It's hard to believe that it's been nearly five years since I hit publish on Sew, It's a Quest, five years since I took the plunge into publication, a journey that has had its fair share of bumps and mistakes, but one I've never looked back from.
Regretted that I hadn't put Sew through more edits first, yes, but looked back from, no.
Anyway, hello, welcome to the party! If you'll just sit through a bit of me reminiscing, I'll get into some of the games and giveaways we'll be playing this week. Won't that be fun?
I'm also celebrating seven years of blogging, and since today is my actual blogoversary, I'm going to focus on that for this post. And, yes, I can't believe that it's been seven years over here, either.
I started this blog because I thought blogs were cool and I wanted to become famous. (I ... I may have had vanity problems.) I chose the name because I was really into knitting at the time and my mom insisted that it have a Biblical theme. (My first choice was LNG, after the fact that I collect Ladybugs, Nutcrackers, and Giraffes.) I don't knit as much anymore, but I've never had the audacity to change the name, and so it stays.
Over the last seven years, I have published 807 posts up to and including this one. My most prolific year was 2012 when I managed to publish 233 posts. Least prolific year was 2010 with 15 posts, half of them in December when I suddenly panicked and remembered that I had a blog and that I was supposed to be posting on the blog. My most prolific month of all time was September of 2012 with a staggering 42 posts. If I remember right, no I didn't post every day, but I did have days with multiple posts.
I have received 2,198 comments, which I suppose is low but (1), I'm not the most consistent about replying to comments (I try ... but sometimes I forget) and (2), I didn't receive my first comment until Valentine's Day of 2011 on
this post.
(For the record, the BTH in BTH Patricia stood for "Back to Homeschool" which was an e-magazine for which I was a contributor for a while. If you're curious, you can check out the abandoned, but still functional website
here.)
According to my stats page, the following are my most popular posts of all time. Personally, I think this list makes no sense ... but I wasn't the one doing all of the viewing.
What Does the Bible Say About Being Trustworthy - With over 1,300 views. It's an essay I wrote for school, then published one day when I was panicking because I thought my computer was going to die. Why it's my most popular, I have no idea, although variations of "what does the Bible say about trustworthiness" is my most popular search term outside of people purposefully searching for my blog.
What Does the Bible Have To Say About Not Being Trustworthy - This one has a more modest view count of around 700, but I still don't understand.
My WIP's Page - For some odd reason, I decided to publish my WIP's page as a post instead of an actual page (during September of 2012 when I was trying to break the world record of how many blog posts a person can post in a month). I understand why it's on this list (it is advertised right at the top of my blog), though I'd have thought it'd have a few more views than its 250.
About Andrew - There is quite a bit of Rizkaland on the list of "most popular" as you'll soon find out. But I have no idea why
this one is the most popular. I wrote this one late at night, was in a rush, and well, I've written better posts. I also don't understand why the
companion post I wrote for Clara didn't receive the same love...
Character Encounters - April 2015 - The only reason I can come up with for
this particular encounter post to have been so popular was the fact that it was the post where I threatened to end Character encounters. I need to get back into those, but I haven't had the mental energy... (And it isn't as though I don't have good ideas...)
Cover Reveal - The King's Scrolls - Okay, so TKS is a pretty popular book. Still, I am mildly confused why a reveal for someone else's book is more popular than any of my own.
The Sob Story of My Life - Okay, I get this one. It's the one where I talked about my own life, and I left it as my top post for quite some time while I focused on school. It was a difficult post to write, and scary to post, but I received so much love from all of you, so thank-you. It meant a lot to me.
Who Wants to Party? - And I get this one, too. The introduction and information post for my Rizkaland party, sure, it'll be popular as much as I promoted it.
Let There Be Water and Fire - This was the cover reveal for
Water Princess, Fire Prince. Okay. I'll buy it.
Influences of WPFP - And last but not least, we have one of the posts from WPFP's blog tour. Why this particular post? I have no idea. People just really like hearing where I steal ideas, I guess.
I guess the moral of the story is that I don't understand what interests people. Maybe I should go back to writing essays about Trustworthiness, and I'll have the most popular blog in the world?
How about I dig through and find some of my favorite posts from the last seven years while I ponder this decision?
Rizkaland Q&A - At the Sports Center part 1 - If you've read
Water Princess, Fire Prince, you need to read this. Someday I'll get around to the rest of the questions that you readers sent me...
My Favorite Couples - This year's Valentine's post where I talked about some of my favorite couples that I've written. Sweet list, that one.
A Post About Clara - This is not the companion to the aforementioned "About Andrew," this one is more of a companion to
In Which I Talk About Robin. Both posts were in response to my lead ladies coming under some fire for their personalities, in which I explained why they acted as they did and let out some of their backstories. So if you've read WPFP or the Bookanias and just didn't get the main characters, do check out these posts and maybe you'll understand them a bit better?
Great Destiny - This was a bit of Rizkaland-themed flashfiction that I wrote for a link-up. Though not in this exact form, the scene did make it into
Lady Dragon, Tela Du.
It's a Girl! - A Bookania flashfiction set after the bonus story at the end of
My Kingdom for a Quest. If you haven't read Kingdom, well, spoilers, but for those of you who have ... well, it's a delightful little story and introduces my favorite character of all time.
Magic of Rizkaland - This is a post that I should probably set as a page like I did my WIP list because it is an important post. Basically, it's where I explained my magic system, both the specific one I created for Rizkaland, and the broader system that covers all of my books.
My Kingdom for a Name - A lot of people ask me where I get my names. Well, in this post I talked about how I named a good number of Bookania characters. I also promised a follow-up and never followed through. Maybe after I publish a few more books...
Dragons in my Writing - If you're curious about how I include dragons in almost every book I've written/plotted, well, this is the post for you.
Beautiful People: Kendra Edition - Beautiful People is a linkup where you're supposed to answer questions about characters. This particular one was questions about yourself. And for some reason I let one of my characters answer the questions. I let Maryanne get away with way too much...
Christmas Around My Imagination - A Christmas post similar to the dragon one, where I talk about Christmas-like holidays instead. Some of them are very different from Christmas. Many are combined with New Years because I'm Efficient like that.
Let It Go - Rocks Edition - I can't sing, but I love rewriting songs. After one of my readers pointed out some similarities between Roxanne, the Main Character of HaV Academy and Elsa from Frozen, I just had to write this.
Cliche with Kendra: Prophecies - I love cliches, but only if they're done right. This was supposed to be the start of a series where I talked about how to do various cliches correctly. Still, there are some good thoughts in this one. You may enjoy it.
CE Narnia - Jakob - For some reason, this is one of my favorite CEs. Jakob is such a sweet fellow.
The Elving - This was a story game my sister and I did as kids. It was ... interesting.
CE Roof - Maryanne - Another of my favorite CEs. I was really down when I wrote this one, and Maryanne gave me a bit of a talking-to. Ah, fun times.
Jelly Donuts and the Great Feud - This was another flashfiction written for a linkup, though not the same as Great Destiny's. While the plays on words are unfortunately inaccurate for the worldbuilding I've since done with the world of this story, it was a blast to write, and I'm told a blast to read.
CE Kitchen - Push Au Kim - Another CE. Oh, Push.
Hair Sisters - This bit of flashfiction was supposed to be a start of a series of flashfic based on my random inspiration pins. Subsequent stories never happened, but this is a sweet bit of backstory about Robin and Meg.
Tigerlilly at Christmas - This was the first story of any substance that I ever finished. Kinda cute. Kinda bang my head against the wall with "what was I thinking..."
Sleepover with Clara - This isn't an official Character Encounter, but it was something in the same vein where I talked with Clara about the books on my bookshelf. And why she didn't want to like Andrew. Good times.
Tips from a Young Writer - "There are Two Moons in the Sky!" - This was one of the last of a long series of posts of posts about writing. This particular one was about the physics of worldbuilding. I followed it up with
one about nature but never did finish the one about culture that was supposed to finish that particular trilogy of posts.
Casperl and the Princess - Since I had only ever found this particular fairy tale in two or three books and nowhere online, I needed somewhere to point readers if they wanted to know the real story behind Casperl and Doranna. This is the fairy tale I retold for
Woodcutter Quince, by the by.
Fan Art - This one is exactly what it sounds like. Fan art by my readers. I have such talented little readers.
Memory Monday - Just Tryin' to Help - This is a walk even further down memory lane to when I was a very young child.
The Enchanted Deer - I probably could have filled this whole list with my Fairy Tale Commentaries, but I chose to limit it to the first one I did. I have a blast writing these, and wish I had the time to write more.
Gawain and Lancelot and the Golden Knight - I wrote this for school. The title pretty much sums it up. It was very interesting.
Down in a Manger - Another example of me rewriting songs. This time, I rewrote "Up on a Housetop" so it's about the Real Reason for the Season.
For Me - A poem I wrote that I was very proud of. Still am, by the way.
The Case of My Missing Feet - One of my first posts. This one was fun. Even more fun to dig the holes and bury my feet.
Coaster Night at Church - And finally, the first post I ever wrote. Has to be good, I guess.
So, still with me? I promised you some stuff about prizes and such, so here we go.
There is a giveaway going on during this party, the prize being a full ebook collection of my books, including LDTD, and three unfinished stories of your choice from my documents folder.
Ways to enter:
Review my books. Already written reviews DO count. Reviews for the Bookania short stories are double points, and reviews for the three main books are triple points. Standard rules of "extra points for each location you post your review" and "email me with a list of the links to ALL of your reviews so I can count them" apply.
Take part in LDTD's cover reveal. I'll probably be closing the sign-up tomorrow, so if you haven't signed up yet, do it now. Giving up your blog for this purpose will earn you five points
Comments. You'll earn points for each comment you leave on any post posted during this tour, (1 point per comment). This includes the posts on other people's blogs. You can also get points for commenting on any backpost with the
Bookania or
Fairy Tales labels, or by commenting on any of the posts that I have linked above. For commenting on the
Author's Commentary posts for Sew, It's a Quest, you will earn a point per question answered.
Participating in the various games and challenges. I'll give you details as I post the various games and challenges.
Speaking of posts on other people's blogs, Agatha is being interviewed by
TomWildRose on her blog today.
Last but not least, this would not be one of my parties without free books. I have a number of my stories lined up to be free this week. I won't tell you which ones, but today we're starting out with
Sew, It's a Quest.
So swing over to Amazon and get yourself a copy if you don't have one already. And then leave a review so you can get points for it.
