Five Years

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Five years and change ago, I launched the candler blog, my home for “movie reviews, cinema essays, personal rants and the like…” This wasn’t my first crack at a blog, but it’s the one that stuck. And what a ride it’s been so far.

I’ve interviewed filmmakers, sparked debate and even helped a few people better use Mac productivity apps along the way. This site allowed me to become involved in the Fountain plain-text screenwriting project. This site is how I landed a gig at Heeb Magazine. The candler blog of today is nothing I could ever have imagined five years ago.

Let me also mention the contributors who helped make the site what it is: my friends Sunrise Tippeconnie and Daniel Kremer. At the beginning I thought the candler blog would be a full-fledged outlet, with a staff of writers covering a range of topics. Over time I turned it into my personal blog, but their contributions still mean the world to me.

A trap that I often fall into is viewing each of the site’s milestones as a victory. When traffic is high, for example, I always get this silly feeling inside that I’ve “arrived.” When a writer or outlet I admire links to me, I think I’ve accomplished something. But that’s all bullshit. Achieving small successes is easy; maintaining the site is hard. I bring this up here merely to point out (mostly to myself) that five years is nothing. I am sentimental and proud, but there is so much more to be written (and so much I regret not writing over the years). There is plenty of work ahead.

So I wanted to just say thank you. Thank you for sticking with the candler blog. Thank you for your patience. Here’s to the next five years.