Hello again.
It is 3 days since my most recent blog post. Most of that time I have been resting, still recovering from my cold. It is one of those persistent colds that grab on to you and don't let go. I think now, Saturday night, I am finally on the mend. I know you were worried.
Friday afternoon, we went to the KIA dealership on Kempt Road and selected a KIA Soul. After the test drive, it had something like 12 kilometres on it. This will be the first new car we will ever have purchased in our lives. It is a dark gray in colour. We will take possession of it on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Now, I teased you the other night about how to approach this blog. Let's back up. I'll show you where I'm coming from.
I began Bevboy's Blog in 2007, 9 years ago this month, in an effort to find a way express myself. I hated all the typo's I found in most blogs. And I didn't much care about their content, either.
The early blog posts didn't have many readers. I joke to this day about my 4.7 readers. I wish I had had that many back then.
In April of 2008, one-time Valley radio jock Karen Begin (a.k.a. Darian O'Toole) died suddenly. I had unresolved feelings about Karen, and I wrote about them here. Those posts went viral, at least by 2008 standards. I wrote several posts about Karen, attended her funeral in Dartmouth, and wrote about that.
I reached out to Deb Smith, then a co-host on the AM 920 CJCH morning show, and interviewed her. I did the same with other jocks in town, and in the Valley. My name got out there as being the radio guy.
I started reporting radio news. Someone would get fired, and I would report it. A few times, program directors would tip me off when one of their staff left.
Eventually, the editor at Frank Magazine, Andrew Douglas, began to use some of my pictures from the interviews that ran here, in his magazine. My review of that awful Gordon Lightfoot concert in... 2012, I think it was, was referenced and cited in one of his articles, contrasting my criticism of the show with Stephen Cooke's review in the Herald, which was nearly effusive in its praise. When Doctor Paul Kinsman died, I reported that death here, and mentioned that he had been the doctor to Donna Goler, of the infamous Goler Family. I shared that post with Andrew, who liked it enough to produce one of his own about Kinsman. He even borrowed one of my copies of "On South Mountain", the book about the Goler story and that long-ago trial. What he produced was better than what I wrote here, but I can take some comfort in "inspiring" his article.
In 2014, Andrew bought publication rights to my interview with Ron Roberts, which tickled Ron to no end. He bought every copy he could afford and mailed it off to his many friends. His death a year later diminished us all. Shortly thereafter, Andrew hired me to write a radio column for Frank, calling it "Bev Keddy's Radio Daze". Eventually, the column expanded its scope to include new books coming out and even little trivia things. More recently, when one of his staff resigned, and my column was revived, I asked for an opportunity to explore my interest in Nova Scotia-based unsolved murders and missing persons cases. That wish was granted, and 6 months later, I am getting well known for these articles. I even got a fan letter in the current issue. Yay for me.
What this means to you is that, gradually, more and more of the subjects I wrote about here have been moved over to Frank Magazine. I can't write radio news here as I am paid to do it over there. Ditto with the true crime articles. The latest casualty has been the little bits of historical trivia I research on my own and publish over there.
This all results in their being less and less for me to write about here. I can't imagine you're at all interested in reading about what I did every day, especially when I leave out the things that are in my paid writing.
It's funny. On Sunday, there is going to be a conference featuring local bloggers, all of whom are going to speak of ways they have monetized their blogs to make some damn money. I can't imagine it's very much money. At any rate, I have managed to monetize some of the content on this blog, earning some decent coin, which once again brings us back to this blog and what's left of it.
What things do you want me to write about? I mean, once you eliminate the stuff Frank is paying me to write about, what else do you want me to write about? It's my blog, and my content; but you're my readers and I want to try to make you happy.
No, I don't want to shut down the blog. 9 years in, and I feel I have lots more to write about. But, just what?
Please get back to me with your thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you.
See you tomorrow.
Bevboy
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