Hello Internet!
I hope you all had a wonderful week! Here on the website we had a wonderful week, but I’ll get to that in a little bit. First I want to tell you all that you are not mistaken. This is not supposed to be some New Year’s Eve Blog or anything like that. I know that this is coming out on December 16th and that there’s still a half a month to go before 2018 officially wraps up, but I’m sad to say that this will be the last Weekly Blog posted for 2018. I know, I know! Hold back your tears for just a second. Give me a chance to explain. That’s what this Weekly Blog will be all about. But first, let me tell you about all the wonderful things I published this week just in case you missed them. Last Sunday, I published a Weekly Blog talking about Decorating For Christmas. At my home, we are getting in the Christmas Spirit by decorating and putting up our Christmas Tree. If you are in the middle of that process, I recommend reading that Weekly Blog to share in the Christmas Joy. On Wednesday, I published a Poem titled “Spirit of Christmas.” It’s just a little Poem about how Christmas comes to many people in different ways. Even the simple things like snowball fights or hot chocolate by the fire can encompass the Christmas Spirit. So just take it all in this Christmas Spirit and do your best to pass it on to others. Unforunately there was no Writing Prompt piece published on Friday, but on Saturday, I published the sixteenth chapter of my Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver Fanfiction titled Pokémon HGSS#16: Return to Ecruteak. Jonathan and Beatrice backtrack to Ecruteak City after finishing business in Olivine City with Gym Leader Jasmine. There they meet up with their old friend Zuki and her many sisters.
So 2018. Boy what a year. I just keep hoping that next year will be better personally, which I realize is something I said at the end of 2016 and 2017. But here’s hoping 2019 will be better! That would be really nice. But in terms of the website, 2018 was a fantastic year. This year I published by 200th and 300th piece, both to lots of praise and love. I also surpassed 300 Followers here on WordPress. All of those are huge accomplishments I’m really proud of and could only have accomplished because of all you wonderful people. To the readers around the world that read my stuff and the ones you like and comment on the things I write, I thank you. All of the love and support means so much to me that it’s sometimes dizzying. I mean I have people across the US reading my Weekly Blogs, people in India, The Netherlands, and Brazil reading my Poetry, and people in South Africa, China, and Australia reading my Writing Prompt pieces. It’s just insane to me that I have support for the stuff I write all over the world. So thank you so much for all the love and support. No matter where you are in the world or how much or how little you read the pieces I publish, I appreciate you and what you bring to the website.
Speaking of the readers, 2018 absolutely eclipsed 2017 in terms of views, visitors, comments, and likes. We had month after month breaking records in terms of views which lead 2018 to be an outstanding year. Compared to 2017, 2018 had 2.5 times the number of views and 3.5 times the number of visitors. That blows my mind. Those numbers show me that the website is definitely growing and more and more people are flocking here to read these Blogs or my creative writing. When looking at likes, 2018 had almost 7 times more likes which just shows how much love everyone is sending my way. I have actively tried during 2018 to make this website more accessible to everyone and make it friendlier for new people coming in, so hopefully you see that reflected back at you as a reader. Numbers aren’t everything, obviously, but when I look at these numbers, it makes me happy because it shows that the work I’m putting into the stuff I write is having an affect. Wonderful people like you are congregating to the website and maybe dragging a friend along with you. I’m just happy to see this place continue to grow, but even if no one read my stuff, I’d still write. That’s something I realized this year. Some things you write for others and some stuff you write for yourself. And the stuff you write for yourself is usually a better quality and more memorable.
Speaking of writing, I spent some time looking back at the stuff I’ve written during this year and overall, I’m really proud of it. I will be putting out a special “Best of 2018” Writing Prompt List later this month and even by looking at those, you can see the quality of writing improve and more of my personality being infused into the writing. When I started writing in January 2017, I went into it blind not knowing what people wanted to read and what I wanted to write. A lot of it wasn’t that great. And now its much, much better. Would it help me to get some kind of editor to clean up my dumb mistakes? Absolutely. But I’m proud of the stuff I wrote this year and I can see my writing skills get better and better with everything I write. I mean, look at my Poems. I still stand by the fact that I’m not a Poet, but I published over 40 Poems this year and by the second half of the year I was no longer leaning on Haiku of Six Word Memoirs as a crutch to get through my weekly dose of Poetry. Totally original poetry coming from me, Allen_The_Writer. That’s something that would have been unheard of before 2017 and this website came about.
I feel like I’ve rambled on a little bit throughout this Weekly Blog, but the main things I want to reiterate is that 2018 was a wonderful year for the website and featured a ton of growth thanks to all of my fantastic readers all over the world. I put out some of my best stuff this year and everyone showered me in love. Thank you so much for all of it. I really appreciate it and I can’t thank you enough.
Now comes that sad part. I’m wrapping up 2018 here with this last Weekly Blog of the year. That doesn’t mean I’m completely gone or that I’m hanging up the pen and paper…errr…I mean my laptop. I’m not going away just yet. Although this Weekly Blog signifies the end of my regular stuff, I will be putting out my “Best of” list like I mentioned as well as some other holiday stuff between now and the new year. It’s just going to be published in an unorganized way. I will also be readying myself for 2019. 2017 was kind of rocky and I had trouble finding a real rhythm, but I think 2018 worked out much better. So as of right now 2019 is going to be more of the same. More Weekly Blogs, Poetry, Writing Prompt Pieces, and Fanfiction is coming in your way starting in January 2019. Right now I plan on coming back with “Allen_The_Writer: Year Three”© on Sunday, January 6th, 2019. This will give me plenty of time to enjoy my Christmas Break and get ahead of my writing. Things could change, but I’ll write up a Bulletin Board Blog if anything major changes.
For now, just know that I appreciate you and thank all my readers for making 2018 so awesome. I’m hoping to keep this momentum going in 2019 and I hope that we continue to grow bigger and bigger. I have some ideas floating around in my mind for 2019, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I hope you enjoy your holiday season and have a Happy New Year.
See you in 2019!
-Allen_The_Writer
Header Photo Credit to Myself. I made it on Canva
Allen The Writer 
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