A New Year, A New Start!

 

It’s been a tough couple of years for Screen Snapshots. Three posts in two years isn’t good for any blog but sometimes real life just gets in the way. I had a couple of false starts, times where I thought I was back in business but they really didn’t amount to anything. So with the new year I’ve paused for reflection and thought about whether to continue or not. The internet is littered with dead blogs, the product of temporary bursts of creativity that ran their course and left a half completed shell to gather dust and fade away into the cyber ether. Should I consign Screen Snapshots to the same fate?

The thing is, I started my blog because I enjoyed watching classic movies so much and felt that I had no one to talk about them with. Even if I never directly managed to get into conversation or correspondence with people about movies, or became part of the blogging 'scene', just getting my thoughts out there helped make me just a bit more content in life. I plugged away, looking at other blogs, doing a tiny bit of networking and promotion (I’m absolutely useless at this as I feel so self conscious having to blow my own trumpet, so to speak) and I felt like I had built up a modest little following. I got comments for a lot of my posts, some people followed my blog and occasionally someone would post a link to one of my posts. Somebody was reading, and this made me immensely happy. Additionally, each time I finished a post and put it online I really felt a sense of achievement. I’ve always had problems with motivation and confidence and for once I felt like I had a little corner of the world where I could be creative. And tens, maybe dozens of people might have read it!

The fact that anyone at all read my blog has really made me happy, and was something I never took for granted, and to anyone out there who did so, (and especially for those who felt compelled to post a comment) I am eternally grateful. You will never know how much it meant to me that someone thought what I wrote was interesting or entertaining and worth a few minutes of your busy day. That in itself has helped my confidence immeasurably.

And then personal problems got in the way, and my enthusiasm and motivation for writing about anything kind of dried up. Sadly, writing a blog is all about connections and networks and if you stop for a moment, people stop paying attention and move on to the next place. So if I want to keep going I basically have to start again and build my blog up from the bottom. My time away has probably cost me all my regular readers and followers as well as all the listing on countless blogrolls. It certainly cost me my membership on the CMBA, and it’ll probably take quite a sustained effort to get back into that esteemed company.

Despite my misgivings, I still enjoy watching classic movies and writing about them, so the blog will continue. There has been something missing in my life, and it has been the sense of achievement and enjoyment that writing this gave me. Again, thank you to anyone who has read this blog in the past, and I hope I can provide something worthwhile to read in the months to come. I have notes and half written blog posts for a couple of movies to finish up, so look forward to my thoughts on Union Depot, It’s in the Bag!, Internes Can’t Take Money, Big Brown Eyes and Diplomaniacs among others. I'm aware that what I really need to do is to work on the skills of writing a short review, but with a bit of luck I should be able to get them all finished soon. I also have acquired a rather interesting piece of Myrna Loy memorabilia which I have been meaning to share for ages now. What is it? Stay tuned to find out!

In the meantime. I wish you all a happy, healthy and classic movie filled 2015!