This Is Not the Post You Were Looking For...

Hey guys. Yeah, I know. Once again we didn't post on a Walking Dead episode right after it aired. As usual. Last season we managed to post by the Tuesday after the Sunday episode only once, and it was retweeted and talked about and picked up all over. And the following week we went right back to our Thursday/Friday/Saturday/whatever posting.

And the previous post to this one — from November, I might add — featured three weeks all in one post because we just never got our act together to get things over to you.

But then again, that's not really the truth. Which is why this post will be in place of the finale post you stopped waiting for over a week ago. Because instead of focusing on a rushed back and forth chatter between a blogger and her co-writer, I wanted to talk about this blogger and that co-writer, and the problems with doing what we do. And how we constantly hang our heads in shame, but the following week find it difficult to actually do anything about it. And how appreciative I am that despite everything, someone is still actually reading this.

Way back in 2009, we were gearing up for the final season of Lost. I was posting not just once a day, but several times a day, keeping everyone posted on everything that was happening in the world of Lost, from filming rumours to casting announcements to just plain talking about the show. To fill the space between seasons five and six I ran a Lost rewatch, where we watched all five seasons that had aired to that point, and there was a lively discussion each week as I would post three nights a week on the episodes we were watching. At the time, we all had a lot of fun leading into season six. Now those posts still sit there, while some rude person goes through them one by one leaving nasty comments for me to find five years later on what an idiot I am because I didn't see certain things coming, how I'm a Jack hater and don't know shit about Lost. She posts under two different names, but I'm pretty sure it's the same semi-literate person. Sadly, I get all of these posts sent to my email, but I stopped reading them about a year ago when I realized this person had absolutely nothing positive to say.

In 2010 I continued posting like a madwoman. My kids went to bed around 8pm, and I had the evenings to do it in. I worked at an office where we could take a break in the mornings and had lunch breaks, and I'd sit at my desk and post during those times as well. Each week as a new season 6 episode aired, I'd post on it that night, often staying up until 1 a.m. to post some epic piece of writing that I tried to make thoughtful, but in essence was a reaction after watching the show only twice. I used many of those posts as the basis for my write-ups in the books.

And oh yes, those books. Between 2006 and 2010 I published five books on Lost, writing over a million words on the show between my blog and the published material. My husband took the kids to his parents' house on weekends so I could get the writing done, and through the week I posted in evenings and in those precious break periods. This blog was alive. After an episode write-up there could be up to 400 comments (the finale had even more). People were reading, and when you know the audience is sitting out there, you write for them. You're not writing into a vacuum, you're writing for people who have become your friends, in many ways. I was just writing my Christmas cards this week and marvelling at how many of them are being sent to people I know through Lost and Buffy fandom, mostly due to this blog.

When the final book came out in November, and I noticed numbers dropping off because people didn't have Lost to talk about, I announced the Great Buffy Rewatch in 2011. By the end of that year, I was officially exhausted. The beginning of 2012 saw the blog peter off a bit, and so did my numbers. By the summer, I was no longer receiving a salary because I'd moved away and went freelance. I can no longer take a break or a lunch period because if I do, I'm off the clock. I'm paid only for the times I'm sitting at my desk and actually doing real work. If I so much as take a phone call, I'm off the clock. I'm a bad freelancer, simply because I'm so damn honest. Most people would just inflate their invoices and not mention those lunch breaks. I can't in good conscience do that.

Here's what a lot of people don't realize: even when I was getting 5,000 people reading this blog a day — around the Lost finale it was hitting 25,000 per day — I never monetized it. My husband begged me to, watching all those hours he could have been spending with his wife being whittled away in her office as she clacked away on her keys for her beloved readership, but I refused. It would mess it up, it would be difficult to read. I've never accepted any money for this blog.

So now, when I decide to knock off a half-hour early from work (like I am now) and go unpaid for the rest of the day so I can write up something, when I try to give the kids some breakfast and rush down the hall to write up my next pass for Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead and send it to my collaborator so I'm not affecting my actual work hours, when it's 11:30pm and I think, crap, I should probably write up my next pass because my collaborator has been waiting all day for it . . . I'm doing it unpaid. And for someone who's now paid by the job, that's become a lot tougher. And, to be even more crass, when it results in small reading numbers and four or five comments, you wonder if anyone is even out there. Who am I writing to anymore?

Josh Winstead was one of my most avid posters back in the Lost days. Like me, he had a job where he could post on lunch breaks and morning breaks as well, and he was articulate and funny and brilliant, which is why I proposed he and I collaborate on The Walking Dead oh so long ago. And we've done it ever since.

But now I'm a freelancer and my time is extremely limited. Now my kids aren't in bed until 9:30 or 10. And until then I'm doing loads of homework with them and being there for them and talking things through. Personal issues have come up where I'm devoting my time to helping out a family member who needs my help, and whom I'm determined to make better. We have a crazy number of pets that need constant attention. I've got permission slips and am always dealing with teachers in a day and age where parents must be far more hands-on than my parents ever had to be. My kids are both old enough to be involved in separate extracurricular activities and I'm running from one end of the city to the other. And somewhere in there I'm trying to find time to actually see friends of mine, live, face-to-face.

And then I took on another book. Because if I'm writing, I should be paid for it. From May to November of this year I've been working constantly on my book on the BBC series Sherlock (coming to fine bookstores near you in fall 2015), and on the weeks when Josh gets things to me quickly, he waits and waits and waits.

But see, his work changed, too. He can't post the way he used to, and finds his time is sucked up. Some weeks I'm the dud, and other weeks I'll send him a pass on Monday and hear back from him on Thursday. He's a dad, too. And a husband. And one who had to deal with some unexpected health issues that came up in his family last week. It was a scary time, one that ended happily, thank goodness, but one that involved hospitals and worry and sleepless nights.

The last thing on either of our minds was this Walking Dead post.

The Walking Dead is a show about people who stick together in terrible times. It's about the relationship parents have with their children and vice versa. It's about the families we make and not necessarily the ones we're born into. It's about pulling together to make things happen, but knowing when to let go.

When Daryl walked out of the hospital in the finale with a lifeless Beth in his arms, and Maggie crumpled to the ground wailing in emotional agony, I thought it was a beautiful, extraordinary, shocking ending. I loved it. I didn't actually watch the episode until the next day, and somehow managed to remain unspoiled by then. I loved most of the finale, even if I had a few nitpicks. I thought the acting was extraordinary, and I loved the grey areas highlighted in the episode, rather than going all black and white like many other shows would have done.

And ... that's my review. I wrote up a much longer pass and sent it over to Josh and then his world collapsed, and that review no longer matters to me. What matters is that his family is OK, my family is OK, and I enjoyed seeing other people discuss the finale.

Josh and I were chatting earlier today about the lack of bloggage on this episode said I think it's time to retire this blog. He wrote me back an impassioned email begging me not to. So maybe I'll just let it hang around here when I need it. And if any of you need it, let me know and it's yours for the day or the week or however long you want to use it. Someone might as well use it. I read countless blogs and articles every day and rarely post any comments on them, so I should know better than to think of the lack of comments meaning no one is reading. I know a lot of you are still out there.

But I'm finally admitting that it's become a ghost town, with tumbleweeds rolling past, and I no longer want to apologize for that. Every year I open with a post promising to post more that year, and I post less. Without fail. It hangs over me like a weight, like this thing I should be doing but don't. And then I think, why should I be doing it? I have a million other deadlines and responsibilities. And I barely have time to watch television anymore, much less write about it.

If I'd monetized this blog back when it was at its peak, I could probably be writing on here daily because it would be worth my time to do so. But so many other people need my time now, and unfortunately this place that made me so happy, that allowed me to do what I love doing more than just about anything, just has to fall by the wayside because I can't keep up with it. I have kids wanting my time, authors complaining that I take too long to get things back to them, work deadlines to meet, and, frankly, books to be read. (Check out my Goodreads page, which probably gets far more action than this blog these days!)

I miss our Lost days. But if they taught all of us anything, it was that we stick together. So, I'm not going anywhere. I apologize if weeks go by and I don't post anything. When Game of Thrones comes back, I'll be here with Chris Lockett. I lobbied for shorter posts and everyone immediately said that we absolutely should stick to the 5,000-word posts that we've been doing, but to be perfectly honest, they take SO long to write and I'm worried I just don't have that kind of time anymore, not like I once did.

Blogs seem to be going the way of the dodo, but I'm reluctant to give this one up because it's where I met so many people. Yeah, I'm over on Facebook posting constantly every day, so if you want to make sure I'm alive, that's where you'll find me. And many of the things I'm posting over there in short form were what I used to use this blog for in long form.

So I'll stay. And every once in a while I'll have something to say. And feel free to say something back. And know that when I DO post, it's because I miss you guys and just wanted to say hey. Well, that or someone really pissed me off that day and I want to rant about it. :-D

I want to thank Josh Winstead for powering through this season, and even if we didn't make a single post out on time, I had a blast doing them with you, and I thank you so much for sticking with it, my friend.

In case I worried anyone, Josh and I are absolutely fine, and there's nothing to worry about. Last week just hit one of us with a wallop, and the week before hit the other one of us. It's just been one of those seasons, and we tried our best. But rather than think of it as a failure, I actually look back on this season as one of the biggest triumphs, because somehow, with both of us having jobs that prevented us from having any time to post, with both of us having extra work we had to do in evenings, with both of us having two older children, and with both of us having busy family lives, we still managed to get something up here. And you guys managed to still come and read it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And now I've got to run and get my kids from school...

P.S. It's now three hours later. I forgot to hit the Publish button before leaving, and my son has a grade 2 social studies test tomorrow that I had to help him study for, my daughter has a ton of math and science homework, and both of them are now running through the house and using my office as their launchpad. It's taken me 10 minutes just to type up this P.S. because they won't stay out. And that, my dears, is how these posts fail to happen on time week after week. ;)