Cranking it up ... slowly

As most regular visitors know, I’m the guy who edits and publishes the stuff on this site – and the only one. I also write a good part of it, although some material comes from others.
There’s no staff as such. No journalists, no freelancers, no editors, no proofreaders and no photographers hired to do the jobs.
There’s a bunch of volunteer contributors – and a huge thanks to them! Without them this would be a really quiet site, because I still have to work to help fill the bank account from which our private expenses get paid.
The GFF moneybox does have it much better than it used to thanks to a group of generous contributors, who have given and keep giving money to run the site, meaning that I don’t have to pay for that myself, which is really great.

But still, the number of new articles is not where I’d like it to be, and I struggle to find the time to finish the dozens and dozens of pieces that I have started – some several years ago, and some just recently.
Quite a lot of work goes into making a decent article for the site, and planning, researching, writing and illustrating good content requires sufficient time.
Unfortunately that time is mostly occupied by other tasks in my calendar – like paid work.

Working on the site

Martin Joergensen

But ... I’m 65 now, and in about 2 years time I’m able to retire and can start a life as a pensioner.
And I’m really looking forward to that!
I have plenty things than can fill my time without clients and customers breathing down my neck all the time. I’m honestly getting tired of projects and deadlines planned and set by others. I do like my job, but I just wish there was less of it.
Also, the paid work means that I’m unfortunately spending the last bit of my physical abilities ... on nothing really important!

As some of you know I’m chronically ill with MS, and that’s not a kind disease!
MS develops, and even though it develops very slowly in my case, I am getting worse, and the time and energy I could have for things like fishing, often goes to satisfying client’s wishes.

Once I retire I probably won’t be able to fish much even though I may have the time. My body and my energy levels simply don’t honor the demands, and even though I can get all the help I could wish for from my darling wife and my good friends, there’s a limit. When the simple job of putting on waders is a chore and is getting close to impossible, there’s a natural limit to the activity level.
I’m in a wheelchair, but can walk a few steps, but not unsupported and certainly not in rough terrain. So getting down a bank or a beach to get to the water almost requires that somebody carries me. Not fun.

Danish coast

Martin Joergensen

I will get out and I do participate in fishing trips, but my main fishing related activity is and will continue to be maintaining this site. Fingers, important parts of the brain and eyes are still working, and that’s basically what I need to do this job. I can tie flies, I can photograph and I can tap on a keyboard and collect it all to something pretty decent, which can find its way to the site.
So in that way my immediate needs for doing something “fishy” can be fulfilled.

And I have plenty of stuff that I want to make ready for publishing. I have a custom dashboard on the site, which gives me a general overview over the state of things. It contains more than 180 entries of which a good deal are unpublished articles. That’s all stuff that is in a condition ranging from “needs a finishing touch” to “essentially needs to be written from scratch” and quite a few somewhere in between.

So, my plan is to slowly reduce paid work and equally slowly increase my GFF work. I love working on content for the site, and I really, really (like really!) want to do more. I have so many articles underway, and just to wet your appetite, here are a few title from the pipeline:

• To see UV or not to see UV – about UV-materials - a craze, a fad, for real?
• The Frugal Fly-Tyer – about saving material and using scraps when tying.
• Durable flies: Wrapping, dubbing and ribbing – a new chapter in the Durable flies series.
• Durable flies: Tying in materials – ditto.
• Twist and dub! The techniques – about how to dub.
• Twist and dub! The tools – about tools for dubbing.
• How does a fly look when wet? – what do flies really look like underwater?
• New fly tyer, don’t do this! – tips for beginning fly tyers.
• The Italian Style – about the colossally lifelike and still very impressionistic Italian Caddis flies.

There are many more, but these are just the ones that have some meat on the bone already, but need some TL&C to become ready for publishing.

I’m glad the site already contains as much content as it does, and even though visitors are fewer than they used to be, the site still draws a pretty significant traffic – in spite of me not counting anymore. It’s been around for decades, and its clout and reputation is good, which seems to keep people coming. Also its position in the search engines is excellent, which means that quite a few searches lead here.
Keep on coming, and I’ll keep on publishing. Promise!

Frugal flies

Martin Joergensen