The Girl in the Moonlight | 2013

2013: the year I made The Girl in the Moonlight. *Wipes a tear and carries on*. To round up my 2013 with my last post of 2013 (oooo, that's a scary thought!), I thought I'd document some things I've learnt this year. My blog is very much so a blog for me to document my thoughts and life and this post, I believe will be very much so for myself because it's going to be very long.

I started my blog because, first and foremost, I love writing. I love that you can say one thought in many ways. To me, that's exciting. I wanted to share my thoughts on things that are controversial that shouldn't be, my wonderings on random things and write something down about things I love. It's a document of my life on a little space on the internet. My little space on the internet. The second and last reason I decided to create a blog was because of my way of thinking. I complained about not being able to write. "I'm 16, [at the time] I can't exactly get a job in writing," I said. No, 16 year old me, you may not be able to, but you can still write.

When I first started my blog it was simply a space for my thoughts but it didn't turn out to be just for that. I was mighty happy when I decided for sure to publish lifestyle posts. They've certainly become one of my favourite posts to write: Sunshine Sunshine La La La La Laaa!, A Little Bit of Tranquillity and Sun, Water and Family Time are some examples.  It's a little bit of my life in one space! How picturesque! I was very scared at first to post these sort of posts but once I did, I couldn't wait for the next moment in my life that I would mould into words. My lifestyle posts aren't the normal lifestyle posts that I love reading because mine aren't completely personal (I hope that one day they will be more about me but, for now, they won't be) but I enjoy writing them!

Blogging, I've learnt can be about learning what goes well with your blog and what doesn't. On my blog, a regular feature was "YouTubers" where I wrote about some of my favourite YouTubers. I liked writing these posts because I'm what they call a Professional Fangirl and so, for me, I like a proportion of my blog to be dedicated to that. However, they became a chore. They became this because I was beginning to just compliment people. They were true compliments but I felt like I was saying the same thing in every post and I didn't want to discredit these YouTubers that I love to watch by repeating things and typing things like a robot. I have so many more YouTubers that, at the time, I wanted to write posts on but I think I've learnt that, unless I'm writing it in an okay way, I may not.

Another series I became uninspired by were my favourites posts I did for a few months (June's Joys, July's Delights and August's Awesomeness). I'm not entirely sure why. It may have been uninspired because I scheduled these posts for the last post in the month and I had other things I wanted to write about. Whatever happened, I enjoyed writing My Favourites | 2013 post so I may bring back the favourites series, just in another way - maybe favourites of a season. I'm really not sure!

However, I do have series that I hold very close to my blogging heart. One is my "A Cynical Romantic Sees Love". I really enjoy this series I created because I don't make myself write it. It's very much so from a spontaneous moment that catches my eye and my first one, in particular really excites me (A Cynical Romantic Sees Love #1). Sometimes, they are my ultimate favourite posts to write!

I also love my What Disney's Taught Me series, where I write about a certain Disney film and why it's taught me something valuable. I have only done two so far (HERE and HERE) but I'm so excited to write more next year!

I have written quite a few blogposts on equal marriage rights (HERE, HERE, oh, and HERE) and the topic has featured in some not even predominantly about it (HERE). It's an issue (*sigh*, why is it an issue?) that I am very passionate about and bitter that the world doesn't see my and most people's view. I feel like this should be mentioned in this post because as it's a passion that burns brightly in my world and so, to me, it makes my blog brighter!

When I think of my own blog, the first thing that comes to mind are my abstract posts. I know I've named lifestyle posts and A Cynical Romantic Sees Love posts my favourite, but so are these. These are my posts that are about subjects that aren't tangible and mean I can come to my own little conclusion about something. I enjoy it a lot. Once I get a thought about something abstract I just love sitting down and allowing for everything I think spill out. My favourite out of my abstract posts is Version of Perfection. They're posts I don't plan writing; if something pops into my head for whatever reason, I write it down.

Sprinkle of Glitter (link) is one of my all time favourite blogs and this is so as it's not a blog that fits into one category (as she says, it fits into the category "Louise") and I like to think mine's like that (but in a different way). What I enjoy is that I enjoy every posts she publishes. From posts about her every day life to her beauty posts to her motivational posts, I love them all. Sometimes a post will make me think so much that it inspires me to write something about that too! You can see them here, HERE, HERE and HERE.

I've talked about my Professional Fangirl being released onto my blog - I will always blog about McFly, films I've seen and other things like it. McFly feature heavily on my blog. I've blogged about their achievements, their tours, their CDs and there are too many posts to link, but I can't wait for the next year so that I can blog even more about them!
 
One thing I have done this year with blogging was McFly Week to celebrate McFly's 10th Birthday. I enjoyed it because they are my favourite topic to discuss. However, it was a struggle at points. I blogged 7 days a week and I'm either really prepared with blogposts or I'm just not and that week I wasn't and so that proved to be stressful. It meant, in turn that some blogposts weren't worded well and were a big jumble of fangirlness which, well, sums up my life so it's kind of a symbolic message (oooo, how very mysterious!). In true New-Year's-Eve-let's-all-discuss-our-feelings-and-how-to-improve-our-ways-fashion: it's taught me that I must be prepared!*

Carrying on from all of this preparation talk, I must address how my blogging experience altered in Summer 2013. I got me some of that preparation thing. I decided to make myself a plan. I now know what posts are going up on what date for at least a month ahead of me. I didn't want this to take any kind of fun away from blogging because sometimes it's all about spontaneity (and this is definitely true with my Cynical Romantic Sees Love posts) and therefore, it's not like I'll be panicking if on Friday the blah-dee-blah if I don't publish a certain post as I want to post something that happened in that day, or a film or book comes out that I've seen/read straight away. A lot of the time, I know some of the posts won't be written and it doesn't panic me. The plan is there so that I can write posts in advance and have a sense of satisfaction (also called being a right smug so and so) that I know what's going on with my blog.

Shall we have a good ol' fashion tips section to end this mighty long blogpost? Yes, I think so. Oh, that was a rhetorical question, was it? How fancy.

Tips for The Girl in the Moonlight in 2014

One) We learnt in July not to just sit with a blank blog page in front of you, hoping for inspiration, didn't we? (Don't patronise a few months older me, but yes, I s'pose we did.) Sometimes inspiration may come, but more often than not you'll produce a piece you're not even the slightest bit proud of so take a break, listen to McFly and wait (that's if you've not done something I'm about to address)...

Two) Find a way to make your blogging experience less stressful. I like to plan. For some, planning is not the thing but do what makes you know that your blog is a happy place for you to be.

Three) Take pictures. The majority of my posts don't have pictures but I'm learning. Originally I did not like to use pictures. I like text and so, because it's my blog, many of my posts don't have pictures. Sometimes I really love pictures, more than I would a post just with text. They especially suit posts where I'm writing about what I've done in a day or on holiday.

Four) Don't ever rush a post because too many times I've posted something that I've been annoyed at myself for posting. It makes the posts pointless and simply not very good!

Five) Enjoy! This is something I've not taken for granted this year and I definitely will always remember to enjoy blogging.

For me, the most important thing I've got out of almost a year in blogging has been that I know what suits my blog and what doesn't. When I first started my blog I had a post in my mind that I was really excited about. I (luckily) never got round to doing it and I'm glad because it just wouldn't be right on my blog. There are naturally going to be loads of types of posts that I haven't done and will suit my blog when I get around to doing them, but I think I know what is for my blog and what isn't. Keeping this in mind, I may suddenly start doing blogposts that previously I didn't think would suit my blog because it's my little space. I'm excited to find all of this out!

Well that was a bit of a long post today (a post that only I probably read the end of), but I really wanted to write my blogging year down in one place. Blogging has been nothing but a great experience for me. There's been no pressure on it (and when I've made myself stressed about it, I've reminded myself there's no need) and because it's never been about the amount of readers I have or views I get, it's been all the more enjoyable experience. It's something that is mine and to me, that's lovely. Ok, The Girl in the Moonlight doesn't have the most readers and may only get a few comments here and there (and for these readers and comments I am so grateful), but it is my little haven.

The end of me rounding up 2013 in blogpost is over... 2014 is almost here. What are your tips for blogging? What have you found out about blogging this year? What are your aims? I'd love to know!

Three cheers for what your and my blogging life will be in 2014!

Happy New Year's Eve!

Party Poppers & Fireworks,

The Girl in the Moonlight.

*I find this very exciting as I wrote this section of the post in August! Go me, sticking to my outlook of being prepared!