A few of you might already know about this, but with two days left to go in this year, I wanted to share a goal that I set for myself with everybody who reads this blog.

In the final days of 2009, I tossed around ideas of what I wanted for The Dark of The Matinee in 2010. One concept that came to me was to push myself a little bit harder. My other passion is photography, and at the time, I was gearing up for a “365 Photos” project, where I’d take one photo a day every day through the year. (Sidebar: That project flamed out in late February)

So when considering blogging ideas, the 365 project felt like as good a starting point as any. Thus the bar was set:

Post at least once a day, every single day, for one year.

Now, I’ll readily admit that the screencaps I put up on Saturdays for the “Today, I Feel Like This” feature feel like a bit of a cheat. However, sometimes it takes just as long to settle on one of those as it does write a post, and many times I have to get the movie from the shelf and go about creating the screengrab myself.

Ditto the “Everybody’s Talkin” blogosphere round-up on Fridays. It takes quite a bit of time to peruse what many of y’all have been up to during any given week!

As for the rest, at a glance I can tell you that running to and fro around four different film festivals certainly makes for a good source of material. So if I do say so myself, I think the goal and the experiment was a success. It pushed me to get into a routine and a writing habit. It helped me become a better writer. It led me deeper into the community to read and interact with more and more blogs. Some days were tough – more than once I sat frustrated staring at a blinking cursor after midnight just begging for inspiration.

What I learned in those moments was the best advice I could pass on for anyone looking to try a similar experiment: If you’re stumped, look around and ask other movie geeks for ideas. Those little, seemingly benign chats you have with them can often be expanded into a decent post!

And before you ask – no, Virginia…just because the year is over doesn’t mean that I’ll be slowing down any time soon.