You might say that the design of my blog looks a little different now than it did yesterday. There’s nothing wrong with your eyesight, for I did just that. I figured that after blogging for nearly a year, it would be wise to give my blog a little makeover.
This weekend, more specifically tomorrow, will mark one year since I launched Lola By The Bay, and I cannot help but gawk over how quickly time has passed. Already I’ve come to conclusion that as you get older, time just goes by a whole lot faster than when you were younger, and I believe that when maintaining a blog that you write in on a weekly basis- and then some- a routine like that seems to move time along even faster. It may have been a rather odd time to launch a blog right at the end of a year, but it actually works in my favor. With the fact that this is also the last weekend for 2014, I can also do my first year in review.
In the beginning, I had been hesitant prior to launching the blog about doing one at all, not only because I was hesitant about putting myself in such a vulnerable position (keeping a blog for the world to see) but I also wasn’t sure what I would write about on a weekly basis. And that sums up what is now my very first blog post on here.
During the first three months of 2014, I found myself struggling along with topics that I found would be relevant enough to blog about; whether that be related to the topic of writing somehow or if it was regarding a theme that would show up in A Moment’s Worth. While my intentions and ideas were good, I think how I executed them and went up them could have been a lot stronger. For that matter, that is why I don’t consider many of my posts from the first three months to be my best. Though I have to say that I think that doing a monthly countdown status report– starting in March- that led up to the publication of A Moment’s Worth was a nice addition, and that post I did at the end of that month about what to work on for my blog in the future to come was wise to write too.
By April, I felt that my posts started to really improve, in terms of topics that I was choosing and how I was writing them. My media studies skills even started coming in handy as I would talk about how certain demographics were being portrayed in various storytelling mediums. There were two deaths of two major authors that happened in the spring- Gabriel Garcia Marquez in April and Maya Angelou in May- and I liked that I wrote about them. May was also a time where I got to see what it was like to write about and promote the published content I was putting out there, for I released my Amazon-exclusive short story, “The Shadows,” that month.
June was a big month for many reasons. I walked at my college commencement ceremony (even though I didn’t officially finish college until a few weeks ago) and I also started revealing details regarding A Moment’s Worth, including its title and the premise for it. This was also the month where I started publishing interviews on my blog with creative friends of mine, and as far as bumping up the stats go, that first one I did with loudlysilent definitely did just that.
July was just as busy as June with the release of A Moment’s Worth. There were several blog posts I did prior to the release, not only to prepare people, but to prepare myself. Afterwards, it was all about rehashing on people’s reactions to it and the struggle with promoting it. But overall though, the tone was real in terms of the disbelief that I had, at long last, published a book; a goal of mine to accomplish since the very beginning. And the work paid off well when in August, The Best Slice of Pie conducted a review on it.
Also in August, while I still continued posts regarding A Moment’s Worth, I also started re-directing towards topics regarding storytelling and writing, such as about today’s lack of recreational reading. However, with my credibility as a published author now, there’s always that tone such posts took that I can relate back to in my short period of such status so far. In October, I redirected my attention back to A Moment’s Worth for my short blog series “Behind the Moments;” where in each post, I would talk about details regarding the making of my debut novel.
In November, I returned back to such topical writings I was doing prior to October, and this included touching on such subjects as they went along; such as offering my thoughts about NaNoWriMo on the first day of it and my thoughts about overdoing screen adaptations these days, two weeks prior to the release of Part 1 of the adaptation of Mockingjay. Such posts would be intermixed with posts regarding the continual aftermath of my debut novel’s release, and this even included the irony of sitting in a lecture hall, will nearly no one in the room knowing that there’s a published author sitting amongst them.
Finally, we come right back to December, where I continue my posts regarding storytelling, writing, and life as a rather young published author. I have since officially finished college and am now redirecting my attention to my future as an author. Already I started writing my second novel three days ago, so that’s a very good start.
I plan to keep this up in 2015; blogging every Saturday- and then some- that is. However, I would love some feedback from anyone who is an active reader or follower. What do you want to see more of? What do you want to see less of? Should I try doing an occasional list-structured blog post like what Buzzfeed does regularly? Should I try doing any of the blog challenges out there (such as one of the many 30-day ones for instance)? Already I have an interview planned to go online next Saturday, so there’s that to look forward to. There’s a reason why there’s a comment section so hit me up in them with suggestions if you have any.
Overall, I’ve considered it to be a good first year as a blogger. I’ve pumped out a good number of posts (75 as of this one) and I’ve obtained over 120 followers. So to anyone who has been reading and/or following, thank you so much! There’s more to come in 2015!
A Moment’s Worth is now available through the following venues: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, iTunes. Please leave a review if you can, for my goal is to get a total of at least 20 reviews on all venues (so far, I’ve gotten 5 reviews so I’m already a quarter of a way to my goal).
Check out its Goodreads page, which includes two trivia quizzes for all who’ve completed reading it already.
Lola By The Bay 