Divide and Conquer

If you haven't noticed yet, The Wounded Mosquito has been going through some growing pains lately. I basically thought, "hey, if I can maintain a low readership with one blog, why not spread it even thinner with four?" Seriously, though, in an effort to make my writing a little more subject-specific, I've decided to take a few of my major themes and give them their own forums. That way, if any of them picks up any steam, I could actually get them into something other than a generic blog roll, and then maybe I can stop making jokes about my low readership.

Part of this has to do with one of the other big reasons I haven't posted to the Mosquito much lately. For the last two and a half years I've been working on a non-fiction project, and at the end of last year my efforts to finish it have increased greatly. Now, in order to convince a publisher to get my little project in print, it might help if I had a bit more credibility as a writer. As in, an actual audience.

(This is a big hint here, folks...if you've ever considered becoming one of my official "followers", now would be a good time).

I'm also anticipating that by subdividing my blog, I might also increase my productivity, meaning more posts of a shorter length. For the most part this blog has served as a conduit for continuing my full-length columns, which is another reason I don't post as often. But maybe it's time to fire off a little more frequently.

Anyhoo, here's a quick introduction to the spawn of the Wounded Mosquito:

The Wannabe Jock

This blog will carry all my exclusively sports-related posts, most of which I expect will be about the Utah Jazz, since they are pretty much the only sports team I carry any substantial loyalty to these days. But I'll also include the occasional anecdote from my semi-athletic past, which will justify the continued inclusion of images like this one from my Jr. Jazz days.

The Obligatory Hendrix Perm

This one is the music blog. It will carry reviews of any concert I go to (side note: I'm already lined up to see Franz Ferdinand, Travis, Smokey Robinson, and Eric Clapton/Steve Winwood...good days ahead, baby), as well as any music-specific commentaries I feel compelled to write.

Celluloid Nirvana

This is the one where I'll post all my movie reviews and commentaries. I might change the name of this one; I'm not sure I like it. The first name I used was "Cinirvana", as in "Cinema-Nirvana", but I thought that was too obscure. I kind of want to use a title that uses the word "Mondo", but then in the process of checking for title availability I found this on Wikipedia:

"Mondo films, often called shockumentaries, are quasi-documentary films that focus on sensationalized topics, such as exotic customs from around the world or gruesome death footage. Similar to shock exploitation, the goal of Mondo films is to be shocking to the audience not only because they deal with taboo subject matter. The first and most well-known mondo film is Mondo Cane (A Dog's World). Others include Shocking Asia and the Faces of Death series."

Since I've never actually seen any official Mondo films, it might be a bit hypocritical for me to name my blog after it. I'll give it some more thought. Stay posted.

Of course, this blog will continue to see regular posting on any topic that doesn't feel like it falls exclusively under one of the other three headings. I guess I could make another blog and devote it especially to dating gripes and moaning about my social life, but who would want to read that? You have to draw the line somewhere.