It’s not that my passion for writing has died or anything. Quite the contrary, I still write a fair amount for Defending Big D and still have a very active Twitter account.

But I just don’t have that desire to write on this blog which I know may sound strange considering it’s my blog but in reality it’s never felt like a “personal” blog even though once I made the jump to write about the Dallas Stars for SBNation I tried to convince myself StarsScene would be that personal blog where I could talk about any and all sports but it just never really did feel right. Partly due to the fact that say for instance I’d want to talk Twins or Astros baseball.. yet most of my hits were coming from Dallas Stars sites that had me linked as a Dallas Stars blog.

In fact I’d get at least one e-mail a week saying “Less *insert whatever sport I wanted to talk about* and more Stars please!”

StarsScene was created in 2006 with the now defunct MVN.com, became it’s own blog in 2007 and carried on until 2008 completely devoted to the Dallas Stars and one fan’s thoughts about them even if that fan was a good 2000 or so miles away from Dallas. In 2008 Brandon Worley invited me to join SBNation to write for the Stars and it was a no-brainer to jump at the chance.

The problem for me then became “What do I do with StarsScene?” I kind of had an “exclusive” writing deal with SBNation where my work there couldn’t be reprint here (for good reason of course) and I didn’t have that much to say about the Stars enough to fill two blogs. After my move from MVN.com I dabbled a bit in talking about other sports when I saw fit. (MVN wasn’t the biggest fan of me deviating from any topic outside the Stars – understandable, but felt constricting at the same time) So of course.. I’d use StarsScene as my general all-purpose sports blog.

But honestly posting about something like a video game in a blog that used to be strictly about the Stars felt like living in a home alone where my girlfriend used to live with me for years. Sure I could do it, but it just didn’t feel quite right ya know?

Meanwhile I became a fan of blogs like “Not Your Average Chick” and “metricjulie” – two fantastic blogs that cover all sorts of topics (sports and not-so-much-sports) and cover it well and all the while I sat and read thinking “I sure wish I could write about sex toys” “That’s exactly how I want my blog to be” but never felt comfortable doing so because again, this felt like it was supposed to be more a Dallas Stars blog than anything else and even though you fantastic readers knew better, I still couldn’t shake the feeling I was misleading people…

“Come for the Dallas Stars coverage… Stay for stuff that has nothing to do with the Dallas Stars coverage!”

There are other reasons for wanting to make a complete break to a new blog (Wordpress’ and GoDaddy’s ability to frustrate me to no end chief among them.  I wouldn’t recommend against using Wordpress alone as it’s a fine site but I would recommend against ever using GoDaddy and especially recommend against using both together.)  But I won’t bore you with all the details.

So this is the last post I make for StarsScene.  I’ve started a new blog over at http://intermissionblog.blogspot.com/ that I invite you to come over and visit me at.  Of course I’ll talk about the Stars and hockey over there..  but if I want to talk about how much the new Godsmack CD kicks ass or bitch about the BP oil spill (and who isn’t doing that these days?) I feel more free to do it there.

I want to thank all my readers through the last few years – some of you who were friends that knew me before the blog and some who became friends after seeing the blog.  I’ve never really “cared” if my writing was read because just writing it, getting it off my chest and knowing that ONE person my read it with some interest was enough for me… So the fact I’ve had hundreds and thousands of readers over the last 4 years or so means a ton to me.

Goodbye StarsScene.

Art Middleton

http://intermissionblog.blogspot.com/