Real Neat Blog Award Nomination

Rules for the Award:

• Display the award logo.
• Thank the blogger who nominated you and post a link to their blog.
• Answer the questions of the one who nominated you.
• Nominate 5-10 bloggers.
• Ask them 7 question

Thanks for the nomination, Rossiroad from My Brain Is Completely Empty. I only started following you recently but I’ve dropped by your blog fairly regularly and have always found it interesting. Most recently your month of Evangelion posts really grabbed my interest and definitely made me want to watch Evangelion again, and eventually get serious about actually writing a review of it which is something I have so far avoided doing.

The Questions

01. What is your creative process for writing your blog posts?

Do I have a process? Does closing my eyes and typing really fast count as a process? That’s more or less how I start writing anything because if I think I’ll talk myself out of committing anything into words and basically paralyse myself. So I write. I just type. And then I read the incredible mess of word vomit that has been produced and I figure out what the key points are that I’ve clearly wanted to express, and then I write it again with those in mind. Usually that works. Sometimes I need to walk away and consider how to link ideas, but mostly my posts are pretty short so I don’t really need much of a plan, though they do need a fairly heavy edit before they are comprehensible to people who aren’t me.

Features I will admit usually have a dot point layout before I start but I still begin simply by writing whatever I think of under each point and slowly something takes shape and then I take a breath and write the article I actually think I want. Usually it will get rewritten multiple times before I’m happy enough to schedule it. Even then, I sometimes go back and scrap a post and start again.

02. Who are your main influences as a writer?

Honestly, no one. I’ve read such a huge range at this point and I’ve probably picked up a little bit from all over the place. While I love fantasy fiction and find authors who use sarcasm and irony fairly liberally kind of entertaining, I don’t think I would ever try to use their style because it isn’t me (Pratchett etc). Even in primary school I would start at one end of the library shelf and work my way through the books so I doubt any one style or writer has had all that much sway.

In terms of what I aim for on my blog, I try to keep it conversational as I really am looking for a response from the readers and to talk about anime.

03. If you had an infinite amount of time and money to do one massive blog post series what would you write? Something that you couldn’t possibly hope to do now but could with the time and money.

I’d probably like to delve more into how Japanese culture is reflected, reinforced, challenged and addressed in anime. This would take a lot of research and time to really give even a semi-decent attempt to do in any way that wasn’t just superficial identification of things that happen in Japan, but I’d really enjoy the process of learning more and discovering new things about the anime I really enjoy and the culture that produces it. But yeah, infinite time and money and maybe a squad of research monkeys (real monkeys as they are adorable).

04. What do you think of anime OP’s? Do you listen to them in your spare time? Do you skip them? I want to know your attitude and thoughts on OP’s!

There are some OP’s I love and I have actually got quite a lot of OP’s and a more than a few anime soundtracks that I’ve bought. Sailor Moon in particular features heavily in my phone play list with both the English and Japanese soundtracks being included. That said, there are plenty of OP’s I actively skip when watching anime. I may watch them episode 1, given them a second go episode 2 and then never listen to them again.

05. Why should a person follow your anime blog? I’m interested to see you try and sell yourself!

There’s a reason I’m not actually in sales, despite currently trying to sell an ebook. I think what I’ve tried for with my blog is regular content and covering a range of genres, looking at seasonal and older anime, so hopefully most anime fans can find something on my blog that appeals to them and that they’d like to discuss. I know some of my followers only really check in on the features and top 5 lists whereas others check the seasonal episode reviews and others still prefer the full season reviews.

06. What’s your favourite fake vehicle? Mine is the Nissan Golf!

I don’t think I have one of these.

07. Why did you get into anime blogging or reading anime blogs? If you never got into anime why did you decide to follow someone who only talks about anime? I really want to know!

I want to talk to people about anime, though the longer answer can be found here as I was recently asked this question as part of my ‘inquiring minds’ series of posts.

The Nominations

1. WeekendOtaku
2. Rose
3. Aldael
4. Lethargic Ramblings
5. Mistress of Yaoi

The 7 Questions

1. If you had to sum up your life in a hashtag, what would it be?
2. I’m stealing this question because I liked it: What is your creative process for writing a blog post?
3. Share your favourite screen cap from an anime (or favourite image from a manga). Or, if you can’t pick a favourite, what is one that you’ve really liked recently?
4. If you could take any two characters from different anime and put them together in a story (not necessarily romantically), who would you choose and why?
5. How do people react when you tell them you write a blog about anime?
6. What is your favourite collectable from anime? (Or if you don’t have any, what would you love to have?)
7. When travelling, what are three things you absolutely have to take with you where-ever you go?

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Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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