MADness—the Blog

Is it already the 3rd of January?  Where has the time gone?  (The years do go by faster and faster, don’t they?)

I’d say it’s still not too late to say:  Welcome to the new year!  I hope you had a wonderful holiday, and all the best to you in 2011!

The new year marks the one-year blogiversary of MAD About Movies.  Thanks for remembering.  I do appreciate all the fireworks.

I began last January 1 with a post about the birth of movies and by year’s end had caught up with “the current cinema”, as they say in some parts.  We covered a fair amount of ground, with a total of 204 features (along with 25 other posts) on the “front page” of the site, where you find the MAD Movie Minutes.  Not to mention, there’s MADness–the Blog, the “back page,” if you will, with a variety of posts on movies, puzzle news, etc.

Looking back, I’m very pleased to have launched the site and to have gotten to this point.  It’s been gratifying to see traffic build steadily (Jan. ’11 visits have already exceeded the total for Jan. ’10).  Yet, I’m not sure what I was thinking when I committed to posting new features five days a week.  I maintained that schedule for most of the year but at times it was a challenge.  If I were doing nothing but seeing movies and writing about them, I’d be posting even more.  But I do have a full-time job, and I’m also a full-time husband and a full-time dad, and last I looked there are still but 24 hours in a day.  Life gets busy long before I even sit down to write the next post.

Looking ahead, I plan to continue with the same general format, but at a more sustainable pace.  With flexibility the key, here’s the schedule I’ll be looking to follow for the year ahead:

MAD About Movies

• Movie Minutes — two weeks per month, I’ll feature a new theme, with usually three featured posts per theme (note:  some weeks may have three posts; other weeks, more or less, depending on the topic and my availability)
• Final Friday Five — once each month, on (yes!) the final Friday, I’ll include the FFF movie mini-quiz with the Movie Minute post
• MAD Puzzles — once each month, on the first Monday, I’ll post a new pair of Gram Cracker crossword puzzles

MADness–the Blog

• Movie Info & Other News — no set schedule, but I’ll be posting here on the blog on a variety of mostly movie-related topics whenever I have something to add

Thanks for visiting the site.  Spread the word.  Happy New Year, and I look forward to seeing you in the year to come.