The Battle's Done, and We've Kind of Won . . .

After an intense round of obsessive blogging and insomnia in an effort to defeat my mental demons, followed by a few days of zero-to-little blogging and a little bit of actual sleep, I think it's a perfect time to take a step back, glance at the landscape of CoIM and figure out the answer to this burning question: Where do we go from here?

Okay, so maybe the question isn't all that burning, but it has been occupying my mind as I neared the end of my journey through what I sometimes affectionately think of as my "dumbass days"; a journey that others refer to as my "moping and complaining for two weeks." I can admit that it has, at times, been a little heavy, depressing, and oppressive; with luck, we're past all that for the time being. So, now what?

When I first started CoIM, I had the alliterative structure in place to force me into writing something each day; as has become painfully obvious, that sort of structure is not really necessary anymore; in fact, I completely skipped Written Word Wednesday and 4-Color Friday this week without a peep from anyone, even the three people who actually read my 4-Color Friday posts. Having been able to break from my structure once without any negative reactions frees me from my borderline-OCD need to conform to the structure religiously; I'll still do those posts as they come to me, but I probably won't be making any more "Um, hey, didn't read anything this week, sorry" posts. Movie Mondays and TV Tuesdays will still be a staple for the foreseeable future, though; I enjoy sharing my thoughts on my latest viewings, even if my comments mean next to nothing to anyone else.

So, I'm keeping two structured things, and relegating two others to once in a blue moon postings; what about the rest of my time?

First of all, I'd like to start telling more anecdotes about my misadventures with Parkerites, Book Monkeys, Singles, etc. The only problem is coming up with anecdotes that are sufficiently entertaining and/or interesting, but which won't prompt the participants to hunt me down afterwards in order to rip my arm off and beat me with the bloody end for embarrassing them; it's a fine line to walk.

Next, I would like to do more character sketches about the people on the Cast List; I know lots of the anecdotes will work better if you have a better grasp of the people involved. I plan to have the Flunky spotlight post up by the end of the week, and the winner of the Book Monkey poll by the next week; I haven't decided if I'm going to go ahead and do a poll for the first Singles spotlight, or just run with it; we'll see how I feel when Friday rolls around.

I'd also like to come up with some more interesting polls to use as a springboard into future posts, but I think that might be a while in taking shape.

I don't know if anyone else enjoyed my little foray into Earth-K, but it amused the heck out of me, so you can probably expect to see a little bit more of that; I'm tempted to move it and other comic book style posts to a spin-off blog a la Curse You G'ovich; although, that sounds suspiciously like creating extra work for myself now that I think about it . . .

I'm all about the interactive CoIM experience here; I've really enjoyed hearing people's thoughts and reactions and wild interpretations of my posts. In that spirit, I would like to open up the floor once again to anyone who would like to add their voice to CoIM for a guest post; so far I have a commitment from Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate, who'll be doing a special 4-Color Friday post soon, and Flunky Lover, whose topic of choice has yet to be revealed to me.

And, of course I'll still continue to create the occasional "random thought that just popped into my head" post as my muse dictates.

One final note: I'm going to try to pace myself a little better with my posts. The two- and three-a-day posts, while receiving some positive comments from people who can't wait for their next CoIM fix (and, honestly, who can blame them?), also tend to drain the very life-force from my body. Plus, there's always the fear that I'll run out of clever and amusing anecdotes before I get the opportunity to create new ones. Not saying there won't be any more multi-posts in a day; I think we all know that there are times when the compulsion to get something out there will be overwhelming (see the last 4 or 5 Secret Origins posts for example), but I probably won't be making double posts every day, unless the public outcry is too great; can't disappoint my massive public of approximately 10-15 regular readers, now can I?

So, that's sort of where we are right now: less mopey, more anecdotey, with a little lightening of the structure. We'll see how long this phase lasts.