Hey there everyone. Let me start by saying Happy New Year to all of you. I hope your holidays went well and that you got all sorts of cool geeky toys or games as presents. My holidays went well enough. Things, as they usually are around the end of the year, were pretty hectic. Now that we're well into the year 2010 though, I'm hoping things will settle down a bit and will get back to normal soon.
I also wanted to give anyone out there who actually reads this site (yes, all three of you) a heads up as to the goings on here at Geek-tastic. Admittedly, I've left the site a tad neglected to say the least. In the whole month of December I only posted 20 articles, and over half of those were posted on a single day. Whole weeks have gone by with nary a post from myself nor any of the other contributing writers to the site. For that I am sorry. There's a few solid reasons as to why this has been, but for me it really boils down to major loss of motivation in the last few months.
When I first created Geek-tastic, it was really meant to be just an outlet for my creative side where I could practice my writing and try to become a better and more creative person. As the site got going though, I got bitten by the writing bug and suddenly started having these delusions where I would create a popular site that all my fellow nerds and geeks would visit on a regular basis. I had no real beliefs that the site would ever become popular enough to turn a profit or anything, but I did harbor fantasies about the site getting me recognized enough to start getting offered paid work elsewhere. As usually happens in such instances though, reality eventually set back in and after a year and a half of writing whenever I could I began to realize just how out of tune with reality my fantasies were.
I know I do have a few loyal readers here and there, and I thank you guys for checking out the site when you can, but months on end of posting articles which I hoped would spark conversations in which not a single comment was left has lessened my drive to keep going. Add to that my excitement over the creation of the Geek-tastic podcast, only to find out later that maybe 20 or so people at most listen to them, and you can see where my desire to keep pumping out material began wain.
I do realize that most of this is my fault. If I want to build an audience for this site, I need to write more interesting things that people want to read. I can't just keep re-posting things I find on other sites. I need more original content. If I want more listeners to the podcast, I need to make a more intelligent and engaging show that stimulates as well as entertains. I can't just put together a show at the last minute, call two friends, hit record and expect brilliance. Perhaps if I was a naturally gifted on-air personality I could do that, but I'm not and I need to focus on creating well thought out and well planned shows.
In short, for this site to ever have a hope of accomplishing any of my dreams, I need to work harder and produce better material.
I've known this for a while, but I've been allowing myself to wallow in a sea of self-doubt and self pity. Instead of just sitting down and writing, I've been making excuses as to why I can't write. This has just furthered my lack of motivation and the end result as you've all seen is less and less regular posts being made. Have you noticed how all of the former weekly features have disappeared from the site? No more DVD Tuesday articles, no more Friday Happy Hour's. Hell, even the podcast episodes are coming farther and farther apart. We skipped the month of November entirely.
Yes, it is true that I do have very little time to write, what with having to hold down a full time job and all, but that's no reason I can't write at least one or two articles a week that are original and are of at least semi-decent quality. Going forward, this will be one of my many goals for the site. In fact, I've been putting together a small list of promises I'm making myself for the coming year. Call them New Year's resolutions if you will. Here they are.
1. Post at least one (hopefully two) decently long articles per week. These articles will be a bit more in-depth, intelligent or well thought out. These have to be original content.
2. Plan the podcasts better. Actually do some research before sitting down to record. Have notes ready, have a game plan, have a purpose to every segment on the shows.
3. Start a solo podcast. This will hopefully be happening soon. We'll still have the group podcasts because I do feel that intelligent discussions are always good to listen to, but I want to start a small show that is just me. It will be a chance for me to go in-depth into topics of my choosing and will allow me to try to grow my abilities as an on-air personality. I aspire to be a great storyteller and reporter. This will be like my own form of training.
4. Get web comics posted on a more regular basis. I know that the web comics here at the site are few and far between. This is due to the struggles of both myself and our amazing web comic artist Matt Jeffrey with finding the necessary time to devote to the project. Matt, much like myself, has to hold down a full time job as well. The comics are side project to our regular lives. It's impossible for just the two of us to pump out a weekly comic. There's just not enough time in the day. Therefore, going forward I am hoping to put together a small team of artists (if I can find some) that will occasionally draw up a comic for me when they can. This way, we'll get more regular comic posts up and you'll get to see a variety of art from a team of very talented people. If you happen to be an artist and are looking for a place to show your talents, by all means email me and we can talk about what kinds of work you like to do.
5. Embrace new technology. In the coming year, I am planning on buying some pieces of tech which will hopefully expand the capabilities of the kinds of stuff I am able to present on this site. I will be buying a better camera and will learn to use it so that I can bring you higher quality photos from the events I attend such as Comic Con and Wonder Con. I also intend to buy a digital audio recorder so I can get onsite interviews at such events which will be able to be included in future podcasts. Hell, even my new phone is able to live stream videos to the internet, so look forward to some potential videocasts in the future as well.
All I ask of you, my faithful readers, is that you be patient with me. The site isn't going to change overnight, I still have a full time job that sucks up most of my time and I'm still going to be fighting my own inherent motivation issues for a while to come. It may be a while before daily posts are being made to the site again, but please don't think that Geek-tastic is dead just yet. I still think about the site every day and am working on ways to entertain you all. Just bear with me and be sure to check back in every now and then.
Thanks for listening.
- Patrick Roach
Founder of Geek-tastic.com
Pat, Buck up little camper. I think you're doing a great job. Admittedly, I don't spend as much time reading geek-tastic as I'd like. Then again, I have a full-time job, and a blog that I don't spend nearly enough time on myself. Trust me, I don't update even a quarter as often as you do (even when you're feeling burned out and not updating regularly).
ReplyDeleteI think you have to just do it for yourself. If you're happy with what you're doing, you'll do it more often. If you're trying to do it as a stepping stone to something else, you'll end up discourage and burned out. We all heard these stories about people who became minor celebrities when their blog caught on fire. Are these more passionate, smarter, funnier, whatever-er than you. No, not necessarily. They just happen to come along at the right time. If it wasn't them, it would have been someone else. You're dedicated and good at what you do. If you stumble, don't beat yourself up about it. Just get up and press on.
Chris