Tuesday, 17 October 2017

Who Is This Blog For? (redux)

Reading my last review, an unknown physician on Gallifrey Base pointed out that I hadn't explained what the audio was about!

Actually, it went further than that, since I'd also forgotten to say what the audio was called. The latter was a simple oversight, but the former was the result of a stylistic decision that has, perhaps, gone too far. Regardless, the question prompted me to think hard about the purpose of the blog, not for the first time.

Let's make one thing clear: this blog is mainly for my own benefit. That's true of all blogs, really, though the authors' benefit can be measured in different ways - money, egoboo, personal satisfaction, a sense of giving something to the community. In my case, it's primarily a writing prompt. It used to have a significant secondary purpose, which was to help me keep going with my marathon through the tricky bits; but that has stumbled anyway.

Still, having said that the blog is targeted at myself, it's a bonus if I can inform, educate, and entertain other people along the way. And I've probably paid too little attention to this lately. I think the solution is to make that part of the writing prompt from now on (and making it slightly more specific than "just write something" is no bad thing).

That doesn't mean it's going to be a review blog like, say, Doc Oho's or Styre's, which people might turn to when deciding which audio/dvd/book they are going to spend their hard-earned money on next. As I said in reply to the question, mine are more like "water cooler" discussions: more "hey, did you notice this interesting thing about last night's episode" than "I have analysed this release carefully and here's why I think you should/shouldn't buy it." It will also continue to avoid giving away much of the plot where possible, and post spoiler warnings where not (except in the case of the TV series, which I tend to assume people dedicated enough to read something like this have seen). And it will continue to include snippets of production info and items of personal importance where relevant.

I hope that this will continue to be of interest to some of you. If there are any suggestions for further refinements, please feel free to comment!

Next Time:
Founding Father

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