One year anniversary of The Xiphister!

It’s hard to believe I have been playing around with The Xiphister blog for a full year now. I wanted to take the one-year anniversary of the blog to thank those of you who have visited, especially those who have commented and given feedback on things I have posted. It’s nice to know that people actually read and are entertained by the things I put up on here. I also wanted to give you a state-of-the-blog so you know what to expect over the next year.

The original intent of the blog was to provide a platform for me to write about movies and other interesting things. I’ve posted movie reviews, shared a few trailers, talked about some of my concert adventures, and tried to introduce you to some cool stuff such as film concept art, new books to read, and brain controlled cat ears.

It’s been a fun year, and I have learned a lot about my new hobby. I think that I’m getting better as a blogger and hope that I will continue to improve as a writer and as a judge of content. I want to post things that you guys find interesting and do it in a way that is entertaining and informative. One reason why I encourage readers to comment on every article is so that I can use the feedback to improve. Let me know what you think, good, bad, or ugly!

Over the past year, I have posted 135 articles and have had about 4,400 page views. The majority of the posts get only a handful of views, but a few have been popular and have driven a lot of traffic to the blog. The most popular posts were about the scientific errors in the film Battleship, the beautiful art in the book Prometheus: The Art of the Film, and why time travel can’t work. My monthly movie previews also get a lot of views and are one of my favorite pieces on the blog.

I joined Twitter in January and use the account to share the work I’m doing on the blog. I also tweet out random thoughts about the movies I’m watching, comment on film industry news, and make weird observational tweets about stuff that goes on during the day. I may not have time to write an article about a cool news item, but I can find the time to compose a <140-character tweet. Follow me there if you’re into that sort of thing. The more followers I get, the more active my presence on Twitter will be. 

I have a few exciting ideas about where to go in the future.

The monthly movie previews will continue. Those articles give me a chance to talk about every upcoming film for the entire month. I enjoy waxing poetic about each of the major films and pointing out some of the smaller, limited release films that you might not know about. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback about those posts, so I’m thinking that you guys enjoy them too.

I’ll be doing more film reviews. I shied away from those at first because there are so many websites and blogs that do reviews. Currently, I don’t have the opportunity to watch preview screenings of films. This means that when I write a review for a film, I basically see it Friday night (or, most often, Saturday morning), come home, write the review, and post it by the middle or end of opening weekend. Most people want their film reviews earlier than that. That being said, I’ve gotten a lot of comments on the review pieces I’ve written, so obviously you guys are reading them. I’ll do more of them. I’m trying to get access to preview screenings, which will hopefully speed up that process.

I have a couple of ideas for articles that I plan to start running. They won’t be regular entries, just periodic articles on things that I find interesting and think you might like too. One will be about actors/directors/writers to watch. It will highlight people in the industry who are working on cool projects that you might want to know about. I’ll also start doing a few lists, in case you ever wondered about my favorite horror films or comic book movies or Mel Gibson action flicks. Some of these lists will be predictable, others will be quirky. Hopefully they will all be fun.

There are a few other changes in the works that will be pretty major if/when I can get the details worked out. I’m looking forward to sharing them with you when it all comes together. Rest assured that the next year of The Xiphister will be exciting.

Now, I want to hear your thoughts on ways to improve the site. What sorts of things do you want to see on here? What am I doing right and what am I doing wrong? I’m always trying to get better at this, and your feedback can go a long way.

Thank you!