Thursday, March 22, 2012

4 years of blogging

It is said that four years old children are developing greater self-control and ingenuity and that they can engage in long periods of activity. I am not sure about the four years old Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews, because in the past year my schedule took a sharp-turn change and my priorities shifted irreversibly. As for ingenuity I cannot brag myself with much. However, four years of blogging were rewarding in so many ways that I can’t imagine now how my readings would have looked like without it. Four years ago I started a journey almost blindly, I didn’t have any idea what running a blog meant. I imagined something, but I was totally and completely off the track. I made mistakes, I believe that I still make them. I had times when I felt tired and disappointed with myself, but fortunately those were rare moments. These downfalls pale in comparison with the rewards brought by blogging though. The most important is that I had the chance to meet many people that changed me more or less and I like to believe that only for the better. It is true that most of these meetings were online and I certainly like the direct way more, preferably over a chatted beer or coffee, but that would have been almost impossible. So in this case the online method is good too. I would like to thank all of them, but they are so many that I am afraid I will leave someone out. So, a warm thank you to you all!

My reading speed didn’t change for the better, but the way I read books did. And although I have no intention of reviewing a certain book I find myself taking notes nonetheless. It is not something that helps some of the books I read, as much as I would like to enjoy them without a second thought the notes do not work on their favor. That doesn’t reap entirely the pleasure of a casual reading for the sole purpose of relaxation, but it is not as rewarding as before. However, I would not change the years of blogging for that, because they led to the discovery of plenty of smaller publishing houses with many amazingly beautiful books. Such a discovery would have been very difficult before, after all not all these small presses reached my corner of the world. But with a wider access to information and with the help of the people I met those little treasures were not buried deep anymore. I know that I still have plenty of such gems to find, but that is no longer a problem.

All in all, four years that brought a great experience with them. I am not certain what the future has in storage, but with a couple of ideas for posts, still in need of a push of effort that I am not able to make at the moment, I do hope that my blogging experience would continue to improve.

6 comments:

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

Congratulations on making four years. I'm sure that man a reader has taken your reviews to heart.

Memory said...

Congratulations on four years of blogging!

Katey said...

Congratulations Mihai -- that's massive!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who takes notes on books as I'm reading. I usually don't even put them in a review if I dash one off at goodreads or amazon or somewhere. It's just a thing I love to do when something in a book screams to me.

Mihai A. said...

Thank you very much guys! It means a lot :)

Michael, I hope they will enjoyed in the future too :)

Katey, I do have notes that I don't use in my reviews or although I do not write a review, but they do come in handy when I try to remember something about the titles I read :)

Ben said...

Congrats Mihai! Keep up the good work!

Mihai A. said...

Ben, thank you very much! It means a lot :)