Writers Block (kind of a rant)
Writer’s Block is something I suffer from time to time. It’s nothing I can predict in any way. I can go long periods of time when I write every day, and since I’ve writing this on Active Context you know what kind of texts I’m talking about. Here it’s all about haveing opinions on music, films or books. Ok, so I don’t write that much about books, but it has happened, and it will happen again. As you might know, and notice from the way I word things, English is not my first language. It’s not perfect. I try to write as well as I can but I will never have the vocabulary of an American or English guy. I can’t measure up with Canadians, Australians, or New Zealanders. It’s just not possible. But I do it as well as I’m able to because I love to write. And, in particular, I love to write about movies, music, and books. Those are the things that interest me the most.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t write other stuff as well, but that also comes in periods. Sometimes I write page after page of something that could become a novel. Sometimes I write poetry, and I must say I’m fairly good at it. Not to say that I like everything I’ve ever written, far from it. I think most will agree that the biggest critic of oneself is, oneself. Plus other things happen in life. I run Active Context all by myself. I write everything, I come up with the pictures, I select what to write about, and so on. There’s no unlimited time for me to invest in this. I have a full-time job, a family life of sorts, and other stuff to “distract” me from writing reviews here.
Economics
You notice that there are ads on the site. I try to make it a little less expensive for myself. But let’s face it. Active Context is not a big site. It doesn’t attract as many people as I would like. I don’t have dreams about solely being able to do this for a living but I think that the dream of being able to at least pay for the costs is realistic. I’m not good at promotion. In fact, that might be one of the things I’m absolutely worst at. I have had ideas over the years on how to finance things. None of them has worked. I have to pay everything out of my own pocket. And that’s ok, I can do that. I’d rather not, but just because I can’t get any financing done for Active Context I won’t give up.
I want to update the site every day. I want to have at least the possibility to finance the cost of running this, by running it. And I think I have a good hit ratio on some of my posts. There are thousands of views on some posts. They don’t come overnight, but eventually, they get there over the years. I think that keeping up the continuity over time is the key to attracting revisits. But I really can keep up. I can’t keep up anymore. I try to watch movies as often as I can, often it’s unusual and obscure movies that not every other bloke writes about. But it can also be the latest blockbuster.
Time
But it takes time. Actually, it takes more and more time. once upon a time, movies were about 70 minutes long. The plot was often not very complicated as the film media was in its cradle. Then came the 80s when I started to be interested in movies for real. The average film was about 80-90 minutes long, some were 100 minutes but not that many. When I grew up almost only the James Bond movies surpassed 120 minutes. But that is 40 years ago now. Movies these days can still be 70-80 minutes but the general norm these days is more lite 100-120 minutes. And if it’s an IMAX or something like that, it’s more like 160 minutes.
First of all, I can keep myself focused for that long. I often have to divide my viewing experiences into several takes. There are exceptions of course. Some movies I managed to see on the first attempt and even had the energy the write something about it. I don’t remember which ones. Maybe Dune och Dune Part 2 were such movies. I can’t remember. Another fact is also that if I don’t write something right away, I can’t remember what the essentials are. I tend to only remember what I thought about them, not details like the plot or why I thought something was good or bad.
Not Writing
That doesn’t mean that I don’t watch movies anymore. During this recent hiatus, I’ve seen plenty of movies, but newer blockbustery-ish ones and older obscure ones that no one hardly has ever heard about. I’ve seen Long Legs, which I thought was ok, I wasn’t ecstatic about Nicholas Cage’s performance but it had a nasty vibe to it. Recently I saw a couple of really bad films. Sapien, which I managed to record a video about to put on YouTube. Something I haven’t done in a very long time. My editing skills were very rusty but at least I managed to put something out there. I have also recorded some footage for Pheonix the Warrior, a really bad film starring Phersis Khambatta. But I haven’t edited it yes. I hope I will be able to put something up soon although I have far fewer views on YouTube than I have here.
I saw Deadpool and Wolverine a few days ago. It was enjoyable but I don’t know if I have the energy to write something about it. Films like that should attract a more mainstream audience to the site. But on the other hand, is a mainstream audience something I really want? There’s so much other stuff that is interesting. Ninja Apocalypse, a very bad ninja movie is something I was a couple of days ago. I enjoy ninja movies. They can be so bad that they’re good. That’s stuff I want to write about on Active Context. Not only that of course. As well as anyone else I wnt to find the really good ones, the gems that people have forgotten about.
Old or New
It doesn’t even need to be older movies. Newer movies that are not marketed to death by the companies are very interesting too. The 2023 movie The Deep Dark wasn’t too bad. In Search of Dracula, a documentary narrated by Christopher Lee searching for the origins of Dracula is a film I also very much enjoyed. Bigfoot vs The Illuminati was a flick I saw just yesterday. It’s not your typical movie, to say the least. Animated and with really cheezy effects and characters. Speaking of cheezy effects. It wasn’t too long ago I watched the 18 Bronzemen, it’s an Asian, Chinese I think, flick about a guy learning kung fu by Shaolin monks and to prove he has mastered the arts and move to the next step he has to fight the18 Bronzemen to prove his worth.
There are more movies I’ve seen recently but haven’t had the energy to write about. But those are some that I come to think about right now. And there are not only movies. I listen to a lot of music as well. I don’t limit myself to one or two genres either, I listen to everything, and the feeling of exploration is a great one. When I write it’s mostly about Rock and Metal on the Active Context platform, but I also listen to all other genres. They’re not always enjoyable to listen to. There are some genres I have a hard time finding it worth my while. But on the other hand, if you want to find the gems, you need to be prepared to search for them. There’s Jazz, Latino, and even hip-hop at times that are really good. I explore the catalogs of artists and not just new releases. I wonder if ya’ll even realize how time-consuming this is.
Writing
I’m tired. I have a life outside of Active Context but I can’t seem to pursue both at the same time. Meanwhile, I’m also looking to write another book. Maybe a thriller och something with a higher literary value. I have lots of ideas, too many really. Maybe I’ll write a horror companion, an introduction to ninja flicks, the historical importance of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, or something else that falls within my frame of reference. I really can’t say. What I do know is, that I want to write but I can’t sleep up with everything at once. Some things will have to wait and now I’m really keen on writing stories or a longer text about something I write about on Active Context.
