Reading and writing have always been two of the most constant things in my life. Irrespective of how well I did them, they were always there with me, giving me insights and making me better in their own strange ways. I started reading as a very young child and writing when I was about 11. You can understand the kind of things I wrote then: inane but dramatic poems, narrating my life into poems because I was sure nobody was going to take me seriously, and using whatever English I had at my disposal in science and social studies projects.
As I grew up, my poems turned somber and I also began to write fiction. And then I started blogging. It wasn’t with any other goal except that I loved writing and I wanted to put a step out into that world where I could share my thoughts with people. At first it was writing stilted sentences coming up to about 400-500 words. As time passed and I realized what it was I wanted from blogging, I continued to make changes and evolve. But there was a problem. I wasn’t consistent in writing these blog posts. I still am not, to be honest. This year, however, I decided to get back to proper blogging and do something about this consistency problem. One of the things I wanted to do was Blogtober.
I’d heard of Blogtober last year and while I knew I wasn’t in a position to do it back then, this year, I decided to do it, come what may. It was going to be a long, tough journey, since I have never written 1000+ words every day, ever. I knew at the outset that this was going to tire me out. But I still went ahead with the plan with an enthusiasm that surprised even me.
AND I DID IT! I did Blogtober and successfully saw it through and I’m so, so happy! I started off with that enthusiasm because I love writing and Blogtober was only going to help me fall in love with it even more. As I mentioned before, although the love hasn’t faded, my energy levels have dipped, for waking up every day and having it on my mind that ‘Oh, I need to post for Blogtober’ was tiring. And yet, I persisted and managed to post on the blog for every day of Blogtober. Which calls for a celebration, methinks.
I had 31 posts planned out at the beginning of the month and I managed to post a lot of these. But there were some that I moved around, some I discarded, and some I knew weren’t going to make it to the blog either because of time constraints or because I wasn’t in the right state of mind to write them. But whatever I have put out, I’ve written from the depths of my heart and that’s something that I am super, super proud of!
I had planned to post every blog post at around 10 AM IST because I was so sure I would finish writing it well in advance and would be able to schedule it. But things never work this smoothly, do they? So, some days the posts would go up at 10 AM but other days, they were all over the place. From being just an hour late to being just in time before the day ended here in Australia, I was a chaotic mess as I wrote furiously and edited and proofread twice or thrice before putting them up in the nick of time. Yet, I’m peacefully happy right now. What a paradox I am!
I won’t go into the analytics of the posts and how they performed, because that wasn’t my intention behind doing Blogtober. I wanted to get my writing mojo back and 45,676 words in, I think I did pretty well. So much that I had the nuttiest thought ever: What if I participated in NaNoWriMo and got some much ignored fiction writing done? But then again, I remind myself two months in a row is utter madness. I won’t be able to handle the chaos. But it’s good to know that I can do it whenever I want to. 😀
Today’s post is a bit of a wrap up where I’m listing down all the posts I’ve done for Blogtober 2022 from Day 1 to Day 31. There won’t be much of an explanation here about what they are because I think the titles are self-explanatory.
Ah, the satisfaction of completing a challenge set for myself!
*pats self on the back*
October 1: The 20 Questions Book Tag
Word count: 1817
Read here: Blogtober – Day 1.
October 2: Book Gush – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
(Word count: 1405)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 2.
October 3: Why Is Getting Paid for Book Reviews Frowned Upon?
Word count: 1023
Read here: Blogtober – Day 3.
October 4: Book Review – The Gods Are Not Dead by Abhaidev
(Word count: 1372)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 4.
October 5: 10 Things That I Notice in Movies and TV Shows – How Much Creative Liberty is Too Much?
(Word count: 1723)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 5.
October 6: Recent Reads – August & September 2022 Reading Wrap Up
(Word count: 2575)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 6.
October 7: Why I Read…
(Word count: 1437)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 7.
October 8: TBRS – Yay or Nay?
(Word count: 1059)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 8.
October 9: My Favorite Bookish Merchandise
(Word count: 1245)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 9.
October 10: Overhyped Books – What Does This Mean?
(Word count: 1037)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 10.
October 11: How to Save Money on Books?
(Word count: 1341)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 11.
October 12: Everyday Reader Problems
(Word count: 302)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 12.
October 13: 10 Things I Love About An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
(Word count: 2499)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 13.
October 14: The Sexism of Cosmetic Plastic Surgery
(Word count: 1235)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 14.
October 15: More Than 60 Quick Books to Smash Your Goodreads Goal
(Word count: 3008)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 15.
October 16: My Social Media Journey (and why I’m tired of it)
(Word count: 1661)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 16.
October 17: Trilogy Review – All for the Game by Nora Sakavic
(Word count: 1059)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 17.
October 18: What I’m Currently Reading & Watching
(Word count: 513)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 18.
October 19: My Favorite Book Quotes of All Time – Part 2
(Word count: 2037)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 19.
October 20: Book Discussion/Thoughts – A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
(Word count: 2508)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 20.
October 21: Why I Might Never Meet My Favorite Authors or Artists
(Word count: 1167)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 21.
October 22: Rereading the Heartstopper Books & Watching the TV Show
(Word count: 827)
Read here: Blogtober – Day 22.
October 23: Weird Bookish Things That I Do
Word count: 1823
Read here: Blogtober – Day 23.
October 24: Diwali as a Child vs Diwali as an Adult
Word count: 656
Read here: Blogtober – Day 24.
October 25: Author Interview – Jenny Jaeckel
Word count: 1987
Read here: Blogtober – Day 25.
October 26: The Guilty Reader Book Tag
Word count: 1239
Read here: Blogtober – Day 26.
October 27: Bad vs Badly Written Characters
Word count: 619
Read here: Blogtober – Day 27.
October 28: 10 Books by Queer Authors I’ve Loved
Word count: 2489
Read here: Blogtober – Day 28.
October 29: Readathons & Reading Challenges
Word count: 792
Read here: Blogtober – Day 29.
October 30: Books That Made Me Cry
Word count: 2157
Read here: Blogtober – Day 30.
October 31: The Last Book I… Tag
Word count: 1064
Read here: Blogtober – Day 31.
So that was me doing a little jig for having completed Blogtober 2022! Super excited and super proud of myself for this! 😀
How did your Blogtober go? Did you get any writing done? What was your highlight of October? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!
I’ll see you in the next blog post.
Until next time, keep reading and add melodrama to your life! 😀
The Melodramatic Bookworm 
Reblogged this on keyboardcritic.
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Congratulations on completing Blogtober. I really enjoyed reading your posts.
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Thank you so much, Janette ❤️ Sending you lots of love!
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Congrats on successfully completing Blogtober!!! And yes, you can do it whenever you want to 🙂
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Thank youuuu! ❤️❤️❤️
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