Looking to 2017

Happy New Year to all my readers and followers.

This year has been a rough one in a sense but there are some things to celebrate.

This year marked the continuation of my desire to blog regularly, with a goal of posting at least three times a week. I have been able to maintain that output for the most part, amidst working full time, writing books, exercising, job-hunting and learning how to play the guitar.

I finished a novella and started working on my second novel. I am currently 40,000 words into Alive, and have now committed to writing 1000 words a day. I may not be writing today but the limit will be in place from here on out. Hopefully I should be done a rough draft by March, or April at the latest.

I am attempting to make a career switch to teaching, and will be doing a guest lecture for a college class in February. The time I need to prepare for this may cut into my writing but I want to do my best not to make excuses and commit to writing everyday.

I have been able to grow my social media presence, as well as the presence for comicommand. I am hoping that this can result in more visits to the site as the new year progresses. One issue with my social media, specifically the @moviegrapevine instagram, is that I cover a wide array of topics. I have noticed that engagement and followers seem to drop off when I drift from a focus on comics. Posts on politics, movies, tv etc. all seem to suffer and alienate followers who only want a certain kind of content. The same trend applies to the site. The posts with the most views, judging by Google Analytics, are ones on popular topics such as The Walking Dead. I like discussing shows too but I don’t want to have to limit what I discuss for more views. I want people to be able to engage with more than one type of subject matter.

Moving forward, I will have to see if I can continue to build my base of readers. This year marked the first time that a reader commented on one of my posts, showing that there are some people who are enjoying the content and engaging with it. Either way, I can’t blog just for them. Writing helps to stretch mental muscles, and blogging is a key part of that exercise. I can’t just be someone who wants to become a published writer: I have to truly be a writer, creating content everyday, whether it is writing 1000 words of a book, blogging or posting poetry pieces to @wmoviegrapevine. Some days, I’ll do all three.

Writing full-time is a distant goal at this point but I know that it is a goal, not a dream. I have given up on the idea of being published next year, or the year after. Like a former teacher told me “there is no rush in this game”.

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