Blogging for SIX Years and Ramblings About Music, TV, and Miss Peregrine

This blog turned six years old today... I feel really old. I say that every year, but seriously: Time goes by so damn quickly!

Sorry the posts have been coming really slowly lately - I'm afraid it might take a little while before things really pick up again. University + an assortment of major personal problems = no time for bloggie. I haven't given up though, and I'm still always thinking about stuff I could post, but those ideas are stored for a less hectic day.

After all, so many exciting things are happening. In the indie music world, we got new albums from Daughter and Radical Face (I've only listened to portions so far), and later on we'll be getting new metal albums from Lacuna Coil and Epica - I'm really excited about those. The new Lacuna Coil album is going to be called Delirium, and I have a feeling it'll resonate with me considering the craziness of my life this year and the hints the band has given about the overall direction and concept.

In terms of television, the only show I have been able to keep up with, Mob Wives, came to an end. Everyone's favorite star from the show, Angela "Big Ang" Raiola, passed away after battling cancer, and that broke my heart. She was so sweet and full of energy - I cried when I heard the news.

Now I somehow got sucked into Family Therapy with Dr. Jen... how the hell did I jump onto the reality TV bandwagon?

Also... have y'all seen the trailer for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children? It seems like the rest of the Internet is pretty happy with it, so I imagine I might annoy some people, but... I'm not digging this at all. Like, nothing I enjoyed about the book in terms of feel/atmosphere looks like it'll be present. I think I might skip out on this one.

Well, that was nice catching up, but I'm going to do more homework now.

Blogging for FIVE Years

I just wanted to note that this blog turns five today... FIVE. That's like 50 in blog years. Even Dumbledore's throwing a party:

 

 

I guess nerdy middle school fun can last a while! (I promise I'm not still in middle school though!) Granted this whole "let's review stuff" thing turned into more of a "let's fangirl" thing, but it's plenty of fun, and that's what counts. For five years I've been fangirling over and critiquing the interesting books and music I've come across, from contemporary to science fiction, Lady Gaga to Epica, and the legions in between. Did I ever estimate how long this would last? Nope. Could have been a month, could have been ten years. It was all about what made me happy, and talking about all this great media is bound to make anybody happy.

When I look back at my older posts, I remember what it was like to read that book/hear that album for the first time and I can't help but smile. Each book, film, and album is a special experience that molds itself into my life, and I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have a place to share it.

 

Thanks for sticking around to read my content.

 

  

 

...Much nerdiness is yet to come. Prepare yourselves.

Blogging for FOUR Years

Today, this blog is four years old. From what I've heard around the blogosphere, that's a pretty good chunk of blogging time even though 'four' is such a tiny number, and I must admit, four years does feel like a long time as I look back. I've gradually grown as a person, gone through some phases... Typical people stuff. It doesn't surprise me that I've continued to blog throughout these past years; I've listened to a lot of great albums and read a lot of amazing books, and a girl's gotta express herself somewhere. It might as well be here.
 

But, like my general character, my blog has evolved over the past four years. It's kind of odd saying that considering that last year, I didn't even write one of these posts because I didn't feel like anything really changed between 2012 and 2013, but as I look at the entire spectrum, the past two years have sparked the most changes. I started getting a little more "involved" with the outside blogging world by participating in Top Ten Tuesday (I really love this meme) and instead of just reviewing, I do some general fangirling nonstop. I added the Anticipated Releases page as well as an About Me page (finally! even though I still don't know if it's sufficient), and I got rid of my Flag Counter; while it was so cool to see how many different countries have visited, I discovered that the stats just weren't very accurate.

 

There are some other changes that I've been considering the possibility of making but haven't yet, primarily because I'm not sure if I like my ideas. So, I rarely ever act on these ideas. But, who knows what'll happen.

My most viewed posts of all time has changed a bit since my last blogoversery post. Some are still the same, but others have taken an unexpected turn:

1. Blood | In This Moment
2. Favorite Voices
3. The House of Night, Books 1-6 by P.C. Cast + Kristin Cast
4. Sailor Moon: The Effects Last Forever
5. 'Salem's Lot | by: Stephen King
6. Design Your Universe | Epica
7. Fallen | Evanescence
8. Best Books I Read: 2011
9. End of 2010 Book Survey
10. Artist Evolution

That's a pretty decent variety, if I may say so myself. It isn't surprising that my movie reviews aren't getting much attention because I rarely ever review movies; I rarely ever see them for reasons, and it makes me sad. (Unfortunately, that hasn't changed in four years.) But I'm always surprised at which posts get the most views; I have really cool readers! :) More people have been visiting The Critiquing Critica now than ever before, and it makes me so happy that people are fangirling with me. Thanks for sticking around, but if this happens to be your first time here, I'm happy you stumbled in.

Two Years of Blogging

April 6th marks The Critiquing Critica's birthday, and today, this blog is two years old. I'm quite happy with where this blog is today, and I feel as though it can only grow from here. I love what I have built here and am so happy to have fifteen followers! Seriously - thank you all so much for taking the time out of your day to read my blog!

First of all, this blog has gotten quite a few make-overs, especially within this year. Thanks to my best friend Nickster, I think I've found the perfect look for my blog. With this new look, The Critiquing Critica is available to be viewed from mobile phones without looking too enlarged. Plus, I've added some different pages to my blog, including 'Critica's Picks,' which gives a list of my favorite books, music, film scores, and movies. To the right of my blog, underneath the About Me blurb, archive, and the Currently Reading blurb, lies a list of my newest favorite songs.

In the past year, I have started to find myself as a reviewer and a blogger. Although I care so much about my readers, this blog must be done in my own way for me to be happy as well. I plan posts all the time, I constantly write down blog ideas, and even strategically plan when they'll be posted so they're spread out nicely. Personally, I think consistence is somewhat important. I know I'd rather read a blog that posts once every couple of weeks rather that see fifty posts in one week without anymore posts within the month. Of course, everyone's different. I know that a lot of people would rather see more posts per month, even per week. But, I will not make a commitment to post every day or every week. Once a month or so makes me happy, primarily because I don't see this blog as a job. It seems that other people see blogging as a job, but I beg to differ. I see it as a hobby. However, there are a lot of job-blogs that are probably much better than mine, but that's not really a priority. As long as someone out there reads something I write here, I'm happy, and I hope that my dear readers can be happy with that, too. I honestly care so much about my readers, but like I said, I need to do this my way. That's what makes it my blog.

From the beginning, I saw myself as a book blogger since I reviewed more books than anything. But let's face it: I'm not a book blogger. The only thing book blogger-ish about this blog is the fact that it's in the YA Book Blog Directory because books happen to be reviewed here. Other than that, The Critiquing Critica doesn't seem to fit in with that blog genre, if you will. From this day forward, it is to be simply called a review blog, because that's what it really is. My reviews extended to music and movies as well, and according to my stats, more people look at my music reviews than anything else. This is somewhat evident in my top ten popular post list, as six of the ten are music related:

1. Favorite Voices
2. House of Night, Books 1-6 by: P.C. Cast + Kristin Cast
3. 'Salem's Lot | by: Stephen King
4. Look what I made!
5. End of 2010 Book Survey
6. Fallen | Evanescence
7. Best Books I Read: 2011
8. Artist Evolution
9. The Unforgiving | Within Temptation
10. The Fame Monster | Lady Gaga

(Even so, the best way to see exactly how much more popular my music reviews are, one would have to look at my entire post list, and I really don't think it's necessary for me to post that.)

According to my Flag Counter, this site has been visited 8,595 times by 118 different countries.

Thank you so much for visiting, and I hope that you all continue to stop by in the future!

Blogging For One Year

Okay, so maybe it's a little bit longer than a year, but at least I'm in the right month. From 0 followers to 12, from not having a Flag Counter to over 2,000 pageviews by about 70 different countries - The Critiquing Critica has evolved over this span of time. Yeah, I guess it was a good first year.


For about half a year before actually getting around to make this blog, I decided that I wanted to review the books I read, and maybe a few movies and CDs. Just to talk about them and share my general opinion. I had no idea that book blogging existed at the time. Heck, I wasn't even sure what a blog was! Well one thing led to another, and here I am, talking about my little blogging journey.


A lot has changed around here since April 6, 2010. First of all, my reviewing style has definately grown. Originally, I wrote a summary, one paragraph critiquing the writing of the book (or acting in the movie, etc.) and one paragraph about how I generally felt, followed by the star rating. Now, I go much further. In fact, my reviews are a bit too in depth and lengthy, but I don't want to leave anything unmentioned. I've always examined things closely, but now I notice more than ever, I am even more of a critic. Also, the blog got a make-over at some point, since Blogger had some new pretty templates to offer.


However, I got a little scared in my first year of blogging. I read a few things about the subject, and before I knew it, I was asking myself the question all the time: Will a publisher even give me the time of day, knowing I am basically a book blogger? For so long, I've wanted to have my work published someday, so I became terribly frightened, and actually considered giving up blogging forever. Soon, I figured out this would only happen if I bash people that I don't like (or if I just don't like their work), and quite frankly, I don't. Honestly, I think I'm fair. It's not often that I review something I have no nice things to say about, so why should I worry? In addition, when pondering this, I always came back to my original reasons for starting The Critiquing Critica, and I don't know how I lived before. How did I function, holding in my opinions on the books I read and movies I saw? Especially since I tend to go with what the minority of people like around here, I had no one to talk to about these things without boring them. That's why I blog.


So, I have officially celebrated my first blogging anniversery. Better late than never.