Forums Shaped My Reading and Writing
My earliest memories of being online have been with forums and perhaps much of that time has created preferences when online. It could be the other way around and just coincidence I did much foruming, but I would like to think it lead to some of my writing style. Subtle trolling, casualness, playful wittiness at the expense of others, keeping things to the point, and random off-topic derailing as examples of influence. I am known in some communities for my annoying, amusing, and confrontational one liners. At the very least changing things up with having to write more gave time to reflect.

Images Make a Page of Words Attractive
I love great detail and informative treasures, but at times I can find long blog entries of my interest not interesting enough to read. Images bring color to a wad of black text, tell the topic of a post often before any words, grab attention, and break up text. People like purdy thingies.

Episodic Blogging is Useless
Around starting a blog I took peeks at what other bloggers did in addition to the little knowledge I already had. Real soon I learned that blogging each episode of an anime or chapter of a manga makes for poor reading. Sure an epiphany or emotional response to an episode or story arc can be remarkable, but every episode just because is a waste. One could simply go out to watch the particular episode or manga. If one is already following a series they would either decide to keep going or see what they have as not worth it.

Writing, Grammar, and Speling
I am a product of a dysfunctional schooling system where much of my years in school dealt with golf carts chasing ditchers across campus, stabbings, shootings, and bomb threats. There were days where I’ve spent time playing Gameboy Pokemon in front of a teacher’s desk with the teacher there. Jumping into blogging for me meant having to learn as I go without help or guidance. Finding tools for spelling is easy, but the ability to write something interesting, coherent, and styled is a world of error. Proof reading is a friend.

Timing
A lot like a news outlet a blog can get extra traffic and kudos for being ahead of the rest. Knowing when your audience is active online and being first leads to more retweets on fast sites like Twitter and having the most attention from offering something undiscovered.

Casuals and Fanatics
Many people into anime and manga are just into it to watch and read. It is a segment of fans that include those that gain pleasure in critique, analysis, and writing. Some fans find gathering information and opinions useful in addition to the media, but most are satisfied with what their friends suggest or what they stumble across. Just being a fan is okay and I have learned to accept that.

Better Have Something Worth Saying
In real life I hate surprises yet I prefer to do things on a whim. With blogging I write when I have something interesting or an inspiration gained from an experience. With a schedule I would find myself writing just to write without much to share. I take notes in the form of a list of words until I gather enough for a topic or I inspire myself through watching or reading anime and manga when I’m most easily able to concentrate. If I were to kick up my watching of anime and manga, it would translate to better consistency.

Some thanks to Justin of OASG for inspiring this post.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone!