12 Months of Blogging!

I can’t believe that it’s been 12 months since I started this blog. I decided to start writing after I had the suggestion of a friend that it would be an activity that would be fun, boost my writing skills, and work on self-expression. I wasn’t really sure how long I’d be writing for and if I’d take to the activity, but after a year, I’m still here!

2017 has been a bit of a difficult year personally, with my undiagnosed chronic illness making it hard to even take care of some simple things. This has meant that it’s been hard for me to keep up with my original posting goals from when I was feeling (somewhat) more healthy, but I’ve still managed to keep up with some writing. I don’t have any specific schedule goals for the present because of this, but I am hopeful that things may improve for me personally, and also that I’ll be capable of writing more.

While I recognise that I still have lots of room for improvement when it comes to my writing style (I know that I’m still awkwardly formal), I think that I can both see personal improvement in my writing, and also recognise my growth in other areas. By interacting with the blogging community, I’ve learnt a lot about what makes an entertaining post, broadened my anime-watching horizons by looking at shows which others covered which I would not have normally looked at, learnt about some of the technical craft behind how an anime gets made instead of just looking at the stories told, and also made some fantastic friends. I never expected reading posts and engaging with others on Twitter to be quite this fun.

Here are a few of my favourite posts from my first year of blogging

Sekkou Boys Review – I managed to have an excuse to fill this post with puns. While it’s not an amazing show, it was a very fun piece to write and I’m quite happy with it.

Love and Loss in One Room – This is a joke post covering the ‘first-person’ anime, One Room for April Fool’s day. I both think that I did a good job of creating a hypothesis with visual analysis, and also somehow managed to get someone to watch an episode of One Room. (I don’t suggest anyone actually watches One Room – you don’t need to repeat my mistakes)

Anime Tracking Site Comparison – Honestly, I feel far more comfortable writing factual/resource posts than opinion posts, and I’m really happy with being able to put together some information which I hope would be useful to others.

I Like Shorts – A post talking about some of the reasons I really enjoy short form anime.

I’d love to thank all the people who read and interact with my posts! While I started writing for me, it’s very encouraging receiving views, likes, and comments, and I can’t believe that I’ve reached 166 WordPress followers (plus a number of other people who I know read my blog either just through Twitter or through cryptic Bing searches such as “rice plain paster” and “agatha rice series”). A very special thanks to my wonderful husband and proof-reader, nth_sheep, who saves many embarrassing spelling and grammatical errors from being posted, and stops my run-on sentences before they start fleeing the country.

I’m not sure if I have any specific plans for the future, other than wanting to keep writing mostly about anime, and maybe occasionally about other things related to media/culture. I’m still definitely planning to focus on my areas of interest in anime, like clothing design, anime shorts, puns, and food. Thanks for being with me on this journey!