This piece was written on the 1st February 2010, but was never uploaded to the blog due to all our time going into dealing with our psychotic neighbour. Now that we’re finally back on track and that I’m able to upload regular postings, I thought it might be relevant again.
In 2007 this blog was started as a vehicle to spotlight the back log of poems, commentaries, short stories, etc,. that I’ve worked on since 1983. Despite a series of serious derailments I have managed to get a number of commentaries online as well as 88 poems in the last 3 years.
Its time to review the road map for the blog and identify what has worked and what hasn’t worked. Commentaries and poems – yes; short stories and novel material – no; audio versions of poems (when I’ve had the time) – yes; audio versions of everything else – no; links to favourite authors and websites – yes; commentaries and track-backs (pings) – no – spam has been a major issue throughout the life of the blog.
I think the format I’ve settled on, of at least one posting a week is well worth sticking with – it’s realistic and works, whether it’s a new commentary or a site update linking to an edited version of an old poem. I believe short stories and novel material will have to be left for print or ebook versions but I do think donations, poem sponsorship and major patrons will work with the material being uploaded. I hope to have the financial aspects of the blog up and running during the course of this year. Tied in with this, is my hope that the first anthology will go to print (via sponsorship and donations) during the 2010/2011 financial year.
What I do need to do is streamline the focus of the site and lose the grandeous idea of hugh numbers of categories such as: cartoons,childhood pieces,drawings and designs, scripts and songs. This should also make it easier for sponsors to pick clear pieces that link back to their own sites and tighten up the blog’s focus.
There are still many years worth of poems to upload, but a conservative aim of completing one anthology every 12 to 18 months is looking realistic. Once online, each anthology will be opened up to sponsorship and in turn the creation of a print version.
All things going well, the hope is to also offer print versions of short story anthologies and the novel I’ve been working on – sold via this blog.
As always, I’ll keep you posted.
Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – July 2010