Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Keeping Pace

I mentioned starting a new blog and I continue to explore the possibilities.  One of the things I'm trying to do differently is to slow down and allow myself to be a beginner.  One of the reasons I've been holding off on launching a new blog is to make sure I know what I want to do and to do it at a natural pace.  I really want to launch it fully formed and mature.  Which is completely unrealistic.  So I'm trying to ease my expectations of myself.  And remind myself that I did a good job with Finding Fellini - over a thousand posts over five-plus years with dedicated readers from all over the world.  All without any promotion.  Last year was fairly dormant around the time I first thought it time to move on, but otherwise it's been regularly updated.  I read a lot of blogs and most are not very well maintained.
I have a lot of ideas about the new webblog, which essentially will be a style blog.  I've been reading fashion and style blogs avidly since last spring.  There are many that I like, some that I find overrated and others that seem quite brilliant.  I like the street fashion photo blogs like Street Peeper, which is international, and Urban Weeds, here in Portland.  I want to do some of that.  I already do street casting for photo shoots, which I really enjoy.  But I like to write, so I'm pretty sure that I won't be doing that exclusively.  I'd also like to do it on the road, so some of the people I would feature might not have a clue that they're fashionable at all.  Mister Mort mixes in the unintentionally fashionable in his style blog.  He also mixes it up between street fashion shots and other writing.  One of his stated agendum is to help men develop their style.
Personally I want to steer clear of any teaching.  I think my filmmaking career would have been better off had I resisted the call to teach at least a bit longer and perhaps indefinitely.  No regrets, just want to learn from my experience moving forward.  I want to be very clear about it.  I like teaching and often people suggest that I'm good at it, however I want to make sure that whatever I might teach next comes only after I am well established in my field. 
Anyway, I'm checking things out around the internet, in my own head and a little with my feet and hands.  It's slow moving for a guy like me that usually throws himself into things.  There's a talent to that, but it also comes at a price.  Like spending years on film projects that really should have been finished within a few months or a year at most.  I attribute that to spreading myself too thin, being too keen on the next thing and, of course, plain old fear.
I really like the name Red White and True and I could certainly do that .blogspot or .typepad, but if I wanted my own URL, it's already taken by true.com, a web dating service.  Why they had to snatch up the former, I'm not really sure.  Anyway, red, white and true has the obvious American connotations I embrace, but it's also a nod to the land of the rising sun.  The Japanese are skilled and devoted keepers of the flame of American vintage fashions, of course.  We'll see.

No comments: