I wanted to stick with the gerund/Tampa title structure, but everything I considered was too narrow. Reading Tampa? But, what if I want to write about movies or television? Screening Tampa? But, what if I do some interviews? Meeting Tampa? But, what if…?
I finally settled on Recreating Tampa. At the time I was immersed in speculative urban design and wanted to write about ways Tampa could be improved. The term also lent itself to writing about fun stuff, i.e. recreation. And so, the slash was introduced – Re/Creating Tampa. It also gave the title a unique element I could use for brand distinction.
Writing Re/Creating Tampa was awesome fun. I met lots of great people in the community, I had a city council member comment once, I was interviewed at WMNF, and I even got a (self-published) book out of it.
I launched Re/Creating Tampa in 2008 and shuttered it in 2012. In 2008 I was still a grad student (and then an under-employed graduate), but by 2012 I was working as a full-time professional and didn’t have the time to keep up a blog. Especially not one as far-reaching as R/CT.
Plus, it was clear it wasn’t going to generate any income. I promoted the book for months and ended up selling a single electronic copy. Ouch. (Here’s what R/CT looked like circa November 2011.)
The original iteration was conceived as a free, urban weekly, but online. It had sections (Greening Tampa, Screening Tampa, Reading Tampa, Eating Tampa), it linked out to as many Tampa blogs I could find, all of them neatly categorized. And, it had ads (which never generated any income).
I was sad to see it go, and tried to narrow the focus to just being a blog about books (Reading Tampa), but I didn’t have time to keep it up. It was time to move on. By 2012 my blogging days were effectively over.
NEXT: Abderitic Review