RJ Battles

From time to time I like to look at current state of the blog, RJ Battles, and try to decide if I like the direction it's going in, and how do I feel about it overall?

Right now I'm happy with some things, discouraged by others. The good news first:

I'm happy with the rate that I've been posting at. I've been very productive this year and especially the last two months (does the quality match the quantity? no, but I'll work on that). But at least if someone finds RJ Battles and likes it they'll have a lot to read and look at.

The bad news:

I feel like there's nothing here to get really excited about and nothing to get involved in (though there are a couple posts where you can vote for your favorite Prince record sleeves). And while my writing has gotten better, it's been a while since I wrote something that I really loved and was proud of, a post where I really impressed myself.

I'm always comparing myself to Final Girl, but I also know that ultimately I can't compare my writing to hers or anyone elses. She has her writing style and I have mine and I just need to develop mine further and focus on my strengths.

I'll be happy once I feel that I write well enough that my posts are well thought-out and organized and easy to read. I want to be as clear as possible and hold the reader's attention throughout. I'm not going to be clever or funny but I can be entertaining and interesting.

There's one thing I do that makes me feel like an awesome writer. Whenever I feel like I'm not doing well I go and read the blog The Daily Guru.

I've mentioned The Daily Guru here before. I posted his review of The Breeders' Pod along with my re-write. His writing style is horrible. It reads like any music magazine hack's record review. Everybody is a "genius" and every song is "iconic". And he doesn't seem to notice that he'll use the word "truely" ten times in one post. It's really funny, at least to me. if you wanna have a good time, look up his review of Belly's Star that he posted last year.

I feel like an asshole for writing all this but if you're gonna call yourself a "guru" (a word that I hate) you're kind of asking for it.