By Robert Yaniz Jr.
Apologies, faithful readers, for my failure to deliver the latest episode of the Crooked Table Podcast earlier this week. Rest assured, Mission: Impossible — Fallout is awesome (read my review over at Monkeys Fighting Robots), and perhaps I will wind up sharing more detailed thoughts on the Mission: Impossible films on the podcast at some point. For now, I find myself in the throes of a crossroads that may prove to be critical for the future of this site and my entertainment writing endeavors in general.
In the last few weeks, I have found myself overwhelmed on a number of fronts, and my priorities have drastically shifted as a result. For one, I underwent periodontal surgery, which has thrown a monkey wrench in my usual routine. But even more pressingly, caring for my daughter has become far more complex now that she’s in full-on toddler mode. As I have discussed a few times on my personal blog over at RobertYanizJr.com, I am currently her primary caregiver (my wife is holding down a full-time job), and all of my freelance work — both entertainment-related and otherwise — must fit around that.
My duty as a parent, of course, will always take priority, and the stress of trying to balance my workload (in its current form) and family life has taken a toll on my stress level, to the point that I found myself dealing with a debilitating days-long migraine that hindered my ability to follow through on my responsibilities. Moreover, as anyone who has even dabbled in entertainment writing surely knows, this kind of work does not pay particularly well (if it pays at all). As such, I’ve decided to cut back on my output in that regard as well, choosing to focus on building my content marketing and copywriting work. A man has to pay those bills, after all.
What does this mean? Well, for starters, I am no longer contributing to Screen Rant — a site I worked with for over 6 years (read my work here, if you’re interested) — and am putting the Crooked Table Podcast (along with all other content on CrookedTable.com) on an indefinite hiatus. I’ve often found myself grappling with the tenuous balance between writing that I love and writing that covers my expenses (welcome to the freelance life!), but I felt so defeated over all this that my wife actually had to coax me away from straight-up closing my podcast hosting account over the weekend. I don’t know how some of my Film Twitter friends manage to balance their film writing and outside full-time jobs. My fedora is off to them.
Anyone who can maintain the passion, energy and time to write about the art that they love has my admiration and respect, more than ever before. In case it hasn’t been made abundantly clear thus far, Crooked Table has been a labor of love that I, for the most part, have made my own personal pet project. There’s no team behind the site, its content or even the podcast. Just me. This is supposed to be something fun, a place for me to celebrate my love of the movies and share it with you all. Lately, it hasn’t been, at least not for me. Rather than run the site and my passion for film writing in general into the ground, I’m opting to simply press pause on Crooked Table.
Undoubtedly, this about-face may feel jarring to regular visitors of this site. In truth, it took me by surprise as well. But I firmly believe it’s what needs to happen for me to preserve the state of Crooked Table and my own sanity. Over the next however-many months, I am going to try and devote the time I would have spent on entertainment writing to a number of projects I’ve had on a perpetual backburner. Some of these have even spent years languishing in the back of my mind, and their time in the sun is more than overdue. Concurrently, I am also going to delve deeper into how I can make Crooked Table 2.0 better, stronger and more exciting for me as well as all of you.
What that means I can’t say because, honestly, I don’t know. For the longest time, I’ve felt like Crooked Table has not lived up to its full potential. Bringing in either other writers or even a permanent co-host for the podcast would be a great place to start, but the production of the podcast and the haphazard, near-nonexistent way in which I’ve promoted the content I’ve put on here have always bugged me. This “mental health break” will give me the opportunity to decide if I want to upgrade the site, update my processes and return at some point with a renewed sense of purpose or start fresh. I just have to determine where Crooked Table fits in with everything else in my life before I decide either way.
I appreciate your patience and understanding as I regroup and (hopefully) bring Crooked Table back better than ever as soon as possible. In the meantime, please feel free to catch up with the 88 episodes of the Crooked Table Podcast already available for your listening pleasure as well as the countless reviews, videos and other movie-related goodies dating back to summer 2013. You can also find more of my film writing on MonkeysFightingRobots.com or follow me on social media (links below).
With any luck, I’ll have updates about the future of Crooked Table sooner rather than later. As soon as I have an idea of what direction I’ll be taking it in, I will post a follow-up. Until then, I’ve been Rob, and I hope to catch you around the Table… again soon. Roll credits?
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