2 Years of Blogging!

~ rossiroad

Hey today marks my blogs 2nd anniversary which means I’ve been blogging for a very long time! It’s been a really great journey and I want to thank everyone for sticking with me for it!

So I’ve talked about a lot of things I would talk about here in my 250 followers and stat showcase posts so since it’s so close to the end of the year I thought I’d talk about a post I wrote roughly a year ago called “1 year of anime blogging + what’s going on in 2018?” where I set myself some goals for the blog. So I’m basically going to see if I’ve followed these targets!

2 years of blogging

  • More accessible posts ā€“ Not everyone has the same experience with anime as me and I should write posts explaining things I already take for granted and write things to get people into anime such as more recommendation posts.

I definitely did more recommendation posts, but they were in the ADB format so I don’t know for sure. I certainty did blog a lot about Kaiji, Fukumoto and the gambling thriller genre which is very specific though.

So I think I did this but still kept up with my specific posts. You sort of have to write about what you’re interested in and if nobody cares about that subject material well, then fuck em. But my most popular posts this year were ones that were deliberately accessible so that’s good.

It’s hard to write about stuff just because it’s popular, you have to find that middle ground where you actually have something to say, to an audience that is pretty big.

  • Make the database of anime project happen!

Yes this was done completely! The problem with the ADB is that every time I finish a show it’s like the project becomes uncompleted again since there are more shows to add. So I think I’ll leave the project there for a while until I have a considerable amount of shows to add to it. Thankfully with my “what I watched” series I can still know which shows have been added and which ones haven’t so I don’t have to worry about sorting through my MAL list too much.

In terms of the success of the project, it wasn’t very. I would still tell myself to go ahead with it though because it was nice to have 2 posts a day coming out for a very long time.

  • Write more posts to do with the anime industry as well as shows

No not really, in fact I probably wrote less posts about the industry. Despite this I have been more interested than ever. Recently I’ve been reading everything by Fukumoto, watching everything by Ghibli and visiting more films and directors than ever. So basically once I’ve finished looking at those guys I might actually have more posts about the industry to write about!

  • Involve myself more with the community and maybe branch out to social media to extend my reach ā€“ Iā€™m finding that pretty difficult right now.

This happened and didn’t happen. For a large portion of the year I was very engaged with the community however I’ve been dropping off lately due to work and stuff. I do however have a twitter now and it’s fun talking to all of you on there!

I got 132 views this year through twitter so I guess my reach has indeed been extended.

Oh yeah and I linked Tumblr too, I’ve been posting to there for ages without realizing! I don’t think I’ve got a single view from there though so it’s been basically useless.

  • Continue to improve my writing and make more detailed and researched posts like the Sakamoto one.

I’d like to hope that my writing’s improved but who am I to say – I’ve not really read any of the posts I’ve written and compared them. I have made more detailed research posts much like the Sakamoto one. This included the end of evangelion review and a silent voice review, and more such as “do you know all the dere’s?” and “obscure anime genres” these are hard to find time for when you care about other things more so I’m happy with just this small amount off the top of my head.

Alright now that that’s over with I’ll go into my goals for next year as an anime blogger.

  1. Still be blogging consistently one year from now.
  2. Have a catalogue of top 10 recommendation style of posts to get more people into anime.
  3. Release all of “The Broken Tournament” and self-publish it.
  4. Release “The Stone of the Conqueror”
  5. Finish writing “The Monks of Meres”
  6. Write the Barefoot Gen post the film deserves!
  7. Write more posts about the industry.
  8. More high effort posts and research projects.

I think that’s enough! It’s been a really great 2018 and I hope to see you a lot in 2019!

Published by rossiroad

24 thoughts on “2 Years of Blogging!”

  6. Congratulations, all impressive acheivements (that database was quite a big project!). I hope you get some more time to get back in the community in 2019 as well.

    Happy blogaversary to you

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    1. Thank you! Yeah that was a huge undertaking to do but it was worthwhile imo.

      Thanks a lot, lately I’ve been hit with a sad and depressing Christmas cold that has put me in a rut but I should be able to engage more with it soon! Right now even, it’s a lot easier so far because a lot of the blogs I used to follow are blogging a lot less and I’ve not found any new people to fill in the gap!

      Thank you! This means a lot!

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  7. Happy blogiversary! I look forward to more on The Broken Tournament. If you need any editing help, I am happy to offer that! (I’ve been looking into editing as a career option these days)

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    1. Thanks a lot that’s actually such a nice thing! Thank you so much for offering!

      Truth be told having you edit it might be difficult for three reasons. The first is that at the end of the most recent Broken Tournament chapter Rick and Maron started dating (which means they start having sex a lot) and probably both of us would find it weird if you started editing that one.

      Then I also passed the completed first draft to my Gran who used to be an English teacher so I need to amend her edits which means having a second person look at it would make the edits contradict.

      And the average chapter length of The Monks of Meres is like 5,000 words and I’d feel bad giving you so much work!

      So those are the options. I’m glad that your looking into editing as a career option, I considered trying to do that before computer science, though it was a video editor and not a book editor but still. I get how it can be fun and interesting to do!

      If you want to edit a broken tournament chapter then I’m more than happy to give on to you (I won’t give you any explicit ones of which there are 1 or maybe 2) and that’s true for the monks of meres too. But if you also want to work on the stone of the conqueror (the book is only 7,600 words in length) that’s fine too, it shouldn’t take me very long to amend the edits since theirs not a large amount of them and it’s very short.
      Or you can do none of them – that’s fine too, definitely don’t want to pressure you into anything!

      So if any of that interests you let me know! Thank you so much again for the offer, it’s such a nice thing to offer someone!

      Also if you want to wait until tomorrow I have a post coming out talking about all the books and giving them more of a premise. So right now you probably don’t know what the monks of meres is for example!

      This is a lot to take in so feel free to think about it – no pressure whatsoever. I’ve only written 3 chapters of TMOM so far so I’ve got plenty of work to occupy myself with!

      Also if you’re considering this as a career option it has the added benefit that if you edit one chapter and decide you hate it then you know what career path not to go down! I just thought of that right as I was about to send this, so yeah it’s good for that too.

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      1. First of all, I’m a soon-graduating English lit major, and I’ve read a fair share of bizarre sex scenes (e.g. play where people have a blindfolded threesome on stage), so it hardly bothers me, haha. I’m happy reading whatever you’re willing to share though! Also, don’t feel compelled to, because first drafts can feel like a very private thing.

        A chapter is fine, and more than that is okay too, if you don’t mind edits taking a bit longer. I quite enjoy editing things, but I’ve only done short stories, magazine articles, and essays so far (in unprofessional or semi-professional contexts), and I’m always looking to expand. And I do find your novel super interesting!

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        1. Oh no I never thought that it would bother you, just that it might be strange if I were the one to write it. For example I’d find reading blindfolded threesomes fine but if the guy who wrote it was my friend I’d find it weird because I just wouldn’t be able to get the thought that this was his idea out of my mind.

          As it’s taking me years to getting around to the rest of the broken tournament I might just send you chapter 22 which is still unreleased if that’s ok with you. It might motivate me to finally getting around to finishing it!

          I’ll send it via contact!

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        2. Oh wait never-mind, just checked over chapter 22 before sending it and it’s one of the two I didn’t want to send because of how cringy I find it. Are you ok with me editing chapter 22 and sending you chapter 23? Thanks!

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