An introduction...?

"Enough, Reggie..."

For 12 years, I was the Movies Editor of entertainment.ie - one of the longest-running news websites in Ireland. Then, it went away. It happened.

I was angry, I was sad, I was angry again. I got bitter. I got better. I got distance from it. After a while, I just stopped thinking about it. I had other stuff going on.

I took some time off from writing, and I thought about not writing again. Or, at the very least, quitting writing about movies, TV and so on. I thought long and hard about what it meant for me, and why I spent over a decade at it when I felt like I was pissing into the wind half the time. I knew then that that there was a wealth of voices out there, so what’s another in all of that? We have a surfeit of opinions in the wild, right?

It was reason enough for me to quit altogether. Why do I need to add to it? What am I getting out of it? Before, it was a steady paycheque. Now, it’s just me. And that’s when I realised why I can’t stop. Because it’s just me.

I wrote for a major (for Ireland, anyway) publication for over a decade. I had an editor, a managing director, there was an office I went to, a contract, a desk and a phone, all of it. I was given editorial freedom, sure, but even with that, I had to blend any work I made in with the existing framework.

Now, it’s all for me to decide on what happens next. If I decide the publishing style isn’t working for me, I can switch it up. I can use serif fonts all I want. I can italicise, I can speak in the first person if I want to when I’m writing, I can make all the decisions and live with all of the consequences.

You’re reading this and thinking, “Brian, you’re describing blogging for everyone since it began.” Yes, that’s accurate. But at the same time, I haven’t done this, or really anything, on my own in so long that this is all just new to me.

So if it’s new to me, my hope is it’s new to you.

More coming in the days, weeks, months and hopefully years ahead. Here’s hoping you’ll come along for the ride.

- B