like this one.

As I write this, it can go up no sooner than two days from now, as I already have a post in the can for tomorrow. (Remember, I never post more than once per day.) (Which is why I kept saving this one until I didn't have something else written that I needed to post first.) It might be longer, though (more than a month longer), as who knows what tonight's viewing might inspire me to post -- not tomorrow, but the day after that. I've also got another post in the can that just needs to go up sometime in February. (Note: This parenthetical comment is being added about a week later, when I have six -- yes, six -- posts currently in the can.) (I was already adding parenthetical future comments back then.) 

I assume I will be posting the post I'm currently writing in February, but at this point, who knows. (Nope. March 10th.)

And to give you an indication of that uncertainty, I've written the earlier sentence in this post as "There have only been xx days so far in 2022, and I've posted on xx of them." I hope I remember to update that before I post this. (Yup. Remembered.)

I suppose calling it residual enthusiasm from the end of the year would be correct on some level, but 2022 has excited me in a whole bunch of new ways. Not only do I have my recurring series, Audient Bollywood and Settling the Scorsese, but I've also determined to post all my previous film rankings from before I started this blog, as a way of backing them up permanently, so a hard drive crash (and a failure of my primary backup) don't leave them lost out there in the ether.

Those posts require some additional analysis and computing of numbers, so they give me something to work on even when I'm not aiming to post them the next day. Then there's also the accompanying project, which is rewatching all my previous #1s in 2022 in order to rank them at the end of the year.

So never fear, Audient readers. I'm not closing up shop anytime soon.

And I need to remember this post the next time I have one of my inevitable droughts. Because movies always come back around again, don't they?

Lifelong passions are not easy to squelch, and a writer writes -- in my case more than most. (Understatement of the year.) I'm at the point now where I feel like if I don't write at least a thousand words a day, I'm not fully satisfying the deep urge to write that most writers feel. They feel it even if they are not always in a position to write, or even if they sort of hate writing on some level. (Hating writing obviously doesn't apply to me.) Writing is a complicated passion. 

Film is a more uncomplicated passion, and it is a resource that gives forever. There's no getting to the end of watching movies. 

So until blogs are just such a ridiculously archaic form that only the most self-absorbed TV characters still pursue, and that's the TV writers' idea of a joke, there will still be posts on The Audient. (Though possibly not tomorrow, as the well has run dry at the moment. And though I'm never more than an idea away from my next post, I'm going to Sydney this weekend, so it could be a few days off you get from The Audient -- finally.)