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The Athletic Nerd: Movies Screenwriting Independent Film Blog

I’m extremely happy to announce the ONE year anniversary celebration here at The Athletic Nerd.

What are we celebrating besides the obvious?

Truthfully, after 12 months of daily updates and nearly 400 posts overall, The Athletic Nerd has become a big part of my life.

A year ago, I would have never predicted that I would still be writing every single day and continually posting articles and features that (hopefully) entertain.

Yet here I am, 1 year later, ready to look back on an epic year that taught me enormous amounts about being dedicated, creative and passionate about movie blogging.

The Athletic Nerd has evolved a ton since the first post on September 15, 2010.

In it’s first full month, 23 TOTAL people came to visit the site.  I believe I can name about 22 of them.

Fast forward a year and we are now getting hundreds of people per day from over 130 countries.  Let’s hope YEAR TWO continues that positive (and satisfying) growth.

What’s in store this week?

I’ve got a lot planned for the next 7 days.

In addition to a series of posts looking back at YEAR ONE, I’ll also be re-posting some of my favorite articles from the last year.  There are BEST OF posts on the way and a couple pretty great surprises including the launch of a brand new and excited feature!

Movies.  Screenwriting & Indepedent Film.

It’s been a great year!

Jay.

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10 Flicks: A Different Kind Of Movie List

Today is the 9 month anniversary of The Athletic Nerd.

In that time, I’ve written 273 posts that have earned over 10,000 visits from all over the world and more than 15,000 page views.

Note: I don’t know if that’s good or not but considering this blog is 273 days old…  I’d say I’m posting pretty regularly.

I’m extremely proud of the way this site has developed and evolved over time.  It’s an amazing outlet that allows me to write about the movies I love and the movies I love to make everyday.

While I write a ton of posts about 17 West Productions, screenwriting and filmmaking, I’ve always made sure to include posts about the movies that inspire me.

Through features like What!?, Rainy Sundays and 10 Flicks, I have that opportunity.  These posts have been my number 1 source of traffic. 

So to celebrate 9 months of blogging, I’ve decided to dedicate a post to the most successful feature on my blog:

10 Flicks

When I first started, I didn’t want to post regular Top 10 count downs.  I wanted my lists to truly reflect the kind of movie fan I am and the films I love to watch.  These lists are designed to cause conversations, not arguments over rankings etc…

For those who haven’t seen them yet, here are the lists I’ve created so far:

There’s a lot more on the way including top secret NEW features I’m planning to launch…

The Athletic Nerd by Jason McKinnon

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The Athletic Nerd Movies Television Technology

The Athletic Nerd has definitely evolved over the last 9 months.

I set out to build a blog that would allow me to write about the movies that inspire me.  It was also going to be a place to keep people up to date on my own film projects and screenwriting adventures. 

A personal look at my professional passions.

Well, it’s been 9 months and The Athletic Nerd is exactly what I had hoped it would be.  I’m still posting daily original content while constantly increasing my knowledge of the blogosphere and how to survive it.  Slowly, the traffic is coming and I’m more passionate than ever about my blog, my websites, my company and my career. 

But I’m not done yet…

I dont’ think a website should ever become stale and hopefully that hasn’t happened yet.  So I wanted to kick off my 9 month celebration by going over what’s coming for the rest of 2010.

The Climb

17 West’s latest short film

As I continue to edit the film, I’ll be updating my Editing Short Films series regularly with articles about the entire post production process.

Strings

17 West’s Co-Production

A new short film being produced in Sudbury, Ontario that I wrote and will be co-producing.  The film is currently in pre-production and I’ll be updating often as the production progresses.  Visit UnoPark for more.

Screenwriting

Shorts & Features

I’m still writing as much as I possibly can.  If everything goes according to plan, I’ll have my new feature done by summer’s end.  I’m also planning a series of new and ambitious short scripts for both competitions and 17 West Productions.

Screenwriting is my number 1 passion and I write about it here often.  That will continue.

Product Launch

New eBook in the works!

I’m going to be keeping this project a secret for a little while longer as it is still in the planning stages.  I’m pretty excited to tackle a project like this.  I’ve never attempted to package a product before and I’m loving the challenge so far.

The Athletic Nerd

New Features…

Over the last 9 months, I’ve launched several regular features that have gained me a lot of traffic. 

These include:

Recently, I added 2 NEW features:

These are still in the early stages of evolution but I’ll be continually adding new and useful content in the coming months.

Anything new coming?

I spent some time tinkering with my design this morning and I’m in the planning stages of some new graphics and an updated look.  I tend to revise my websites often.  I enjoy Photoshop.

I’ve learned that the best way to attract people to my site is to continue to write new and fresh content about the movies I love.  10 Flicks and Rainy Sundays are among the highest ranked pages I’ve written and I’m planning 2 new features on this site to hopefully increase momentum and really boost my traffic numbers.

The first will not surprise those who visit my blog often.  I started the All Time Best feature to write about the little moments we remember in films.  So it makes perfect sense to start a brand new feature to examine the opposite. 

Today, I’m proud to announce: All Time Worst

This new feature will launch in the next few weeks.  I’m pretty excited about it. 

I’ll be keeping the second new feature under wraps for now but it’ll be launched before the end of the summer as well.

Lessons Learned

I love writing.  Until September, most of my writing took place inside of Final Draft.  While screenwriting will always be my favorite writing discipline, I’ve learned that having a blog and writing every day is just as satisfying.

As I get closer and closer to the all important 1 year mark, I’m thankful that I haven’t let The Athletic Nerd fall into a blogging black hole.  It’s still very much alive and gaining momentum.

I still have a lot of work to do and it’s not going to be easy.  However, the more challenging it gets, the more fun I have.

Stay tuned…

PS: This is a giant post…

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Blogging: Death Of A Category

February 15th, 2010 | Posted by jasonmckinnon in Design | Web - (0 Comments)

The Athletic Nerd by Jason McKinnon

I’ve learned a lot about blogging and there is still a ton of information to absorb out there.  However, instead of learning new things about blogging today, I decided to take a step back and examine what I’ve already built.

I spent some time tweaking plug ins and cleaning up older posts.  I’ve created a bunch of new graphics over the last few weeks and it was time to go back and update the older posts with the new look.

Essentially, I spent some time on the little details. 

I also spent some time looking over my tags and categories.  I may be new to the blogging world but I’m aware of how important organization is to a successful website.  I base this theory on my own browsing experiences.  I don’t like visiting blogs with hundreds of categories. It’s confusing and most of the time, these blogs only have 1 or 2 posts in each section.  Basic navigation should be simple and I’m not prepared to lose any precious readers because it was a hassle to find what they were looking for.  So I made a decision…

I’ve decided to kill a feature on my blog.

The Really!? feature will no longer be a part of The Athletic Nerd

Here’s why:

  1. 5 posts in 5 months is not enough.
  2. Rants about things that annoy me can still be categorized according to the topic they deal with.
  3. There’s no point flooding a new blog with features when you can simplify things and focus on better content.
  4. I won’t miss it.

The final point also represents the final nail in the coffin for the Really!? feature.  Much like screenwriting, if you can take out a scene and the movie still works, it probably didn’t belong in the story.  It’s the same thing with blogging.

It was time to move on.

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Milestone: My 144th Post

February 15th, 2010 | Posted by jasonmckinnon in Design | Web - (0 Comments)

Since I began blogging seriously in September, I’ve been slowly developping an identity for The Athletic Nerd.

The overall vision is to post 6 days a week about various topics relating to movies, television, technology and 17 West Productions.  What you’ll get is an honest look at how much filmmaking and working in television means to me.

Today I want to talk about the milestone I reached today.  It’s my 144th post!

I don’t celebrate the big events yet because this is still a young blog.  Ultimately, I want to create a blog where you can find quality content on a daily basis.

So for my 144th post, I wanted to solidify the idea that content comes first.

The one thing I’ve learned throughout my blogging journey is how important it is to appreciate the medium.  (No one told me so much research and development would be involved!)  Writing posts everyday is one thing but I also spend a lot of time enhancing my blogging knowledge through websites like Pro Blogger and Blogging Tips.  I’m constantly thinking and planning the look and direction I want to take The Athletic Nerd as I continue to push forward.

I’m always looking for ways to become a better blogger.

I can’t imagine firing off 5 or 6 posts a day.  It would be too rushed and the content would suffer.  Instead, why not write one post that means something every day?

They say you have to know your goals and who your audience is.  You have to know where you want to take your blog long before the traffic rolls in.

The Athletic Nerd will continue to evolve and you can bet it will keep getting better and better!

Thanks for reading.  Tell your friends.

Jason.

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