Today marks the beginning of my fourth year of blogging, the third anniversary of the day I started this blog (January 18, 2012)! In celebration of TMP’s birthday, I figured I’d take the day off from reviewing and reflect on all that has happened over the past three years, as well as cluing you all in to some upcoming blog happenings.

If you don’t care to read the rest of my rambles today, I’d like to take this opportunity early on in the post to thank you all – anyone who has ever visited the blog, but especially TMP’s regular readers – for visiting the blog, reading my thoughts on all of the wonderful films I’ve discovered over the past three years, and sharing your own thoughts in the comments. I hardly remember how I spent my free time before blogging, but I can tell you there’s no way I’d rather spend it than by watching and talking about movies. Thank you all for giving me the opportunity and motivation to continue doing so!

Ain't no party like a '42 party, cause a '42 party... is held in a streetcar! (Image via vintag.es)
Ain’t no party like a ’42 party, cause a ’42 party… is held in a streetcar! (Image via vintag.es)

The past three years…

As I mentioned already, I began this blog in 2012. It seems so long ago, and my life has changed a lot since then, both personally and as a film fanatic. In the past three years, I have…

  • participated in or led a total of 21 blogathons. The research I’ve conducted for these events has taught me so much about film history, classic movies, and classic stars.
  • collaborated with some fantastic fellow movie buffs, including Fritzi of Movies, Silently (for the Gish Sisters Blogathon) and Todd of Cinema Monolith (for our famed two-person cheesefest mini-blogathons).
  • watched 1,378 film screenings total, including 1,060 new-to-me discoveries.
  • had over 3,000 folks click “Give me the movies!” (or one of TMP’s other assorted “follow” buttons across the web).
  • published 1,165 posts!

Those are all the results of three years of almost-daily blogging. Daily blogging’s not for everyone, and I have just as much admiration for my fellow film buffs who post once a month as I do for those of us who keep up with crazy-frequent blogging schedules. However, I consider TMP’s low number of post-free days to be a great personal feat.

And speaking of that schedule, let’s move on to…

…the future!

I wrote a couple of months ago (in the October 2014 wrap-up post) that I was considering giving up the daily blogging schedule — not giving up the blog entirely, of course, but knocking a day or two off of the schedule, or bringing in some new, quicker-to-write posts that would allow me to more effectively meet the daily blogging commitment. It’s been a little bit of a struggle since I started grad school a year ago!

After giving it more thought, I’ve decided to stick with the daily posting. For a few months I had this post drafted with an announcement of making every other Sunday an “off day,” but at the beginning of this month, I changed my mind. Having every other Sunday off would not make a big difference in the amount of work I put into this blog, so why take any skip days at all?

I have come up with a few ideas for the blog, which are shared below.

  • The return of “What to Watch” Tuesdays… sort of!
    I’ll be bringing back the “What to Watch” series every Tuesday (staring January 20), but not in its old format. I won’t be sharing TCM recommendations for the whole week. Instead, I’ll be picking out just five titles per week to highlight from the TCM schedule. I’ll give a brief synopsis of each film and tell you whether it’s available on Netflix/Amazon/YouTube/wherever. Simple and quick for me to construct, but also worthwhile to post. I don’t want to resort to “filler” posts, and I love giving recommendations of my favorite films, so I feel like this is a good solution to fill up one day each week.
  • Increased coverage of “Favorite things about…,” movie magazines, and “Make It a Marathon” posts
    The “Favorite things” posts are always quite well-received, and I love making them, so I hope to add more of those to the schedule in the upcoming year. Increased coverage of my re-watches will make it easier to hit that 30/31 posts-per-month mark. I’ll also be posting more blurbs from my old mags now and then, and will be increasing the frequency of “Make It a Marathon” posts, which I’ve had fun with but have made tragically few of.
  • …And a new series!
    I’m adding in a new bi-weekly series (every other Sunday, beginning January 25) called “One Year, One Film.” In this series, I will highlight one film that I love from each year, from 1925 through 1965. (I considered making the “start” year earlier, but I don’t have a huge amount of access to earlier silent films outside of the internet and my Slapstick Encyclopedia set, unfortunately. This is something I hope to remedy by focusing some of my collecting efforts on silents this year. Also, 40 is a nice, round number of years to cover.)

I apologize for all of that long-winded blog talk! I like to make announcements so I can hold myself accountable, and so people don’t see a random new series and think “Hey, where’d that come from?”

Anyway, thank you all so much for your support and reading of TMP. Happy 3 years, and here’s to a wonderful 4th!

 

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