Explanation

Within the past two weeks, a few people have asked about or commented on my absence. Being a man of insistent "responsible genes," I’ve decided to pass along this explanation, feeble as some may think it is.

First, radiation for prostate cancer ended April 25. Now, I wait, get checked periodically, and take shots that I hate having to take.

Over the nine weeks during radiation, the round trip drive of almost three hours each day, five days a week, plus the fifteen minutes of radiation saw to it that I had great amounts of time in which to think—always a dangerous thing for a guy like me, who never stops thinking to begin with (I listened to books on CD, but still managed to think).

When I began this blog, my intent was to pass along to consumers some of what really goes on in the wine world as opposed to what others want consumers to think goes on. I also had a decided bent against ever becoming a wine critic, as my view of aesthetic criticism is not the mainstream view of that occupation.

If I am to be honest with myself, the secondary intent for vinofictions was to gain access to people who might be in a position to buy my writing services.

In truth, neither of the intents seems to have panned out much.

After initial interest from some important online bloggers who sent readers my way, my lack of flashy, some might say sensationalistic writing ultimately relegated vinofictions to the low end of the readability scale. I have no idea how many people read or have read the blog (I have tracked the hits, but that baloney isn’t as telling as some believe—hits are not necessarily readers).

In addition, others have pointed out, and I have come to agree that the majority of wine blog readers are either in the business, wannabes in the business, or hard geeks. And in addition to that, I’ve learned that few want to read a blog for information beyond the opinions concerning the drinkability of this or that wine; in some cases, telling the truth behind the many myths that continue to circulate concerning myriad subjects connected to wine has gotten me into more trouble than the blog is worth.

Speaking of worth, the blog did manage to pull off a few incidents concerning my second intent—to attract an editor or two—but not nearly enough when I compare what my print writings (including books) have garnered for me when it comes to getting future writing gigs. Either not enough editors read wine blogs or I'm a poor excuse for a writer--or both. Still, in spite of the possibility concerning my talents, the fact that I have had the good fortune over the years to become a professional writer, who needs the time to write so that I meet my deadlines, often came into conflict with trying to maintain a blog that brought no direct revenue at all.

In sum, vinofictions may or may not be around much longer. I haven’t made a definitive decision about it. I know only these two things: right now, I am not inspired to write anything on the blog; and I have just received a contract to write what will be my fourth book, a project that requires much research and that will take up much of my time. The new book, plus the three columns I continually bang out on a regularly scheduled basis, the wines.com blog entries that I produce twice each month, and the scattered magazine articles that diminishingly, but still come my way will conspire to lessen the energy if not the ideas necessary to maintain regularly scheduled vinofictions blog entries.

Finally, not only have I faced a health ordeal, I’m getting older and less inclined to spend as much energy on speculative concepts as I once had.

To my four or five die-hard readers, I say thanks for reading, commenting, and overall support under the radar through emails. Vinofictions will remain online and maybe one day soon I’ll actually have something worthwhile to post to it.

Copyright Thomas Pellechia
May 2011. All rights reserved

Lifting a blog entry without the author's permission (and without recompense) is a copyright infringement--period.