Thank you all SO MUCH… but it’s time for me to roll.

It’s Thanksgiving, which I think is a perfect time to make this post. Because I’m very thankful and grateful for all support that I’ve received here while running FMR. I had a ton of excellent movie discussions, met a lot of great people online, learned a ton about movies, and had a truly, genuinely gratifying experience writing and being a blogger.

It’s undeniable now though that I have to move on. So I wanted to make an official post to announce it and take one last opportunity to thank you all.

When I began Fogs’ Movie Reviews two and a half years ago,  I had little idea what I was getting myself into. I had been enjoying doing mini reviews on Facebook, a couple of my friends suggested I start a movie blog, and I quickly dove in head first.

Those first six months or so, as I discovered the joy and rewards of writing about movies, were an intense time of doing extremely little aside from work and blogging. I was so amped up on the newfound highs of being a blogger that I filled nearly all of my free time with it. Almost every free moment I had was spent either watching movies or writing about them. It was an unsustainable path, but the stars aligned to free up my time and allow it to continue on. A unique situation with my employment allowed me to blog directly from work, and then soon after, blog full time during a hiatus between jobs. I took that time and ran with it, dedicating as much time or more to FMR as I had during the initial, intense first few months.

It was a period I enjoyed very much. I saw more movies in theatres than is probably healthy for a person. I tried to watch every major theatrical release, whether they were good, bad, or downright God-awful. I’d watch movies at home, as well, pursuing under the radar films and classics that I had never gotten around to. And after all of the watching, I’d write, trying to post a new piece of content every single day (and many times more than one).

The response, in my opinion, was overwhelming.

FMR quickly developed a friendly, loyal and knowledgeable community. Numerous people became regular readers and commenters, and their presence only served to attract others. Before long, the commenting here became more valuable than the content, and people were coming not just to read what I was writing, but to join in the discussion and debate.

I achieved some recognition and accolades during the past couple of years as well. WordPress Freshly Pressed FMR four times, which was an incredible honor and a great boon. They also called out my site in their “Daily Post” blog and said some very flattering things. And of course, nothing could top the experience of this year’s Lammy Awards, where I enjoyed unprecedented success. It was an incredible, amazing treat to have a week like that, thank the Large Association of Movie Blogs and everyone else involved, I’ll never forget it.

As everyone knows though, I’m back working on my career, and I have next to no time now to play on the ‘net. I’ll also confess that there are some things I tired of with blogging, as well. Towards the end, I found myself losing the drive to see movies I had no interest in, just in order to get a review up, but I also found myself tiring of reviewing in general. I never envisioned myself as a critic to begin with… I always thought of myself as someone who loved movies enough to write about them. And towards the end I ran out of gas a bit for the point-counterpoint that comes with putting your opinion up for people to sound off on. I think it’ll be refreshing to once again be able to watch movies without having to opine on them officially, and without having to defend my opinion to others.

So, given my current lack of free time, and the fact that I don’t have the insatiable hunger for the game that I once did, the time has come to officially step away from FMR. I realize that I could probably post sporadic, occasional content in order to keep the site on life support, but people who know me know that that’s not what I’m about. I’ll be paying the bills and leaving the blog up (mainly because I can’t bear to delete so much of my own writing), and who knows, maybe one day the winds will change and I’ll find myself wanting to resurrect it. But for the forseeable future, this will be the last post I put up.

I want to thank Morgan and Richard for providing content the past couple of months. You guys have been great, and I appreciate the efforts you’ve given. But I feel badly having you produce pieces here, while I can’t.

I want to thank Dylan Fields and Joel Burman of the Large Association of Movie Blogs. You gentlemen were very welcoming to me, and I know that I got a LOT out of my membership in your organization.

I’d like to thank WordPress for creating such an outstanding platform for amateur writers and for showing me such great support personally.

But most of all, I’d like to thank all my friends, family and fellow bloggers who came here on a regular basis and blessed FMR with a readership and commenting community that became the envy of other bloggers. On any given post I could count on people to show up and sound off, and on “Tossin’ It Out There” Tuesdays, I would regularly see comment counts hitting 150 and more. It really was impressive, very flattering, and extremely, extremely fun. I had a great time bantering back and forth, learning what movies people loved and which ones they hate, and having people point me in the direction of great films that I had never seen.

It all added up to an incredibly fun endeavor that I got more than my share of praise for. It’s something I’ll never forget.  In the end, I’m choosing to look at it not that I “no longer can” blog, but that I already have. That I had the experience fully and successfully and did it just about as well as I could have possibly hoped.

Thank you all one last time for helping me, supporting me, and enjoying it alongside me.