A letter of resignation – why I’m no longer a ‘theatre blogger’ (personal bit)
(I assume most people reading this would have come here from my theatre blog. If not, this may seem a little out of context, so read the other post here)
If you haven't noticed (and I won't be insulted if you haven't) I have been rather absent as of late on both of my blogs (theatre and non-theatre), Fringe Review and Twitter. While a large portion of this is due to a wholly inconvenient wedding and honeymoon* (who gets married!?), it is also a product of what happened before I got married.
I've been writing theatre reviews semi-regularly since I arrived in the UK in October 2009. Originally, this was due to the fact that I was becoming a regular theatregoer and, having left my theatre crowd back in the Antipodean islands, had no one to complain or gush to. Soon after there was also the conundrum of wanting (needing) to see far too much theatre and not having enough money to actually buy tickets. Therefore, logical conclusion: start reviewing theatre on my blog, build up credibility, get invited and problem solved. This happened relatively quickly (with the addition of brilliant free ticket schemes like freeB, and the good old 'I hear you have a +1...' via Twitter). This year I was asked to join Fringe Review's army of reviewers to review London's fringe scene.
In April this year I burnt out. I was doing too much - work, twespians, reviewing, ghost walking, attempting to write music and trying to get back into design and web build. Oh, and I had a wedding to help organise. As a result, I stopped everything, with the exception of a few pre-organised events here and there. This gave me time to think about what I was doing, what I wanted to achieve, why and how to do it while still having time to see my newly acquired wife.
To be honest, one of my driving factors in any decision I make now is 'how is this going to benefit me?' It may sound selfish, but it has been one of my aims in life to end up having a career that I love and feel passionate about. The only way to get to that point is to focus my passions in a way that will hopefully mean I can start earning money from them.
Therefore, one of the first things to go is theatre reviewing, which has increasingly been taking up large chunks of my time. Hopefully, this means I'll be able to focus on other things (within theatre) that will be more beneficial, not only to me, but to the wider industry as well.
Upon reflection, this post seems rather arrogant and is assuming that someone actually reads my reviews (or cares). Oh well, I just felt I needed to write it down...
For actual reasons why I think people should have a stop and think as to whether they should be blogging theatre reviews, head back to the original post here.
*sarcasm, in case the lovely @EmVicW is reading...
