Hello Internet!
I hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy. Christmas season is fully upon us now so I hope that you have been busy doing your Christmas shopping, putting up decorations, and listening to Christmas music. I basically have all my Christmas shopping done already. Usually I don’t buy Christmas presents until the last minute but this year with all the shipping problems, I decided to get on it super early and now it’s basically all done. There are a few little things I got to buy, but basically I’m ready for Christmas to get here. Christmas proper is still two weeks away but this Weekly Blog marks the beginning of my holiday break which I will talk about more in detail. But first let me quickly talk about the stuff I’ve published in the last week.
Last Sunday I published a Weekly Blog talking about The World War Z Audiobook. After a long time of thinking that audiobooks just aren’t for me, I finally started to listen to some. I started with World War Z by Max Brooks and I talked about my experience while listening to it. I really think this version, which is almost play acted at times, is one of the best ways to experience the story of World War Z. The book is one of my favorites and I think the formatting of the book really lends itself to this medium. The combination of the fantastic writing of the book and the quality of voice actors attached to the audiobook version really make The World War Z well worth a listen. No matter if you’ve read the book before or not, I definitely recommend listening to the audiobook. (Again not sponsored by Audible or anything like that, but I do know lots of libraries have access to audiobooks included in their memberships so go support your local library and go listen to your favorite audiobook!) On Wednesday, I published a Poem titled “Snow Day.” I tried to capture the feeling of waking up and finding out school is cancelled because of a snow day and put it into this Poem. Snow days used to mean just staying at home to play in the snow or just play videogames all day. Ah, what a wonderful time. Now as an adult I just work from home so snow days mean nothing to me. Actually the day this Poem was published, we got a bit of snow where I live which I thought was a nice touch. Finally, and this is the BIG ONE, on Saturday I published my SEVEN HUNDREDTH piece on the website!! I know. Crazy stuff. Not only that but the 700th published piece was “Scarlet Door Part 3.” I think that this Scarlet Door Trilogy or series has been some of the best stuff I’ve written. Or at least they are some of the pieces I’ve had the most fun writing. The idea of looping time, false memories, deciphering truth, and not knowing what is real have all been fun themes I’ve included in this series and I’ve just enjoyed writing these pieces. So please, please, PLEASE go support not only Scarlet Door Part 3 but also Scarlet Door and Scarlet Door Part 2. Think of this as an early Christmas gift to me! If you missed any of the other pieces as well, check them out when you have the chance.
So like I said before, Christmas is drawing near which means I’m going to be wrapping up for the year. This year’s Christmas break is going to be a bit longer than last year, but honestly I’m ok with that. I’m happy to kind of end the year on the high note of publishing my 700th piece. It’s nice to reach this big milestone before the end of the year and just take some time to celebrate it. Speaking of big milestones. We are so close to hitting 800 Followers here on WordPress. It’s very likely we’ll hit that by the end of the year or early next year while I’m still on break. So thank you to everyone who has supported me and read my stuff this year. I’m very thankful for all my readers, new and old and I’m extra thankful for the people who’ve decided to Follow me on WordPress. My goal has been to grow a positive and creative community and all you wonderful people help me do that. You are those positive, creative people! It’s thanks to all your support that we exceeded last year in terms of views. Obviously it’s not all about numbers, but I’d be lying if I said that seeing the growth in terms of views didn’t make me happy. Last I checked we are approaching 10,000 views for the year which is such an insane number to me. This year I published over 100 pieces to the website and you all viewed the stuff I read almost 10,000 times. Wow. That’s all I can say. Wow. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for all the love and support. It just blows me away. Truly.
Ok sorry, let me compose myself. This will be the last Weekly Blog of 2021, but fear not. There are a few more things in the works before the end of the year. Most importantly I’ll have a list of my favorite Poems and Writing Prompt Pieces I’ve published this year. I’m going to be looking at which pieces seemed to be the most popular and which pieces I enjoyed writing the most. Then I’ll be taking those pieces and putting them into a Best Of list before the year ends. Actually if you all have any suggestions for what should be put on that list, feel free to leave those suggestions in the comments. I’d love to hear what everyone enjoyed this year. Or you can go show those favorite pieces some extra love before the end of the year and I’ll keep that in mind when making my choices.
I also want to say that I will be back in 2022 with more pieces. More Weekly Blogs! More Poetry! More Writing Prompt Pieces! More whatever I feel like writing. Now there will probably be some adjustments to be made about how often I publish stuff, but that’s a conversation we’ll have after the first of the year. For now I’ll just say that I’m working on my time management skills and making sure I have a system where I can consistently publish a few less things, while also not getting burnt out or creatively drained. As you probably know there were some rough spots during 2020 and 2021 and I’m trying to reduce that. I love writing and I want to do more of it, but I don’t like feeling burnt out on writing. It’s all about balance and maybe 2022 is the year where I finally figure that out. Or maybe I’ll just need lots of mini breaks. I am hopefully going to use some time during this holiday break to write some stuff for the new year. Or at least that’s what I”m going to do in theory. We’ll see what happens. I don’t know exactly when I’ll be back in 2022 but I’m aiming for January 16th, 2022. There will definitely be a proper Weekly Blog when I’m back! So just keep an eye out for that.
Thank you again for all the love and support you’ve shown me over this past year. Hopefully my writing has meant something to you this year even if that’s just five minutes of happiness or whatever. I know that the holidays can be hard for some people, but I just want to reach out and tell you that I’m happy that you are here and I really appreciate you.
Have a Happy Holidays and I’ll see you in 2022!!
-Allen_The_Writer
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Allen The Writer 
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