A Quick Note About Reviews, Ambition and the Future
Oh, hi.
If you're a regular visitor of Sound Bites, you've probably noticed content trickling out at a slower rate lately. Aside from the retweets on the Twitter account, this place has slowed to a crawl as of late. Trust me, I've sure as hell noticed, because I'm the one responsible for staying up to date with all of it.
The thing is, I've found it harder and harder to come up with things to say as the year has dragged on. I've frequently found myself shrugging off writing reviews of records I'd normally review, and when I do review something I'm not putting my all into it because it's happening over the course of an hour of my free time or sporadically during the slow moments at work.
This is mostly on me, because I can't seem to find the ambition to create content as easily as I have previously. Case in point: I was going to review Rob Zombie's new record on the weekend; I wrote the first paragraph, looked over it, and deleted it. My review wasn't going to be up to snuff, so I scrapped it. Rather than start over and try harder, I scrapped it. Add another record to the increasing pile of "I should have probably reviewed that, but oh well".
So, now that I've identified the problem, what do I do about it? Honestly, I considered shutting it down, opting to fold it in rather than steer it into slow decline. However, that's not something I really want; this blog has been a big part of my life for the past 4 years and change, and I hardly want to just walk away from it. Besides, my burnout may be temporary, and I could be posting like mad again any day now.
That said, I also don't want to force myself to create reviews and other content that I'm not happy with and doesn't convey my thoughts properly. This is also my fault, as my reviews have often been overlong (kind of like this post). There's often no need to spend six paragraphs talking about why I liked a record when I can simply say it's good or bad, give a concise reason why and leave it at that.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm looking to move forward in such a way that keeps content coming but doesn't take up as much energy and time. So, here's a few ways I might be able to accomplish this:
QUICKER, MORE BASIC REVIEWS
Rather than the current model of a short essay with several embedded videos, I'll be looking at more simplified reviews going forward. Kind of like the "quick hits" reviews I did for a while, but all the records get this treatment. It won't take as long and they may not be as engaging a read, but it'll at least allow me to keep up to date on what's out there. Stay tuned as I work this out in a way that makes the most sense to me.
SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS
The Twitter account has been by far the most frequently updated facet of Sound Bites, and that won't change. It's super easy to retweet something, and I'll continue to do that. I'll be looking at composing original tweets on a more frequent basis too, as that can be done from my phone anytime I see fit. I'm also hoping to share more on the Facebook page, as things have been pretty dry over there. A quick acknowledgment of a record's anniversary here, a new video I dig there, you get the idea.
PERSONAL CHART
I've dabbled with this on past blogs, but never here. However, I have been maintaining a personal chart for a while now, so maybe I'll look to incorporate that here as well, I don't think my own Top 40 does anything substantial in terms of enlightenment or entertainment, but it's something. So, maybe I'll start posting that here too.
If you've read this far, you're the reason I want to keep this thing going; and, just because I'm not as into it as I used to be, doesn't mean I can't give you a reason to stop by every once in a while. It might continue to be a little lean around here for a while, and whatever changes happen may not affect you in the least. All I can do is thank you for helping this spare time project grow to where it is now, and promise to do my best to maintain it well into the future.
Thanks for checking the place out.
If you're a regular visitor of Sound Bites, you've probably noticed content trickling out at a slower rate lately. Aside from the retweets on the Twitter account, this place has slowed to a crawl as of late. Trust me, I've sure as hell noticed, because I'm the one responsible for staying up to date with all of it.
The thing is, I've found it harder and harder to come up with things to say as the year has dragged on. I've frequently found myself shrugging off writing reviews of records I'd normally review, and when I do review something I'm not putting my all into it because it's happening over the course of an hour of my free time or sporadically during the slow moments at work.
This is mostly on me, because I can't seem to find the ambition to create content as easily as I have previously. Case in point: I was going to review Rob Zombie's new record on the weekend; I wrote the first paragraph, looked over it, and deleted it. My review wasn't going to be up to snuff, so I scrapped it. Rather than start over and try harder, I scrapped it. Add another record to the increasing pile of "I should have probably reviewed that, but oh well".
So, now that I've identified the problem, what do I do about it? Honestly, I considered shutting it down, opting to fold it in rather than steer it into slow decline. However, that's not something I really want; this blog has been a big part of my life for the past 4 years and change, and I hardly want to just walk away from it. Besides, my burnout may be temporary, and I could be posting like mad again any day now.
That said, I also don't want to force myself to create reviews and other content that I'm not happy with and doesn't convey my thoughts properly. This is also my fault, as my reviews have often been overlong (kind of like this post). There's often no need to spend six paragraphs talking about why I liked a record when I can simply say it's good or bad, give a concise reason why and leave it at that.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm looking to move forward in such a way that keeps content coming but doesn't take up as much energy and time. So, here's a few ways I might be able to accomplish this:
QUICKER, MORE BASIC REVIEWS
Rather than the current model of a short essay with several embedded videos, I'll be looking at more simplified reviews going forward. Kind of like the "quick hits" reviews I did for a while, but all the records get this treatment. It won't take as long and they may not be as engaging a read, but it'll at least allow me to keep up to date on what's out there. Stay tuned as I work this out in a way that makes the most sense to me.
SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS
The Twitter account has been by far the most frequently updated facet of Sound Bites, and that won't change. It's super easy to retweet something, and I'll continue to do that. I'll be looking at composing original tweets on a more frequent basis too, as that can be done from my phone anytime I see fit. I'm also hoping to share more on the Facebook page, as things have been pretty dry over there. A quick acknowledgment of a record's anniversary here, a new video I dig there, you get the idea.
PERSONAL CHART
I've dabbled with this on past blogs, but never here. However, I have been maintaining a personal chart for a while now, so maybe I'll look to incorporate that here as well, I don't think my own Top 40 does anything substantial in terms of enlightenment or entertainment, but it's something. So, maybe I'll start posting that here too.
If you've read this far, you're the reason I want to keep this thing going; and, just because I'm not as into it as I used to be, doesn't mean I can't give you a reason to stop by every once in a while. It might continue to be a little lean around here for a while, and whatever changes happen may not affect you in the least. All I can do is thank you for helping this spare time project grow to where it is now, and promise to do my best to maintain it well into the future.
Thanks for checking the place out.
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