Sunday 24 July 2011

State of the Blog: summer break

Sunday 24 July 2011
I'm on a week's break from today (24-31 July), so blogging may be intermittent during that period. There's a chance you won't notice a difference, because I'm not covering many shows right now, so I might be able to keep my regular reviews going. Let's play it by ear, but if a few days slip by with few updates, you know why...

Summer hasn't bitten as hard as it did last year because I've make an effort to alter my workload recently. I'm sticking to the core shows I care about, or have something to say about most weeks. I could be squeezing out half-hearted reviews of Wilfred, Louis and Alphas, but I'd rather just watch them. As I've mentioned before, I think quality can suffer if I'm covering too much, and blogging can start to feel like a burden if half of what I'm writing doesn't receive any feedback. I think it's best to stick to the shows I feel passionate about (Breaking Bad), enjoy ridiculing when it's deserved (True Blood, Torchwood), or don't mind writing about to fill some time (Falling Skies).

Considering the slowdown over the past month or so, I'm pleased to see that hasn't impacted page-hits and comments too badly. I constantly worry a change in the quantity of weekly posts will be detrimental to DMD (as it's been ticking away at quite a furious pace for a one-man operation), so it's a relief to see I'm probably worrying about nothing. Readers seem happy to just receive whatever's offered, when it's offered. So thank you, everyone. That really helps my sanity.

Oh, just a quick thing, but do you subscribe to my RSS feed? If so, I've noticed there are actually TWO feeds pointing to the same content. Don't ask me how that happened! Anyway, the most popular feed is this one, so I advise you to use it, if you're not already. There's no difference between that feed and this other one, but if you have a few seconds to amend your RSS settings, please do. And if you DON'T subscribe to either of those RSS feeds—well, why not? It's by far the easiest and quickest way to read content. Of course, I still advise you check the actual blog from time to time, as there are links in the sidebar that may be of interest, and it helps me financially if you click a few adverts sometimes. Pleeease remember to click some ads occasionally! But other than that, I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't recommend RSS.

As always, if you have anything to discuss, or a question to ask, this is the best place to do it!