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Basically this post is just an update on what’s been going on behind the scenes with the blog. Thanks as always to all my followers. Your support is appreciated.

Since the blog’s one year anniversary and having achieved the goal of sticking to a daily post schedule, I’ve been thinking about what the next steps for my blog are. Now you might be wondering why there needs to be a next step and why I can’t just keep doing what I’m doing and that’s a fair enough question to which the only answer I can give is that I can’t sit still.

That isn’t a literal statement, obviously, but it is a defining characteristic of how I have approached everything in my life. Once I start something I keep thinking about how I can do it better, how could I do more, what could I do with that, and the number one killer of my enthusiasm for any hobby is seeing zero growth. Once I realise there’s really no where left to go or that I’m not interested in going any further with it, I start to lose interest.

So the fact that I’m wanting to keep growing the blog, expand the content, connect with other bloggers, and just see what I can actually do is a sign that I’m completely still in love with blogging. This is becoming an all consuming enthusiasm to see what I can do next without compromising what I’ve already achieved (where possible).

However, blogging is a bit different from previous hobbies because basically my successes and failures are on public display and that has made this an interesting learning experience. It isn’t like when I became obsessed with Sudoku or jigsaw puzzles. Pretty much my failures were my own with those. It’s a little bit like being on stage for music or dance, only again, most of your failures occur during rehearsal and seldom get quite the public scrutiny. Not to mention, unless someone’s mum was filming it is unlikely any evidence of the error exists beyond the moment.

Last week I made the move to start a Facebook page (and I sincerely thank everyone who offered advice or suggestions about that process). I still don’t really know long term how that factors into what I’m doing with the blog, but I do know despite only having 29 Followers more people come to my blog via my Facebook page than my Twitter. So clearly the advice that your blog should have a Facebook page makes some sense.

The ongoing project that I’ve been working on as part of my Patreon page is a video blog. This one is killing me just a little because I want to do a decent job but with real life commitments and my current blogging load I make tiny little steps in the few hours once a week I can pay attention to that project. Basically, I have some music a real life friend put together for me for intro and outros in one of the best displays of support for my weird anime fixation I’ve ever had, and I have several attempts at recording the audio.

I say attempts because I made the mistake of asking someone in real life their opinion after I finally didn’t hate the recording (so about go 25 or similar). Why I did that I will never know because they gave me their opinion. Which, is probably better than having it publicly launched online and getting much the same feedback in a barrage of comments. So back to reading the various user manuals and help guides that come with the programs and microphone and playing with settings and lets go again. That was as far as I got before work exploded on me and now I know I won’t be able to do anything more for at least a couple of weeks.

That said though, even though it feels like one step forward and three steps back, and even if I’m not certain I’m actually getting anywhere near where I’d like to be due to time constraints, I’m having a lot of fun. People online and in the real world are supporting me and offering advice, I’m learning new skills and new ways to stuff up on my computer and also learning that sometimes failure isn’t the end of the world (so yes, the recording where the cat decided the microphone was hogging my attention did get deleted but it wasn’t the end of the world and the cat is still in one piece and eyeing off the keyboard as I am typing wondering why it is getting more attention).

There’s also been some chatter between myself and another blogger about doing a small collaboration or something similar next anime season, which would be awesome if either one of can find the time to fit it into our schedules.

Overall, what I feel with this blog is that there are so many more opportunities, so much more to try and to do, and so many more anime lovers out there to meet, so I’m thinking that means the blog still has many, many years ahead of it. And in the meantime, I just need to keep taking small steps where I can and continue to work on getting better at what I do.

Thanks for reading.

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Thanks,

Karandi James.