Celebrating 6 Years of Blogging… and My Birthday!

Hello there!

If you’ve been around for a while you might be aware that I don’t know when exactly I started blogging. Let’s just say WordPress can be a bitch and all I’ve ever known is that my blog anniversary falls somewhere in January. So… what am I doing here right now?

Instead of picking one date in January I’ve taken to celebrate my blog anniversary with my birthday which is today 🙂

23rd April is also poetically World Book Day, so the universe is sending me a sign to do this. I don’t often celebrate my blog anniversary. I usually just put up a post or tweet on Twitter and that’s that. I don’t celebrate it in real life too. I guess I sometimes underestimate how big of a deal it is?

I can’t believe I’ve been consistently blogging for the past 6 years. It’s been a whirlwind of a ride. In fact sometime this month I got a notification that I hit 50k all-time views!

It made me quite emotional. Sometimes I forget to convert numbers to people. Thousands of people like to read my work. They’ve viewed it 50k times. And no matter how bigger or smaller the numbers get this is a huge deal for me and I’ll forever be grateful for all that this blog and community has given to me and continues to give.

Now I could just blabber on and on about being grateful but I thought it would be fun to celebrate my blog anniversary by looking at some old posts that I’m proud of 🙂

2018

Side-note: I keep thinking that I started blogging in 2019 but no no, it was actually 2017 end-2018 beginning? Wow.

How to Commit To Your New Year’s Resolution to Read

This was one of my first posts and you can see that I thought having original photography was a must for some reason. Yeah, I abandoned that pretty quickly. I’m fond of this one still because I think the advice still stands and I don’t cringe when I read it. I was still finding my blogging voice so the humour might be slightly different but it still reads fun and easy.

Trilogies: The Bane of My Existence

This was the post that sort of blew up for me back then. I thankfully wasn’t one who struggled when it came to people engaging with my blog, I don’t know whether it was because people resonated with my content or I formed a good circle of friends on Twitter. But this was my first discussion post and it felt exhilarating to pen my thoughts down and interact with others on this hotly debated topic of trilogies.

Myths of the Blogging Universe

This post has a special place in my heart because it was my first co-authored post and that too with Shruti who has become like a sister to me now. So it feels very cute to look back at this post and I specifically remember needing to match her wit and humour but also knowing I could never do that, haha.

Why Book Blurbs are Important

Further proof that this topic never leaves my mind, I think I’ve done multiple posts on book blurbs cause it irks me so much and I still stand by everything I said here.

2019

How Bloggers are Legally Copying Content and Getting the Credit

Ahaha can’t believe we’ve come from PLR and ghostwriting to ChatGTP these days. But this post absolutely blew up and I remember this was the first time I properly researched for a post. Granted I did not include any references but hey this was before uni taught me how to write research papers.

Thoughts I Have When A Book Character Dies

Oh my god, this was when I had Off Tangent Thoughts as a bookish feature. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every post I wrote for this series. It was slightly low-effort but brutally honest and fun at the same time and struck a chord with many readers 🙂

How Bloggers Write Their Posts ft. Clo @Book Dragons

Aww would you look at that fun and amazing post I co-wrote with Clo? It’s still hilarious and nostalgic at the same time. Fun fact, we tried to write another collab post and the doc kept getting lost in our inboxes for about a year until we finally gave up on it 😛 Mayhaps 2023 will be the year we do another collab?

A House Of Rage And Sorrow: A Masterpiece That Has Left Me Numb

I’m pretty proud of most of the book reviews on the blog but this one in particular had a great structure and a makeup look as well.

2020

Why I Don’t Like Critically Analysing A Book

You know there are some posts you have to be brave enough to write. I was very hesitant as to how this take would be received but I’m glad I wrote it and indeed many people did engage and put their thoughts forward on this topic.

Changing the Classics for Assigned Readings in Schools

I’m so fucking proud of this post. Going through it now I wouldn’t change a single thing. This is around the time you can see me grow as a writer and my university education seeping into my writing 🙂

Can Buying Books Make You Happy? Here’s What Psychology Says…

One of the best things I ever did was start writing Psychology posts on this blog. I love them, the audience loves it and it just makes me feel like I’m sharing some of my education with others. I haven’t written one in a while and believe me, I have a couple up my sleeve, I just need to sit down and write them.

Read the Rainbow Spotlight: We Used To Be Friends

Another initiative I took back in the day was the Read the Rainbow feature/spotlight/book club which helped me read so many queer books, hold discussions and grow closer with friends while making new ones as well.

Should We Be Creating Content During A Pandemic or Not?

Just reading this title makes me laugh because the pandemic was fucking two years long, so wow. But going through this one, I feel it was well-written and sweet and I guess I am pretty satisfied with it.

2021

My Sister Blurbs Books Based On Their Covers

This was such a fun post to orchestrate! I really enjoyed the idea and doing something different, as did you all. My sister, not so much XD

I Don’t Follow A Tight Blogging Schedule and Maybe You Shouldn’t Either

Oh, this post blew up. I think it was really exciting to see the different ways bloggers function and discuss the pros and cons of that while learning from each other 🙂

Does the E-book Format Make Big Books Less Daunting?

So I used to believe all discussion posts need to be super long but I’m glad I learnt over time and let myself do shorter posts which were equally punchy and insightful, this being one of them.

5 Tips to Get the Best Out of Buddy Reads and Group Reads

I still think this is such a helpful and cute post, I’d forgotten some of my own advice so it definitely felt nice to revisit it.

2022

8 Books To Read If You Like These Board Games

I love that I came up with this idea and went ahead. I’ve been getting back into board gaming recently and have many more ideas for a part two maybe!

Why Reading and Writing Fanfiction is an Excellent Way to Grow as a Writer

This is a hill I will die on and while this wasn’t a very popular post, I said my piece and I’m happy with it 🙂

Is It Really Fair to Compare Movie Adaptations to Their Books?

This is a topic that I’ve sort of changed my mind about over the years. I used to want exact replicas of books when it comes to on-screen portrayals but my views have changed a bit since then and it feels good to have voiced them on the blog.

Donning My Therapist Hat: What If Loki from the MCU Got Therapy?

For me, this will forever remain one of the greatest things I’ve ever written. I think I took a huge leap when I said I’m making this a series so yeah, sorry that you all will have to wait a while before I attempt this feat again, lol.

And that was that.

Wow, what a trip down memory lane. I have over 300 posts and many wonderfully written ones that I have absolutely forgotten about. It fills me with even more happiness and pride and I hope that I never stop writing or blogging here. But even if I do, this archive will be here forever 🙂