Pick Your Poison: The Deciding the Future of 'Beyond the Balcony'

I'm overly ambitious.

My brain is a factory infused with caffeine and pixie sticks constantly churning out new ideas, plans, and dreams. It isn't officially a day unless I'm thinking, 'Well, that would be a cool thing to create!' Outside of ad copy and ghostwriting, the majority of my creations are earmarked to be presented or at least to be promoted here.

But the problem with my grand designs is that life has a pesky way of getting in the way, especially since my income from the site and podcast is minimal at best at this stage, so I'm tackled by a 500lb monster known as a panic attack and am completely burnt out before the visions transform into actual readable prose and entertainment.

I confess that not all my aspiration for this site will become fully realized. Since I've had many incredible readers stick with me even when nothing was being posted, I am going to share some of my intentions, and if you so desire you can reveal the ones that you really want me to fulfill.

Who knows, 20 years ago I'd say a con man turned reality TV star would never become one of the most significant leaders in the world, but that was a thing. Maybe I'll go against the odds and every one of these floating ideas will manifest into actual coherent words in the future.

Weekly Reviews of New Releases. Yep, I sure have dropped the proverbial ball and allowed it to bounce into a bush housing seven hornet nests. I've detailed my reasons, but it doesn't eliminate the truth that I've seen the least amount of new movies in a given year since I was paid for my first film review back in 2012. The game plan is to start reviewing at least one new picture a week while also catching up on many of the major movies and some hidden gems that were released in 2023. By the end of the year, I'll have a worthy collection of motion pictures to choose from when formulating my Best of the Year list.

MCU Movie Review Series. I don't want to admit when I first promised to do this review series, but I suspect Black Panther was still fresh in everyone's mind. MCU is one of the most influential modern franchises, but also its hold on the box office is slipping. It is an interesting time to look at its historical impact and analyze some of its biggest hits, while also looking at the movies that may have missed the mark. I'm also going through the entire series with Everett, so I can squeeze in some of his reactions to the pictures.

Every Disney Animated Theatrical Release: This is even more daunting than the MCU series, which is the reason I've endlessly promoted it rather than started it. I've also allowed the ambition bug to bite me as I now intend to include all the theatrical shorts that are available on Disney Plus. My excuse for delaying this is that Disney is releasing several older shorts for their 100th anniversary, so I'm waiting for those to come out before starting the review series.

Weekly Fiction Serial: Another long-promised but never delivered feature. My biggest aspiration as a writer is to become a successful storyteller and novelist. The site has a small but loyal following making it a perfect place to showcase my fiction writing skills and try to build up readers who would anticipate my future stories. The strategy is to craft a large story that will be broken up into weekly episodes with the hope that each post works at some level on its own. For this to work, I will need to have written several of the installments before posting so that I have a coherent and clear path of where the story will lead. The goal is to have the opening chapter ready to drop late in the fall.

Newsletter: Every writer I've talked to has suggested that I need to have a newsletter in some form to ensure my stuff is read and can grow my audience. I haven't quite sorted out exactly how the newsletter will work. Will it just be emails that send what has been written here? Will it be a Substack that focuses on something I love but isn't written on this site? An extension of the site? Will I attempt to monetize it through either Patreon or Substack? For this site to grow, I believe that monetization is inevitable, but my imposter syndrome constantly screams that charging a few bucks a month for my writing will generate a backlash. This is something I aim to have set up before the fall turns into winter.

Expanding The Movie Breakdown. I am always looking at ways of making the podcast more appealing to new listeners and digging into ways to increase engagement. My objective is to always improve our main show, but over the next few months, I want to expand what falls under the brand including doing various new things on YouTube. Several possibilities are bouncing around in my mind, but it hasn't all come together yet. For now, I'll zero in on making the main show the best that it can be for the remainder of 2023.

Writing Career Anecdotes. One of my biggest goals as a writer is to offer value to readers. Sometimes that is providing entertainment through prose, and other times it is providing insight into various forms of pop culture and its history. But I also know many aspiring writers and creators who love the arts that read this site. I feel I owe them to share my success and failures in my writing career to aid them on their own journey. The site will occasionally provide a raw and honest look at what is going on in my career with the hopes to inspire, motivate, and teach those who share similar dreams and ambitions. I hope to delve into a lot of different kinds of paid writing this fall, and I'll share that experience when I feel it has something to benefit you, glorious readers.

Graphic Adventure Game Review Series. I have overwhelming nostalgia and love for games like The Cures of Monkey Island and Space Quest. I'm fascinated by how that genre of video games has evolved over the decades in gameplay and storytelling. I've wanted to start with the first full-motion graphic adventure King's Quest and review every proceeding significant adventure game through the years. This is yet another series and is going to take years to complete (or will never finish since more games are being released), and obviously, there is a cost attached to this for the games I don't own, but it also gives me an excuse to play video games again.

Old School Wrestling Reviews. I have a lot of old wrestling tapes. To justify their existence, I want to go all the way back to when I became a wrestling fan and review all the weekly episodes that I have recorded. I'd look at what those big angles and matches meant to me as a kid, and how they have endured through the decades. What is the legacy of those big moments from 30-plus years ago? There are a lot of recaps available on the internet, so my vision is to not run down the entire episode but rather review them and analyze the major highlights. I am not sure how many wrestling fans read this site, but my few articles about wrestling on this site have drawn an audience.

Push Myself as a Writer. The plan is to do more analysis of major movie news items. I love sharing major moments as a parent. My own challenges with mental health mean I'm drawn to writing about positive thinking and trying to encourage and energize others. I also want to experiment with the art of writing and try out various forms on the site. If I succeed then the site will be a place for imagination, creativity, and inventiveness. Or at least, you'll get something like this.