Today is a big day in this blog's history. Today marks this blog's 10 Year Anniversary. :)
I created this blog when I was in college at 20 years old with this opening blog post and then this essay. I am 30 years old now.
Where on earth did the time go?
Sheesh. Let's take a look back.
Right now, this blog has over 200 published posts. The actual number fluctuates though because some of them have been reverted back into drafts or deleted. It's interesting to see how my writing has changed and matured over the years.
My favorite label to use on here is "Masterpieces." These are the lengthy pieces that I feel are my best work. I am proud of all of my blog posts, especially my Masterpieces, like they're my babies, but here are some of my Favorite and Most Memorable Masterpieces:
Virginity...for Men Given that virginity is often a focus for women, I wanted to stress the importance and dismantle the stereotypes of male virginity as well. This one is one of my most popular blog posts that opened up some dialogue.
Why John Tucker Must Die is Better Than Mean Girls John Tucker Must Die is one of my favorite films of all time. After noticing some similarities to Mean Girls, I decided to write about them. However, I have been a little hesitant leaving it up because a comment informed me that one of the sections might be littered with microaggressions about diverse character representation in the films, but I don't really see it as such. I just see it as me pointing out certain portrayals in these types of films. If you'd like to let me know about whether or not it actually is, feel free to do so. I wrote this piece years ago too, so it might be dated as a result.
Why I'm Not Crazy About the New "Whose Line" This one gets the most traffic and comments out of everything on my blog, even years after I posted it.
Robert Roldan, Don't Ever Wipe That Smile Off Your Face This was in my drafts for the longest time until I republished it for this blog post after seeing that it has over 30,000 views! I think this might be my most viewed blog post by far. I even got some compliments on it. Robert Roldan was my favorite dancer on "So You Think You Can Dance" when I was 19. He then got into an accident and took a season off from the show. When he came back to the show the following year, his whole demeanor had changed, so this piece was me expressing my sadness about this and relaying a message to him to never change. I think I reverted it to drafts because I felt it too personal I guess, but I'll leave it up for now.
White Disney Princesses, From the Perspective of a White Girl I really love this one. This was my first time really talking about race on here. I always saw arguments about Disney representation, so I decided to, as a white girl, see if I felt like I benefitted from the surplus of white female characters that Disney provided all of these years.
Moritz Stiefel's Hair: 'Mind-Blowing' Theories about the Bumbling "Spring Awakening" Supporting Character This is another one people really seem to like. Focusing on this one character made me realize a lot of deeper meanings about the musical. I even blew my own mind with the theories I came up with. lol
10 Years and 20 Seasons Later - How I Learned to Finally Appreciate "Dancing with the Stars" This was the only time I watched and enjoyed "Dancing With The Stars" for an entire season. lol
Character Equivalents: A Look at Ryan Murphy's "Scream Queens" and "Glee" Two of my favorite TV shows from the same creator lined up nicely. Also, RIP Naya Rivera. <3
My Top 20 Favorite "Arthur" Episodes to Celebrate 20 Years! "Arthur" is still one of my favorite childhood shows, so I wanted to look back at my favorite episodes for his anniversary. Writing this post brought me down memory lane.
Biblical, Shakespearean, and Other Themes in "Heathers" I really like the observations I made in this one. I even inspired a commenter to make a video of her own. :)
"In The Vault" Season One Finale Recap Thoughts I want Season Two of this show! It left us on a cliffhanger! I even became friends with some of the cast members on Twitter! It looked like they were filming something new. I can't even watch old episodes now because the site is now gone. What happened? lol
A Tale of Two Brother Bands: The Impact and Evolution of One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer In 2019 I became a fan of One Direction and in 2020 I became a fan of 5 Seconds of Summer lol. This was the big one. This was the blog post I took almost literally all year to complete. The 2020 quarantine lead to a lot of people being creative in their down time. This just so happened to be my outlet, keeping me productive during my nocturnal nights. Because I was into One Direction, I decided to give their brother band 5 Seconds of Summer a chance, leading me to now pretty much prefer them over 1D lol. This essay is a compare and contrast piece between the two groups. I am so proud of it because it was my first time being very analytical on here in a long time. This is one of my favorite things that I have written in awhile.
I even have some Favorite Series, which are:
Peak Performances and their Awkward Sexual Moments As a student and theater journalist at MSU, I was really into the theater scene on campus. I noticed that these productions all had their shares of awkward sexual moments, hence this series. lol
PBS Kids TV Shows and their... I grew up with PBS Kids, so of course now as an adult I have to look back and analyze them! :D
Stef's "So Good You Can't Put It Down" Book Reviews I try to get back into reading, and this is some of the result to hold me accountable. lol
Real Influential Women Role Models (Real and Fictitious) It's always nice to showcase fellow women, whether they are fictional or real life people! :D
Okay, that's enough of memory lane for now. Now for current and future.
For years I had this rule on here that I had to blog monthly to stay consistent. The year with the most blog posts is 2011, the year I started. Halfway through 2018 and especially in 2019 and 2020, my blog posts have dwindled. I still posted substantial stuff on here, but not nearly as much. I guess I just wasn't as inspired to keep up with it and I just wanted to relax. Now that I recall, this was also around the time I was little by little breaking away from my freelancing more and more, so maybe I just wanted to break away from writing altogether for a bit. This was also around the time when more of my anxious feelings started to increase due to personal stuff going on.
I'm a private person (always have been) and I want it to stay that way. I feel like I've gradually closed up and laid low more as I've gotten older, and I enjoy this. My life and work is nobody's business, but yet I also want to share at least some of my work again. How can I break out of this to show my creations in peace? How can I find middle ground?
In addition to it just being a personality trait, I think it's also partially because when it comes to writing and everything else, it seems that people are harsher nowadays towards each other and every little thing is ridiculed, so now we all have to walk on eggshells around each other.
This shouldn't be. Why should I hold myself back because of others? I feel like I'm constantly teetering between "Should I say that?" "Is it okay that I say that?" and "Why shouldn't I have the freedom to say that?"
There are plenty of other writer fears out there I have too.
Anyway, in 2019 and 2020 I did more of spending months working on essays for on here than actually posting. Because I wrote a bunch of essays in 2020, I wanted to finally force myself to tweet them out before 2021 began so I could start fresh in the new year. Therefore, this past week was crunch time for my personal deadlines and now I am so weary from it lol. Keeping these blog posts to myself for months and then finally sharing them felt nervewracking and surreal to me because I haven't done that in awhile.
Then my perfectionism kicks in. There are moments when I still don't feel like they're ready, even if/when they're live or others have already read them, because I find myself editing, revising, overthinking them, adding things, and feeling happier with my changes. It's that fear of finally publishing something but then I don't like what I wrote or how I wrote it or I forgot to mention something but now people have already seen it so then it's like they didn't see my best work. This is what really holds me back. I feel like nobody else can understand this unless they're a writer too. It causes you to lose sleep.
...
NO. MORE.
I am so DONE with this. It's exhausting. This is why I am reconsidering my whole Writer identity. I am overworking myself because I want to be satisfied with my writing. But how will I even achieve this satisfaction? You have to just set it free somehow, right? I mean, I've managed to do it before, but yet it's still difficult to determine how to fix this.
I edited and revised this piece you're reading right now a bunch of times too just to get it "right." I mean, this is important for a writer to do, but then it can get a little overboard.
I need to aim for "good enough" instead of unattainable perfection. I need to find an even balance going forward of feeling both satisfied and not overstressing everything. I need to grow even thicker skin. I need to learn to feel at ease.
I don't know what this means for my blogging schedule going forward. I would like to write more on here because it has been dormant. I love this blog. This blog is a friend that I have had for 10 years now that has helped me express myself a bit. I also have plays and fiction projects that I have planned.
2021 is a new beginning. I'm in my thirties now, and there is much that I want to do. I'm trying to resurrect the comfortable enthusiasm that I had for my writing back when I first started this blog.
It's working.
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