I said that I would probably do a retrospective post of the things I did this year. But, lucky for you, reader(s), that probability has become a fact. Without further ado, a look back at a whole year of me in blogging.
January-May: Last days of the old blog
While I have no desire whatsoever to go back to Live Spaces, I’m eternally grateful to it for being home to my first ever blog. It was a very gentle easy introduction to the world of blogging. However, from January 2007 to my final post in June 2008, I only managed to do ten posts. Ten lengthy posts, those were (well, most of them) but, still, ten posts.
I don’t really blame my lack of dedication for such a small amount of posts, but rather the lack of exposure that old blog had. No views, no comments. All to myself, and there would’ve been no difference if the blog had been a private one. After all, no one but me was reading it. While I was (and still am, for the most part) writing this for myself, for the sake of having a journal, I needed a little incentive. Proof that there was something else to it. So, I looked at my choices, and ended up making the right one.
June-July: Meet the (word) press
I had been to this WordPress.com thing many times before, I’m sure. I just didn’t know what it had to offer as a blog hosting service. After looking at its front page, I realized that there was an actual community of people, hobbyists and professionals alike.
Reading the list of features, and looking at all the pretty screenshots, I knew it had everything I was looking for and more. I went to register and … oh! I was already registered. Turns out I’d been having problems commenting on some other WordPress-based site, and I thought registering would solve it (it didn’t work). So, I made use of that pre-existing account and created my blog, using the same title as my old one, picking a theme to my liking and creating a fancy header for it.
In my first two months of posting, I wrote some rather long posts and wrote very often. But, I was holding back a bit on what I wanted to say. I had not yet received comments from anyone I hadn’t met in person, and was a little afraid of it. Wanting to jump into the shark’s mouth a bit more often, I looked, once again, at my choices. I seem to have made the right choice, by the look of things.
August-September: Enter the catalog
Yes. BlogCatalog. It had been years since I had become so involved in a community such as the one I found there. I had been active in the Blender community since late 2001, and that was pretty much it. I’m about to jump ship on that one, though (too crowded, etc.), and I need some other place to hang out. BlogCatalog seems like that place for now.
Shortly after joining that site, I started getting comments from new people, as well as some actual visits. In fact, most people who run across this blog come from there. And some of those have actually visited more than once! Cue the collective gasp.
October-November: Thousands of words
It was at this point that I started feeling more comfortable with posting images and photos in posts. I had posted images, sure, but on a more sporadic basis. Most of my posts were text-only. Now, it’s the opposite case. I enjoy taking/making pictures so much, I’ve made some photo-intensive posts to make the reading much easier (exhibit A, exhibit B) and, perhaps, even pleasant (exhibit C).
December: Leisurely writing
My ongoing vacation started at the end of November, and I looked forward to doing a lot of writing here. I took my time to blog for a good cause, in a post that was originally going to be something else. I managed to get some Blender work done and received some nice comments for it.
I celebrated the holidays, slept a lot, wrote a lot. That’s all I can say about the rest of the month (it’s still in progress, isn’t it?).
What’s next?
What happens now? As my 2nd anniversary of blogging approaches (on the 11th, next month), I can only look forward to becoming a better writer/blogger, to post more of my work here and just … to keep doing what I do, because I love it.
Of course, I’ll need you, reader(s) to keep me motivated and stuff. If I don’t get any indicators that this blog is being read, I might not post as often. I wouldn’t completely stop, but this place would be dead for months between one post and the other. That is only up to you.
Thus ends the retrospective, probably the first of any kind that I’ve written. There might still be a post before the year ends. Goodbye for now.
Apparently, I’ve had a lifelong dream of making movie posters (wait, what?), but I thought it was funny that my entry (that poster I designed) was officially titled “Obi-Wan Kenobi”. I was glad to read that the producers liked the usage of arrows from the logo all throughout the poster. I spent many hours several minutes trying to create a good arrangement and finally got them alternating between pointing left and right. Good enough.
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