Tuesday, 03 November 2009 at 10:24 AM Next
It's hard for me to believe that I'm wrapping up another season of Fruit Slinger.
Sometimes I can't believe there was a first season of Fruit Slinger, let alone a second and now — really? — a third.
It's hard to imagine a fourth.
You know, for a while I thought maybe the strongest component of the blog was the food. And for a lot of people, maybe that's true. It's true enough for me, too — to a point. I've also had a lot of people tell me that they like it when I write about interactions with customers — or that I should write more about my interactions with customers. The former is nice enough to hear; the latter is amusing because it assumes that I had any control over what I wrote about.
I just wrote about what happened.
I'm really lucky to have been in an interesting position and very fortunate to have been given the freedom to write about it as I did.
I keep thinking back to the formula for a good blog, which is as follows: obsession times voice.
That's it. Remember that.
If you follow that formula, your blog won't appeal to everyone, but it will appeal to the people to whom it ought to appeal. And that's about as much as you can hope for. I've been asking myself lately what I might blog about next, a question which includes the curious supposition that I will blog about anything at all.
The answer is that I don't yet know. To find out, you can keep the blog in your RSS feed, subscribe by email, follow me on Twitter, join the Facebook group or, you know, just reload the page constantly.
When I do figure it out, I hope that a lot of you will read that blog, too. I expect some of you won't, though. That's OK. That's because whatever the next blog might be, it won't appeal to everybody. Fruit Slinger never did.
I never did much care for promoting this blog — although I'm not saying I didn't try. How many people read a well-read fruit blog, anyway? 100? 1000? What exactly was I hoping to achieve here? I always thought the blog worked best when it was a little more secret than not. Maybe you knew where I worked, maybe you didn't. Maybe you had met me, maybe you hadn't. If everybody knows about the blog, then somehow it's not as fun anymore. Is that perverse? Yes, it is.
Really, it's no way to run a blog.
I'm proud of this blog, but I'm also keenly aware of its limitations. If a good blog is the product of obsession times voice and if the obsession is fruit, then the voice is just ... me.
And I've taken this blog as far as it can go.
Thanks so much for reading.
I put a lot into Fruit Slinger and got a lot back. I hope you got something out of it, too.
If I'm honest, I'm a little scared of writing about something else. Fruit Slinger and I fit so well together. It could take a while before I find a match as good as this one. It might be months. It could be years.
I hope it's not. I bet it won't be.
It's like I said: I just wrote about what happened.
Who knows what will happen next.
blog, highlights
Reader Comments (19)
Have a great winter. I certainly hope you return here for the 2010 season.
Dude, I'm a latecomer to the blog, but I love reading it and looking at your photos. Love fruit, too. Thank you.
This time of year is always so bittersweet. I imagine you need some rest after a busy season, but I miss everything about it -- visiting the markets, reading Fruitslinger. Fingers crossed you'll be back in the spring.
Okay, I'm tearing up a little....
Hearing there will be no more Fruit Slinger is worse than the end of peach season. When you decide where you're going to pop up next, let us know. We want to keep reading your work.
Thanks for ano0ther summer of great posts.
ChgoRed
Congrats on surviving another season of summer fruits.
Now how about finishing off the last 13 posts from the other blog no one reads...
The fruit and food brought me to Fruit Slinger - the perspective made me keep coming back. I will truly miss it. Anxiously awaiting the next season already.
I'm seriously bummed. I feel like saying, "But we just met!" Hopefully your next endeavor involves a blog of some sort as I truly enjoy every darned thing about Fruit Slinger.
Sorry to see you move on. Thanks for the funny slices of life and great recipes. I see those beautiful peach donuts in my sleep.
Seriously - thank you for writing this blog. It has inspired me in a lot of ways:
- to be better at my job (which is about making a better internet)
- to be better at blogging
- to be more aware of the apples I buy. And to take more care with them.
- to be nicer to the farmers I meet at the markets. I realize more, now, that this is their life and that they get up at the ass-crak of dawn just so I can buy apples etc. I could (and should) be nicer to them.
- to have a better voice when I write
- and to enjoy life more. It seems like you do - and that has inspired me to be a little more like Dan.
Now, I have a little request (if I can be so bold to ask it) - I will follow the blog/tweets/facebook but PLEASE let us know when you write another blog, if you do, and how to find it. I really do love you writing about fruit and your interactions at the market and would love to read more about them. But to be honest - I love your voice in your writing more and I would imagine I would enjoy pretty much anything you write about. Please let me know how to find it.
If you never write a blog again - just know - you've made at least one person a little bit happier and a little bit better at what she does. And thank you :]
If it's time, it's time, and I wish you the best for whatever "next" is.
But I am hoping that next June you find you have time for another season.
Either way, thanks. You've harnessed your obsession to some really fine work.
Well I for one will miss all of the stories of fruit. But I'm sure your next subject will be equally engrossing...
wow, i JUST found this blog this afternoon. see, i set off on a googlequest in search of quince paste recipes because i'm tryinggg to figure out a way to recreate an apricot-confection-something i haven't had since i was a kid. ... okay, i guess i'm leaving out all of the logic-chain that indicates possibly useful connections between quince paste and this elusive apricot-confection-something, even though it is of course a completely riveting line of reasoning, because i don't want to take up TOO much of your time here. i try to be polite like that. SO, let's talk about your blog now, alright? totally unexpected completely awesome fruit blog with bona-fide laugh-out-loud moments, occasional recipes, and, and, okay, i don't even know how to describe what-all you do here, but, dude. i read all of 2009 in one sitting. i had to stop myself from going right on to 2008 and 2007, because obviously supplies are limited so maybe i should at least try to, you know, pace myself a bit. which is why i'm taking a little break to comment before going on to 2008. ANYway, okay, here's what i really want to say: write whatever you want, continue the fruit blog next season or write something totally else, whatever, but pleeease if you decide to go with something else, link to it from here, okay? because, whatever you write in the future, i wouldn't want to miss it. and okay yes i am really really into fruit, i admit, but i'm inclined to trust in your 'voice times obsession' formula. i think anything you write about is probably gonna be pretty great reading.
You write the most awesome fruit blog I've ever read.
The fact that I haven't really, you know, found any other fruit blogs worth reading should not diminish that sentiment. You're *really* good, and I think I speak for a lot of the folks who read this blog when I say that somehow you've managed to make even apples seem sexy. I'd hazard to guess that at least 50% of us have little crushes on the Fruit Slinger.
Being the writey type, I know that when a subject is done, it's done. That said, I hope that you're back next season. Your blog is delightful, the photos are beautiful, and I've really enjoyed discovering your work this past year.
See! They like you. They really, really like you.
Told you so ...
Well, if I had known there were 15 people reading, I might have kept it going.
16, you big silly!
Here's something else for you to write about:
http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/daily-bread/2009/11/12/here-comes-long-lasting-apple
Getting... itchy. Hot. Cold. Seeing things.
Fruit Slinger withdrawal sucks!
Goodbye, Fruit Slinger.
Oh stop, you're just done for the season right? not like forever? 3 seasons and you're just touching the surface of fruit blogging!!! You'll never get a book/movie/foodnetwork deal with just 3 seasons!
I hope you're back next year, or back with something yummy sometime soon.
And while you haven't inspired me to be a better person, because of you I promise to never squeeze peaches at the market ever.