Almost every day I’m in agony over HE-plus, or rather my constant failure to post fresh material on it. When HE:plus launched last summer my plan was to split my daily postings — half HE classic, half HE:plus. Or maybe a 60-40 split. But as God is my witness I haven’t been able to make myself do this.
I felt that I had to post the timely, here-and-now stuff on HE regular and the colorful, personal, deep-dive stuff on HE:plus. So I would do that but I’d feel so whipped from writing five or six HE posts that I wouldn’t have the energy for HE:plus. Every damn day. I was doing my best to keep it going over the last few months, but I really couldn’t make myself post during the Sundance and Santa Barbara festivals. And now I’m back on the rodent treadmill.
I’m a slave to Hollywood Elsewhere as it is — five, six, seven posts a day — but I can’t be a slave to both sites. At times it feels as if I’m crumbling from the anxiety and pressure and constant overwork.
I had dinner with a fellow columnist just as Sundance was beginning, and he suggested that I commit to an on-and-off strategy. Post 60% or 70% on HE:plus on a given week, and 30% or 40% of HE regular. And then reverse things the following week — 60% or 70% HE classic, 30% or 40% HE:plus. And stick with that. It sounds like a plan, and I guess that’s how I’ll play it starting tomorrow, but I still have this deep-set conviction that the hot immediate stuff HAS to be on HE regular.
I’ve been doing Hollywood Elsewhere for 14 and 1/2 years — HE:plus is only a few months old.
Hollywood Elsewhere earned relatively decent ad revenue over the last three or four months (or at least better than last year), but I still need to generate supplementary income to make it all come out right.
The ache and anxiety are considerable.