A Year IN Review (2021 Edition)

Within about a week, 2021 will be behind us and 2022 will warmly greet us. 

The thought of time passing so quickly is crazy, isn’t it? 

Gif made by magicalgirlenjoyer @ Tumblr

For me, so much yet so little has happened this year (on and off the Internet)that it all feels like a complete blur. To celebrate what was and look forward to the next year, this week’s post will be the first ever really short “A Year In Review” post on my blog.

I confess, this post won’t be as interesting as the others I’ve written since it’s an introspective look at my work this past year rather than talking about an anime, a manga/webtoon, a mobile video game, a creative challenge or a rambling post of anecdotes related to media. 

At the beginning of the 2021 chapter for this blog, I created small goals to accomplish, namely: 

• Follow a consistent schedule (to the best of my ability) 
• Do more for the “scribbles” part of my blog’s name 
• Be creative
• Increase my subscribers on my blog (and my social medias)

What Worked Out (A.K.A My Successes) 

Even though posting consistently on a blog is a major challenge, I did a decent job of slapping together a review at least once every month. Looking back in my archive and seeing my blogging journey thus far, I noticed that there were gaps where I went MIA but I would eventually return to create posts. 

Gif made by rainbowravioli @ Tumblr

It’s a small win but it’s still a win that I’m proud of nonetheless.  

2021 marked the year where effort was placed in drawing in my anime chibi style to go along with my posts. I lost steam half-way through because I realized time wasn’t my friend. Planning what to draw and executing those ideas took a lot of energy and focus, especially when I don’t draw as much as I used to.

I enjoyed what the drawings and random comics did for my blog because they were fun to create and made the process of updating every week interesting and new. It helped me escape the dreadful thought that my blog writing was a chore.

I’m someone who doesn’t look at numbers and statistics, but I was determined to increase my readership and it worked out. I broke 100 subscribers on my blog and I’m super happy that there are people out on the Internet who think my writing is entertaining enough to follow.

What Didn’t Exactly Work Out (A.K.A My One Challenge) 

Being creative was the worst possible goal to set for myself because it’s so broad. At the time, I wasn’t sure how I defined what “being creative” meant and naively thought, “Yeah, the answer will come to me. I won’t worry about it now. ”

(Sure, past! Emiko, throw the problem to future! Emiko, now how did that turn out?)

Gif made by Gigglincactus @ Tumblr

Reflecting on it now, being creative was simply experimenting with my blog posts – perhaps, expanding to other topics related to fandom for opinion pieces like fanfiction and its history, or trying out new genres of writing/mini-projects inspired by works of other online creators, or creating a mini comic series.

If I was going to push this goal to next year, I’d break it down into chunks of reasonable mini goals.

Despite how many cool ideas were sitting on the backburner of my mind, I was afraid of not being able to post things on time and spending too much time on my blog when it transitioned from “Something I could use to showcase my abilities to seek employment” to “Fuck it, it’s my hobby, I’ll do what I want, so my inner demons can suck it” since it was difficult to balance other commitments in real life and combat my self-doubt with my writing.

What To Do Next Time (A.K.A Future Plans) 

Gif made by Cokaino @ Tumblr

Knowing me, I vaguely know what I want to do for the blog moving forward but I also made a short questionnaire that you can find here. It’ll help me gather insight from the lovely people who check out my blog.

Thank you all so much your support and see you next year.

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