I have always approached life with the idea that I know next to nothing. You see, for me that makes things way more fun. I get to occasionally screw up and not beat myself up about it too bad and when I succeed then it’s a real achievement and I get to celebrate, no matter how small that success may be. Not to mention that assuming you know very little about any given subject is the best way to learn a lot about that subject! People that go into every situation thinking they know everything, usually don’t get much out of it.
At least, that’s my opinion.
All of this being said, I know next to nothing about blogging about anime! So let me tell you all about it!
I still have a lot to learn on the fine art of blogging, or writing in general and my anime knowledge is spotty. I often learn about productions or anime standards from readers and I have given up on being as talented as some of my fellow bloggers as far as the pure art of writing goes. There are some exceptionally skilled writers in our midst. Don’t even get me started about SEO. Because I don’t know the first thing about it, so I can’t start.
But even with all that said, I was way worse when I started. I hardly knew half the weird anime words fans use and I was convinced I would be laughed off the platform as the uneducated noob I was. To this day, I haven’t watched some of the most popular an ubiquitous titles although that list is getting a little shorter. As for blogging, I just goggled wordpress and followed the steps to set up a blog. That was the extent of my research and knowledge on the subject.
I don’t know how much better I have gotten at the actual blogging part of blogging. I mean, I have much less time to devote to my blog now so my writing has suffered a lot from it. I did pick up a lot of general information about anime however so I would now say I’ve gone from noob to novice, even like a senior novice. Not quite an aficionado, but definitely an enthusiast! So that’s a fair trade off I guess.
And posting every day has definitely taught me one thing. It is absolutely possible to write a blog without being an expert of the topic or being that talented an author. I have managed it by following one simple trick. Naming my blog.
I don’t mean my blog name I Drink and Watch Anime, I mean that I give the back end of my blog a name, one that changes all the time. Like Garry or Jen or something. When I sit down to write, I pretend that I’m texting a friend or more precisely that I’m talking to them.
Sometimes, I was just generally thinking about anime and it made me fall down some sort of rabbit hole that I want to share with them. Other times a particular theme or topic hit home and I want to talk about it in specific terms and get all my beliefs and feelings out. Other times I just watched a great series and I want to convince them to watch it. But it’s a tiny low stakes type of post. A friendly conversation.
If I were to set out to write a thesis that would analyze the importance of representation in anime for instance, well I would probably never get that post done. I want to read it and I do have a lot of thoughts on the subject but it’s just too large a scale for me. It would be a long winded project and I would need to really educate myself a lot more on the subject before I could write anything of value. But if I’m just telling my friend Sam about this one show I watched that had a lot of representation and how I liked it and why I think representation is important, well then it’s a completely different story.
That’s just a little bit of banter. It’s not some huge essay or statement. I’m not writing it from a position of authority. And I understand that I could be wrong. It’s really just the barest foundations of what could become a thesis on the subject. The spark of inspiration but not the 99% perspiration that the real thing requires.
I know all of this sounds a little lame and pretty obvious. Write from an authentic voice for a personal audience and don’t get tripped up by overambitious projects. It’s probably the first thing anyone learns when they stat blogging and I bet a lot of people who have never had a blog also know it. But it seems to be something that can be forgotten really easily.
I see bloggers get hung up on trying to craft a perfect posy. On finding the best thing to write about or the most popular so that they can get a million views! I see people get down on themselves because they don’t know how to approach a subject to do it justice or to not offend anyone or just to really give out all the pertinent information. Don’t get me wrong, those are all admirable goals and there are a lot of bloggers that succeed at it. But I wouldn’t.
I don’t have the time, resources or motivation for that sort of thing. I have had some more ambitious post planned out, they’ve been sitting in my drafts folder for years! For me, not knowing everything about anime and not having any professional writing aspiration has been a blessing and probably one of the strongest factors in keeping this blog going for the time that it has.
Do you have any tricks you want to share? I bet it would help a lot of people! Or at lest me…
How do you add pictures? I wanna add Hamster Pics
This post took all my attention 😊 I am new to this thing and find it quite challenging, sometimes I get demotivated. But I guess everything needs time and all I can do is have patience and work hard to achieve what I desire. 😊
It can take a while to find your voice and a pacing that works for you. I’m sure you’ll get there
This is absolutely brilliant from the first paragraph to the last word. This article should be required reading for anyone who wants to blog or write in general. It’s a perfect starting point. Speaking of a writer who had the blessing of being a pro for a little while and who then got blindsided and gobsmacked and stuff, giving me death by burnout – I have to say that what got me blogging again, and therefore writing at least a little bit, was the community here. The desire to talk to my friends about games, anime, and so on and doing so on my blog. Doing it this way has been so much more rewarding, truthfully, than blogging for money ever was. Don’t blog for money, kids, blog for the fun of it, for the community of it, and the money (if you still want it) will come. Meanwhile, I feel like you will probably be making a far more meaningful contribution to the universe than if you were following all those blogging for money rules, do this, do that, don’t do the other, write a catchy title, SEO, blah blah blah.
That’s the key to doing anything long-term, IMO. Always perceive it as a hobby above all else. Writing lost a lot of its spark for me once I started trying to be better than everyone else. I’m still trying to teach myself how to have fun writing again, as it hasn’t completely come back to me yet. That was a bit of a devil’s bargain I took: I’m a good writer, but unless what I write is *perfect*, it brings me little-to-no satisfaction. And, as they say, nobody’s perfect. So yeah, keep doing what you’re doing– it definitely works better than my strategy.
As someone who is not a good writer and perfectly ok with that but a really good reader, that makes me sad. I have had books move me to tears, I have had articles haunt me and stay with me for weeks. The written word has shaped so much of who I am. Strangers and ghosts have helped me figure out myself, the world and everything really. So it’s always a big loss in my mind when a good writer stops themselves from writing for whatever reason. I know that a lot of pieces that mean more to me than I can properly express, weren’t really liked by their authors.
I’m glad to hear that. Really. This will sound remarkably stupid, but I too often forget how much people actually enjoy stories– that there still ARE people who are moved to tears by literature; inspired, haunted, amazed– all the things I aim to do with my stories. The irony being that I was so caught up in trying to achieve those things that I forgot why I was doing it in the first place. Now that I read it to myself… that *is* pretty sad, isn’t it? I’ve been very cynical for a very long time, and old habits die hard.
At any rate, you’ve given me a bit of an epiphany, so for that, thank you. If I do ever manage to get one of my stories finished and released into the world, I hope you’ll have the opportunity to read it– it’s readers like you whose opinions I truly value.
Oh I dearly hope so as well!
I still haven’t succeeded at my original goal of talking of “anime that sits in dust” aka undiscovered gems.
I have all the talking to do and I don’t know what. SEO is either sound of it makes my head hurt 😂😂
aaaaawww – But I want to read about undiscovered gems!!!
Oh ho ho don’t fear I have plenty to come on that note 😆
holding my breath!
You sound very desperate lol
it’s a cultivated persona
Unknown is always on my brain 😎
As a person who thinks he knows a lot about anime and writing, I really admire your tenacity and discipline to be able to post every day, on a regular schedule, a feat a person like me is sorely incapable of doing.
It’s a bit like exercising I assume.
I think to keep going for such a long time, bloggers really do need some sort of state of mind or angle to approach their material or else they kind of burn out. Like, you want to write about anime. Are you writing to just write or is there a reason why you want to write. That difference can mean a lot. You writing to learn and talk to people makes sense in that regard and I’m sure that have keep you going for a long time. 😁. I hope it does at least.
I guess I’m doing that “this cool series exists and let me tell you and it” for my major posts myself and me attempting to put excitement into those posts which is hard to do in written form? I’ll figure that out eventually…
That’s not true you have figured it out. To the point that whenever I see any even slightly mecha series my first and immediate thought is – I wonder if Scott has seen this…of course Scott has seen this, what am I thinking. I wonder if he liked it. I should watch a mecha with Scott…
OOOOOOH. I guess all of that is true.
Aww, you do? 😳
I really do
We may need to find something to at least take about together
One big lesson that I learned was basically go at whatever pace was comfortable for you and what your time would allow. Before my blogging break, I would try to hit different goals for numbers for number of posts and in some cases it made me want to write less. For those who can write daily, I applaud them but I would tell people that it is not for everyone. I also would say just write about whatever you want versus whatever is popular. And don’t be afraid to abandon ideas that didn’t work. To sum up, flexibility is key to blogging.
My most important tip is to do it for yourself. I write my blog because I want to meet new people and because I want to write about a certain subject. That intention is good enough of a reason to do it. The fact other people might enjoy it too is a side effect.
My Isekai story part 2 preformed so badly but I had a lot of fun making it, my new blog tag failed hard but it gave me some great chuckles. I’ve played games I would not have played without the blog, saw anime i never knew about, and it’s fun.
Wether I get big likes, or people liking posts without reading them or no liked at all, it doesnt matter because I had fun, my skill and knowledge about a topic have almost nothing to do with the ability to enjoy so I dont find them relevant.
That’s a very good attitude
This was a very good post! I often feel small when I read blog posts with big topics and lengthy, well written essays. I mean I’m not a prodigy at writing and I know next to nothing about stuff (I have to educate myself a lot too). So when I read those kind of posts I often feel conflicted about my contents.
But it’s nice to know your way of doing things. I think treating the blog like a friend is a great way to get you going with both writing and blogging.
It has helped me sort of keep a consistent blogging voice and not loose track of myself too much
That’s great! Thank you for writing this post and sharing with us your thoughts on this matter. (Personally, I think you’re a good writer and I aspire to be as articulate as you in voicing things out.)
You are way too kind and I appreciate it
I don’t even know what SEO is? Stamped edrassed onvelepe? Sentral Executive Officer? Something Else Or…?
Ooh, I’m anonymous again. This time I’m pretty sure I forgot to fill in the form. Seriously, in all nonformal, non-styleguide-bound writing it’s best to sound like yourself. That’s the voice no-one else can do as well as you.
I’m pretty sure it’s that last one.
I think the biggest thing that has helped me (and I still consider myself pretty average as a blogger pretty much across the board lol) was having a calendar. I don’t create one with any strict and rigid expectations, but it does help me craft the roughest of ideas of when to post things, and provides me with a visual platform for planning some things out to a certain extent. For example, I can mark when simulcast seasons begin or end, or when I have job or uni deadlines and how much time i’ll have to watch or read a certain anime/manga so I can talk about them. It also helps me keep track of seasons, literally, so if I’m a moody consumer of media, I can create a watchlist or reading list for it respectively too. Beyond that, because I am a person who picks up media based on my feelings and mood in the moment, I sort of just go with the flow. I don’t kick myself too hard if I can’t update regularly, or if my tastes change as I try to figure out writing and blogging voices, which I feel is bound to happen to certain degrees. Dunno if this will help anybody, but that’s my two cents lol.
My calendar isn’t as detailed, AniTrends takes care of letting me know when new anime are airing but I usually watch mostly already aired shows. And my work schedule is somewhat rooted in that I start at the same hour every day and then just work forever but I do stick to a writing and posting schedule which has been very helpful to me.