TSS#66 – Blaugust, Cats, and Drafts

Welcome to another Stray Sheep. Today I’ll talk about the upcoming Blaugust event, my participation in that, and other things. I hope you enjoy this post! 

Let’s get right into it: It’s nearly August and therefore it’s time for Blaugust. But since we already participated in Blapril just a few months ago, Bel thought of something else to switch things up and combat a few issues. 

Edit: Since this might be important to a lot of people, I added the “when and where” part here at the beginning so that people can easily find out about it.

The list of blogs currently participating, and the dates of their posts are:

• 07/31/2020 – Belghast – Tales of the Aggronaut
• 08/01/2020 – Dragonray – Azerothian Life
• 08/02/2020 – Mailvaltar – Mailvaltar – MMOs and other stuff
• 08/03/2020 – Roger Edwards – Contains Moderate Peril
• 08/04/2020 – everwake – Everwakes Internet Adventures
• 08/05/2020 – Wilhelm Arcturus – The Ancient Gaming Noob
• 08/06/2020 – Stingite – The Friendly Necromancer
• 08/07/2020 – Rambling Redshirt – Beyond Tannhauser Gate
• 08/08/2020 – Easha and Poppy – Glittering Girly Gwent Gaming
• 08/09/2020 – Paeroka – Nerdy Bookahs
• 08/10/2020 – Krikket – Nerd Girl Thoughts
• 08/11/2020 – SDWeasel – Unidentified Signal Source
• 08/12/2020 – Jen Thorpe – Book of Jen
• 08/13/2020 – Heather – Just Geeking By
• 08/14/2020 – Chestnut – Gamer Girl Confessions
• 08/15/2020 – Syp – Bio Break
• 08/16/2020 – Endalia – Princess in a Castle
• 08/17/2020 – Bhagpuss – Inventory Full
• 08/18/2020 – Nogamara – Battle Stance
• 08/19/2020 – Solarayo – Ace Asunder
• 08/20/2020 – Naithin – Time to Loot
• 08/21/2020 – JamiesVlogUK – Whats Occurin: A Life of a Welshman
• 08/22/2020 – Professor Beej – The Geekery
• 08/23/2020 – MagiWasTaken – Indiecator
• 08/24/2020 – Joar – WoW Alt Addiction
• 08/25/2020 – UnwiseOwl – Leaflocker
• 08/26/2020 – Telwyn – Gaming Sans Frontières
• 08/27/2020 – Sandrian – Aeternus Gaming
• 08/28/2020 – UltrViolet – Endgame Viable
• 08/29/2020 – Kanter – MMO One Night a Week
• 08/30/2020 – Belghast – Tales of the Aggronaut

As you can see, I’m right up there relatively late, on the 23rd of August with a post but, honestly, I’ll probably try to post about all prompts regardless as it’s more fun that way – and I’ll link to the “host” for the prompt as well as the next “host” in line. :) Looking forward to it!

The main concern about Blaugust – as far as I understood it – that some people had was that the “competition”-style might actually not help people revitalize their or other blogs. Posting 31 daily posts can be quite stressful depending on your schedule and alas it can get quite annoying to fulfil the quota, prepare blog posts, edit them in time, find screenshots, and do all of that within one month to get some badge for your blog in the end. The badge may be the cause for this “stress” that people put themselves through… and obviously, it was debatable. I personally love the 31 posts on 31 days idea for the Challenge-part and obviously, I love showing off that badge-png on my blog… but I also was never in this “I need to post more than others!” mindset but rather was thinking in that “how far can I push certain limits?” pattern. 

During Blaugust19, I posted 31 posts in 31 days and saw that I could actually reduce the time to write reviews considerably while also having more success with it by writing shorter reviews (about 1k words instead of 3-4k) where I don’t explain the game (and possibly spoil it) to my readers but instead talk about what I like and don’t like and removing everything that doesn’t add value. During Blapril20, I ended up posting 45 posts. I sadly got busier at the end of it, so I couldn’t go for the originally planned 69 posts (that exact number because I’m still a child in my head).

And if the original Blaugust idea would have happened this month, I probably would have aimed for 31+ posts again… but something has changed. Bel is trying out something new which might be more fun and we’ll just see how it’s perceived and if it works out in the end in the way that it was intended to be. Mostly, since Blapril already happened this year, though, because of the concerns above and since some people might not be willing to do “another Blaugust-type event”. Alas, we’re trying out this.

Alas, I’m announcing my participation in the Blaugust Promtapalooza – a blog “tour” of sorts where someone posts a blog post, followed by a prompt for the next day, linking to the next blog in line. That blog then writes about the prompt that the previous blog announced and then announces the prompt for the next day, along with the link to the next blog, resulting in essentially a “blog crawl” where you can make your way through 31 blogs that wanted to participate this year. Of course, you don’t have to follow these blog prompts and of course, you don’t have to read them all or write daily… but regardless of that, I’m looking forward to it, again challenging certain limitations I have and hopefully making it through the end. 

On top of that, I was hoping to keep up with most of the blogs participating this year and reading through a bunch of them every day while shouting some of them out in a blog post at the end of the week. “This is what I’ve read this week, this is why I liked these so much. Check them out!” or something like that… I’ll still have to work on the draft-idea that I had in mind but I think that might be quite cool as some extra posts… 

And then there’s also going to be the normal posts that I would have posted anyways, regardless of Blaugust or whatever. For instance, I’ve been working on one huge post about my blog’s one-year-anniversary… for three or four days now, my blog has existed for a year… so that’s really cool… and I wanted to celebrate that with some stats and my favourite posts and that kind of stuff. I feel like that might be really cool but I also am still working on it and will hopefully get it out soon. 

There will be posts about games that have come out and that are still coming out. I have three or four interviews planned but didn’t get to write the questions just yet. It’s been a bit iffy time-wise over here, especially as my sleep schedule is quite messy at the moment (again), although I’ve managed to sleep this night for the second night in a row!

Apart from that, I’m taking care of cats right now. My best friend and her boyfriend are not in town right now so I need to take care of them from Tuesday until Saturday (Today is Thursday! Hello, future!), which mostly means feeding them and playing/cuddling with them since they’re very social – and I also need to watch over them so that they don’t do stupid things. It’s been quite cool so far and I really am enjoying my time with them… but as far as working on blog posts go, it’s a bit tough to do that when they want to get your attention by walking over your laptop and stuff… alas, I stopped that for the entirety of yesterday… and I’ve got to stop it today, too, I think, as they are way too cute to be ignored… maybe I’ll get productive again when they are napping later on… 

But once I get some more time to write as well as some new pictures of them, I’ll post some cute ones (got the permission from my best friend!) including some interesting ideas regarding stupid thoughts I came up with while playing with the cats. I think you might like that. 

And well, apart from that not much else has happened. I’m done with some of my exams. Ms Magi and I have been together for 13 months already. I’ve been really lucky to have met her. It’s a bit insane that my blog is only a month older than my current relationship. I just kind of feel like I’ve been blogging for ages now and that I’ve learned a bunch and got to know a lot of people. I guess all these thoughts could go into a separate blog post as well.

At last, there’s also the To The Moon Minisodes that I played actually… but I didn’t get to write a post about them just yet… and since I’ve been late already, I thought “why not wait a bit more and play games that I actually enjoy?”, so I did and alas, I’ll have to write a post about my recent Monster Hunter World endeavours, I’ve got some reviews and interviews in the drafts, I’ve been meaning to talk about Dark Souls 3 since I’ve been playing that on Stream, I’ve just finished Outer Wilds and wanted to review that… and then there is the Mystery Blogger Award that Megan tagged me in… and a ton more drafts sitting around!

As you can see there are a whole bunch of ideas in the work and I’ll try to get through those within the next few weeks! 

I hope you enjoyed this post. I’ve been up to a lot. Lately, I’ve been posting less but it’s mostly due to exams. Hopefully, that will change now!

Cheers!