Irina on 100 Word Anime

Hi guys,

How are you today? I hope you’re good. Happiness is contagious and there’s never enough around.

Today, I would like to have a little chat with you. Just a tiny update on my adventures in 100 Word Anime in case you are curious. First, let me tell you how all of this came about. I would like to clarify that Karandi did not ask me to write on her blog, it was entirely my initiative. I had been following 100 Word Anime for a while and had developed a healthy respect for Karandi as a blogger and reviewer. She had this enviable work ethic and managed to be respectful and mindful in all her writings and commentary. I thought I could learn a lot from her, and I still do.

Moreover, I had collaborated a few times with her and we worked well together. Our approaches to writing posts are alike which makes it easy to coordinate. What was most interesting to me though was that Karandi and I have somewhat similar style and generally aligned ways of thinking but very different tastes, with the exception of certain Yokai seeing young men.

I love comedies and sports! but am not yet grown up enough for most dramas. I will put up with objectively bad writing if it’s intentionally funny or if the technical merits of the anime are there but tend to lack appreciation for raw emotional writing if anything else is even slightly it of step. I’m often baffled by Karandi’s preferences (which I shouldn’t be because they are quite reasonable), as I’m sure she is by mine. But that has never bothered either of us in the least. That’s particularly special. It makes us complementary which is great.

But there’s nothing surprising about anything I’ve written here. I’m sure a lot of people would choose 100 Word Anime to write for if they wanted to write for another blog. The question is why write for another blog in the first place. Originally I wanted to try something new and since advertising is the part of blogging I enjoy least, I figured writing for another blog would be the perfect way to only keep the parts of blogging I like. I also thought it might be a way to cut back on my blogging time before it got too much… Let me tell you how that worked out.

I must say, as far as point 1 went, it’s been a smashing success. Karandi is a dream to work for. She is a distinctly unobstructive and hands-off editor. I’m essentially free to write whatever I want. I chose the posts which I think will work well on this site and so far Karandi hasn’t turned down a single submission. I format them myself and chose the images so I have full control over the look of my posts. I try to be careful not to clog up Karandi’s media library too much with my unhealthy love of pictures but she never even mentioned it. Really the only aspect that is not 100% up to me is scheduling but Karandi always runs it by me (even though she doesn’t have to).

Basically posting here is just like posting on my blog but easier. I can just complete my draft and forget about it. Karandi once mentioned she doesn’t see what I get out of it so let me try to explain even though we work very individually, I still feel like I’m part of a team in a way I hadn’t before through blogging. Karandi makes sure my posts are advertised through her usual channels and she even helps me answer comments sometimes. I don’t have to worry about any of that which takes a lot of the pressure off.

And it’s great for my moral. When a post I’ve written seems to do well on 100 Word Anime I’m just as happy as if it was on my own blog, but when it generates much less interest than I would have thought, I’m not disappointed. Since at least Karandi liked it enough to publish on her blog (a blog she cares about a lot so that’s a huge compliment) in my mind, the post is already a success. Anything else is icing. It’s allowed me to have a more relaxed attitude towards blogging which makes the experience more fun!

So why do I still have I Drink and Watch Anime? And publish there so often at that? I have thought of porting my archives and followers here and just becoming a 10 0word anime contributor full time. I may still do that in the future. There are really Only 2 things holding me back really. One is my specific readers. For the most part, Karandi and I tend to share the same WordPress reader base and commentators. However, when you look at the “silent majority” we do tend to differ a bit. Our referrers are not the same and our keywords searches are very different.

Karandi obviously knows how to SEO and she gets searches usually on episodes or animes she has reviewed. On the other hand, I get a ton of super random almost incomprehensible searches, inquiries on specific little known characters, specific elements in series no one cares about anymore. It’s fascinating and for some reason, I feel a great kinship towards my offbeat readers, those that Google stuff like “let me do this”, and I would miss them if they weren’t around.

The other reason is that I’m superficial. I like messing with the way my blog looks. I like adjusting the layout and finding new headers. I like trying on new themes for hours just to not change anything. And in case you didn’t notice, I like having a zillion pics. I’m lazy so I just have a boring premade overpriced WordPress.com plan, instead of a fancy schmancy .org or other self-programmed one because I don’t want to learn how to code. (I should). I do however have the highest tier plan which gives me access to plugins, alternate themes and unlimited media. I don’t want to lose those perks. (cause I have screencap issues)

These two minor considerations are really the only things keeping tied to my blog right now. But they’re important to me, so I’m pulling double duty. If it wasn’t for my own stubbornness I would have switched over to Karandi’s blog completely and be taking it nice and easy right now!

I’m not sure if any of you wanted to know about this stuff but I love reading behind the scenes posts. I hope some of you thought it was a fun read!

Contributed by Irina
from I Drink And Watch Anime!