Under Consideration

It was suggested recently that I might alter the focus of this blog. From the very beginning, it was my intention to let myself run free in subject matter, but to ultimately narrow down to whatever presented itself as the thing I was most naturally disposed to write about. That was now four or five years ago, and nothing really did rise above the rest. Indeed, a dearth of time and energy led me to relax my discipline of presenting true essays and instead simply write the sort of online diary of which there are all too many.

It was observed that I have an endless enthusiasm for- really, an obsession with- collecting VHS tapes. Why not, it was asked, write about the individual tapes as I buy and view them? Certainly, I could go on for some time just with the ones I have bought and viewed already, to say nothing of the ones I have yet to watch and those that I have yet even to buy. Other blogs given to reviewing movies there may be, but how many confine themselves to the VHS format in addition? I have admittedly only done some cursory investigation, but I can find none.

There is some appeal in the idea. I do have a passion for the subject, and that level of focus would entirely remove from the equation the daily uncertainty of what to write about. It has always been easiest to write when I had some kind of a series in the works, covering different aspects of a night out, or different phases of my many years at summer camp. This would be an endless series of tape reviews. What would there be to do but pick up the next tape on the list?

There would be some difficulties. Each post would necessarily entail an investment of some hour and a half to two hours watching the movie (which, even if I'd seen it before, I would still need to refresh my memory of). Still, that would be a more fixed amount of time spent, as opposed to the blog posts that sometimes could be done in minutes, and other times dragged on interminably in the conception and execution at the worst of times.

It's also worth considering that this would perhaps best be a less than daily blog. I do best with obsessive consistency in frequency, which is why I went from chronically infrequent posts at this blog's beginning to a post every day no matter what. Either of those things is easy. The middle never has been. I expect the total output of words would be similar to this blog, in which I have aimed for some four or five hundred words a day (with exceptions). If I were to limit myself to one or two posts a week, I could really do those movies justice with around 3,000 words a week.

Were I to do this, I don't know that I could keep this blog going. I suppose that would be no great loss. I think it has always, at a bare minimum, helped me to unburden myself and express my thoughts on my daily life, but it would do that even better as a private diary, and it would enjoy nearly as robust a readership. I could say what I want, and the only challenge would be to keep up with it in the absence of any illusion that people are expecting it.

There also would be the matter of actually constructing a new blog. I'd have to devise a layout with all the graphics and things that make a site look really professional. I would, this time, also have to actually buy a domaine name. Continuing to use the lame Blogger address probably has done this blog no favors. In any case, those are things to tackle once I am sure of what I want to do. For now, it's harder to stop writing this blog than it is to continue it.