A heartfelt goodbye
One night in the final days of August 2013, I had an idea that kept me up all night. Under 100 hours later, after a long time spent staring at a computer screen, sending emails, editing, writing opinion, writing HTML, setting up social media, and contacting people, the idea was launched. Here's my final post to say goodbye to it.
Whilst I was planning for my next blog post to be about vegetarianism, I realised last night that this was a move I'd been putting off for a long time and that it's time to properly shut off Mentioned Reviews.
A full blog post might seem a little excessive, but this outlet isn't solely designed for opinion pieces and social justice ranting, a blog might as well be about my life and after the impact Mentioned has had it only felt fair, right, and proper to give it a little more than a few dozen words on a Facebook status, especially for all the people who ask me for reviews or know me because of the site.
Thanks to Mentioned I've got to know hundreds of wonderful people in the music industry and remain good friends with dozens of them, I've had chance to cover festivals and go to literally hundreds of gigs, listen to even more releases and meet musicians from all over the world.
Last November I stopped posting on Mentioned to focus on novel-writing for a month, promising myself and others that I'd pick it up again come December. At first I used assignments as an excuse as to why I was too busy to write, then the Christmas break, then... Well, then I realised I was finding reasons not to do it, but I still told myself I'd get back to it.
Andy Shauf released The Bearer Of Bad News last year, and it was my favourite album of 2015. He's now releasing more music and I believe there's another album on the way. I've seen the press release but I've not even read it; when I do, I'll feel obliged to write. And I don't want to write intermittently for Mentioned - I'd rather I didn't at all.
There's an interesting post that's well worth reading about the question more important than "What do you want out of life?" Essentially, the question is "what would you suffer for?" I used to be happy to put up with working till 3am writing and scheduling and editing articles, copious emails and constant post from PR companies, and gigs in venues I sort of worried about my safety in, but I can't say I am anymore.
Nowadays I'd rather be staying up for write opinion pieces or commentary or features or editing a video package or fixing a piece of journalism. Or letting my producer console me when I get frustrated that yet again I can't get my vocals right. I'm not yet at a point where I'm happy to receive rejection emails daily for my fiction writing but I've received a fair handful, and when my writing's better I'll be glad to take them on the chin.
Thanks firstly go to my sister for kickstarting the whole shebang and doing all the technical bits and pieces that keep the site alive and on its feet. There have been a bunch of people who've written for the website over the two and a bit years but biggest thanks go to Josh, Kelly and Ryan - special kudos to Josh for calming me down when I was always too stressed, for being the most supportive bro a girl could ask for, and for getting me into most of my favourite artists.
I'll still carry on writing about music for other websites, so any reviews that I might have coming up will still be put out, just not on Mentioned. I still love writing about music, just not enough to run a website on it.
I poured thousands of hours into Mentioned and I remember one day my now-producer and I freaking out over my "little corner of the internet". So much love and effort went into it, it received a lot of love and hate, it opened a lot of doors for me, and in short it taught me a lot.
Very often it was the thing I loved the most and more often than not it's been the thing I'm most proud of. It sucks to say it's over. But there you go.
Cheers.
Whilst I was planning for my next blog post to be about vegetarianism, I realised last night that this was a move I'd been putting off for a long time and that it's time to properly shut off Mentioned Reviews.
A full blog post might seem a little excessive, but this outlet isn't solely designed for opinion pieces and social justice ranting, a blog might as well be about my life and after the impact Mentioned has had it only felt fair, right, and proper to give it a little more than a few dozen words on a Facebook status, especially for all the people who ask me for reviews or know me because of the site.
Thanks to Mentioned I've got to know hundreds of wonderful people in the music industry and remain good friends with dozens of them, I've had chance to cover festivals and go to literally hundreds of gigs, listen to even more releases and meet musicians from all over the world.
Last November I stopped posting on Mentioned to focus on novel-writing for a month, promising myself and others that I'd pick it up again come December. At first I used assignments as an excuse as to why I was too busy to write, then the Christmas break, then... Well, then I realised I was finding reasons not to do it, but I still told myself I'd get back to it.
Andy Shauf released The Bearer Of Bad News last year, and it was my favourite album of 2015. He's now releasing more music and I believe there's another album on the way. I've seen the press release but I've not even read it; when I do, I'll feel obliged to write. And I don't want to write intermittently for Mentioned - I'd rather I didn't at all.
There's an interesting post that's well worth reading about the question more important than "What do you want out of life?" Essentially, the question is "what would you suffer for?" I used to be happy to put up with working till 3am writing and scheduling and editing articles, copious emails and constant post from PR companies, and gigs in venues I sort of worried about my safety in, but I can't say I am anymore.
Nowadays I'd rather be staying up for write opinion pieces or commentary or features or editing a video package or fixing a piece of journalism. Or letting my producer console me when I get frustrated that yet again I can't get my vocals right. I'm not yet at a point where I'm happy to receive rejection emails daily for my fiction writing but I've received a fair handful, and when my writing's better I'll be glad to take them on the chin.
Thanks firstly go to my sister for kickstarting the whole shebang and doing all the technical bits and pieces that keep the site alive and on its feet. There have been a bunch of people who've written for the website over the two and a bit years but biggest thanks go to Josh, Kelly and Ryan - special kudos to Josh for calming me down when I was always too stressed, for being the most supportive bro a girl could ask for, and for getting me into most of my favourite artists.
I'll still carry on writing about music for other websites, so any reviews that I might have coming up will still be put out, just not on Mentioned. I still love writing about music, just not enough to run a website on it.
I poured thousands of hours into Mentioned and I remember one day my now-producer and I freaking out over my "little corner of the internet". So much love and effort went into it, it received a lot of love and hate, it opened a lot of doors for me, and in short it taught me a lot.
Very often it was the thing I loved the most and more often than not it's been the thing I'm most proud of. It sucks to say it's over. But there you go.
Cheers.
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