The more proficient one is at procrastination, the less proficient one need be at all else.
This was one of the “corollaries” to the famous Murphy’s Law of “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.” I loved the above procrastination quote back in high school in the 1980’s because it so perfectly described my philosophy about doing homework.
Little did I know that it would still apply to me three and a half decades later with my blog!
It’t not that I’m procrastinating from writing blogs. I typically publish between two and five new blogs a week. (You knew that!) But working on all those blogs has allowed me a convenient excuse for not updating my LIST pages.
Did you even know I had LIST pages? Chances are, you probably didn’t notice; many people don’t. But the lists are there…right in the middle of that navigation bar at the top of each page of Fan Film Factor. “LIST OF FAN FILMS” it says.
Actually, it’s not just one list, it’s THREE! Just hover above the link at the top of the page and you’ll see that those lists are arranged in custom orders depending on how you’d like to view them…
I’m really proud of those list pages, as they remind me just how far this blog has come since I started it back in 2016. I’ve done deep dives into nearly 75 different fan films!!! And that doesn’t include all the “short” blogs where I briefly cover a new release or trailer or update with a quick quote from the show-runner.
Instead, the list pages are for the major blogs that feature in-depth histories of individual fan films and/or series, or text or audio interviews with their creators. Those blogs are the main reason Fan Film Factor exists—to tell as many “getting from there to here” stories of fan film productions in order to honor the dedicated fans who make them.
And for a few years, I was really good about keeping those list pages up to date. But then I started slacking…
It wasn’t too bad at first. Maybe I’d fall a few blogs behind, a week or two or maybe three. Then a month, maybe two…maybe four…or six.
The problem, y’see, wasn’t just that I was listing the blogs in three different orders—although that did require a little extra effort on my part. But it was the WAY that I was listing them that became a major time-suck.
Back when I started FFF, I’d wanted each blog listing to provide as much information about the fan film/series itself as possible. That way, folks could decide which rabbit hole they wanted to jump down. So each blog listing included the following information BEFORE the user even gets to the blog:
- Name of the fan film
- Type of blog: feature, interview, or audio interview
- Thumbnail image
- The first 2-3 paragraphs of the blog text followed by a “READ MORE…” link
- The date the blog was published and/or updated
- A direct link to view the actual fan film itself
- The rating I gave it (decent effort, pretty good, highly recommended, and must see) along with a graphic icon for each rating level.
When laid out, each fan film got a listing that looked like this…
STAR TREK: DECEPTION II (interview)
Shortly after the debut of the first Star Trek: Deception back in mid-2013, writer/director LEO TIERNEY began discussing the production of a sequel. However, the idea mostly languished until Leo briefly brought it up again on Facebook in 2015. But even then, nothing much happened for nearly another year.
Leo began working in earnest on Deception II in 2016, and once again set out to construct actual physical (practical) sets—this time for both an Excelsior-class bridge and also for the bridge of a Klingon bird-of-prey. And he constructed both…in a tiny garage!
Blog entry posted: October 16, 2018
View: Star Trek: Deception II
Rating: MUST SEE
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I wish WordPress had a feature or widget that could do the work automatically for me, but alas! My listings were just too extensive and complex. I made my bed, and now I had to sleep in it.
Anyway, as I said at the beginning of this blog, procrastination is a powerful tool for not getting things done. And last week, wondering just how far behind I’d fallen in keeping the list pages updated, I cringed to see that the most recent blog I’d added was from March…of 2019!
Ugh!
So I took some time over the holiday weekend when I wasn’t watching Hamilton or barbecuing to add another four blogs to the list pages. It’s not much, but it brings us up to July 10, 2019—meaning I am “only” a year behind right now.
I’m going to continue trying to chisel away at the backlog as much as I can manage. Oh, and I’m also working on a FOURTH fan film list page that leaves out everything except a link to the blog(s), a link to the fan film(s), and the rating (plus a thumbnail). It’ll be an alphabetical list but MUCH shorter than the full list pages, which are starting to scroll on forever.
In the meantime, if you haven’t visited those “LIST OF FAN FILMS” pages, you should check them out. You might just discover a Star Trek fan film that you’ve never seen or heard of before that you’ll fall in love with (or at least really enjoy).
In the meantime, I need to get back to procrastinating, er, I mean blogging!