Happy Blogiversary, Baka-Laureate!

*sip*

Today, Baka Laureate celebrates a year of anime blogging, as well as other random crap that I like to pass off as anime-related. It’s been quite a ride, and for the past 365 days, I’ve written about a number of topics, ranging from currently airing anime to fanfiction to light novels and even NaNoWriMo. I can’t say that I’m not surprised at this particular development, because to be fair, one year of blogging doesn’t feel like much to me at this point in my life.

If you didn’t know yet, I’ve been blogging in general for at least three and a half years now. I carried over my writing to Anime topics from my old blog, Frost is the New Black, which talked about World of Warcraft. I learned a lot of things from covering both interests, and I’ll admit that there’s definitely a big difference between both experiences, each of them being special in their own way.

While anime is just as much a hobby as World of Warcraft was (perhaps even moreso), what it provided me was a basis for understanding the world of fiction. Writing has been a craft that came much later in my life compared to the two activities that I have mentioned already. This blog has served as a valuable learning experience with regards to finding out what makes stories tick, perhaps moreso than any 15-dollar writing reference book bought from Indigo. And believe me, I’ve bought many a writing book.

This month, I engage in NaNoWriMo, a very tough, yet rewarding challenge that tests my ability to simply persist with a constant (albeit somewhat intense) writing schedule. In a way, blogging is the same way, especially when it comes to keeping a somewhat consistent schedule, even if it means only posting once a week. I know that I’ve had my off-months ever since this blog started (particularly the first month, when I did NaNoWriMo on top of it), but rounding out the annual lap, I feel stabilized in my little niche, not only in the aniblogosphere but in my writing life as well.

I would like to thank all my readers for taking a gander at what I have to say. Even if you mostly lurk and won’t ever show your face, that’s completely fine. I can see it in the numbers that there are people who do read on a regular basis, not just stumbling onto this site from google, looking for a Madoka review. While I admit that I would still be blogging even if I didn’t get any visitors, it’s because of you guys that I go the extra mile to make sure that I don’t half-ass my way through my posts put some semblance of effort into writing halfway readable posts.

Thanks to everyone who took time in their busy lives to comment on the blog as well. Whether you’ve only left a single comment, or several, I love reading what you have to say about the things that I am interested in. I appreciate the effort that it takes to provide feedback, and as customary of any proper blogger, I swear to continue putting a full effort to responding to each one of them. Baka Laureate is primarily an outlet for my thoughts, but I love engaging in open conversation with people who receive them.

No thanks to Yamakan. Fuck you, you screwed up my first wholehearted attempt at episodic blogging.

Thanks to the wonderful people on twitter, who put up with my ramblings and foul language.

And thanks to this wonderful scone from Starbucks. With this in hand, sitting down at 9am in the morning writing for a blog makes me feel as hipster as one could possibly be. And then i realize I’m blogging about animu, so it’s even better. Here’s to another year of crap, glorious, glorious crap.