The Future: If You Only Read One film ick Post, Make It This One

Let me tell you a secret.

I don't want to do this anymore. Not the way I've been doing it in the past.

I've spent the last week trying to find ways to make this enterprise fit in with the rest of my life. Ways in which I can collect, collate, read and pass on film news; ways in which I can see films, write reviews and publish them; ways in which I can strip download links from trailers and post them for your enjoyment.

And, the bottom line is, I can't make it any more efficient, really, than it ever was.

For the best part of a year, film ick has taken an average of three hours out of my day. Each and every day. For a year before that, it was taking maybe one to two hours per day - but I improved things, became more serious, and that cost me the extra time.

I can't go on giving up 21 hours a week for this. There are all sorts of things that have suffered.

I'm very busy teaching, at the moment with several students needing up to four hours of personal tuition a week each; I'm working on the script for one feature film, one short film and - while we're revealing all of our secrets - I'm deep into development on another feature film that should be shooting before the year's end. And that, of course, takes even more of my time - and of course, it deserves it. And it deserves my energies.

And I have a personal life to attend to too, of course. A partner, parents, siblings, friends and a splendid dog and I'm glad for my time with all of them, and I don't want to miss out on so much any longer.

To be blunt, film ick has become something of a thorn in my side.

For the longest time, I felt like running this site was an almost painless endeavour. I was reading all of this information anyway, so what harm was there in passing it on? But then I actually started looking at the clock, seeing how much time was vanishing. When I was ill a few weeks ago it became incredibly obvious how much of my life film ick was chewing up.

So I don't want to do it anymore.

Sorry. Some readers here really seem to appreciate my work, which is touching and very much appreciated in return, while some others act as though they think they're entitled to it - as though they're paying me for this. There aren't even any ads on the page - and, in fact, it costs me to keep this place afloat. To you people I say: come here if you want, don't if you don't, but don't whinge at me for not providing the exact service you'd prefer. Instead, you can simply suggest some improvements, maybe? You never know - they might come to pass.

Now, I'm going to look for ways to make the process of creating the posts here more efficient for me, I swear. Any suggestions will be most gratefully received. If I can get the time required down to an average of 75 minutes or so a day, then I'll dive back in head first. You can have ten hours of my week for free - why not?

Until then... abnormal service is resumed. Irregular updates, of indeterminate size and content. Think of them like columns in a weekly magazine, perhaps. They won't be as rare as weekly, may sometimes be as regular as daily - or more frequent, even, when required or inspired.

I've had intermittent help from a good number of contributors, and I'd like to thank them all once again , but nobody became capable enough that they could hold the fort alone for two or three days a week (though Rachael did learn a lot of my techniques and secrets and, if she had the time, I'd trust her implicitly - but she absolutely doesn't, so it's moot). For better and worse, this has been pretty much a one man outfit pretty much all of the time.

I hope all of this gives you some context and helps you understand what you can expect from me in the future. Any possible solutions you can offer, please do. In the meantime, I'd suggest you sign up to film ick with an RSS reader or the e-mail subscription widget in the right hand column - that way the sporadic, unpredictable posting schedule to follow won't prevent you from getting the latest in a timely fashion.

Thanks again for all of your support and I hope you can hold on and stick with me. I'm back, at last - but the site is just going to have to share me.