The down sides of anime blogging

Before I get into this, I want to just say that I love anime blogging. I may not always have time to write a blog post from time to time, but I love getting my thoughts of different parts of anime out to the public. Even if it’s a blog post and it doesn’t get the same size of an audience as one from a youtube video, that’s fine by me. I also love taking part of the anime blogging community. To those who I talk to pretty often and maybe not talk to at all, I’m glad that you are reading this post and my blog. I’m always shocked that I have gained any sort of following on here, so thank you all. Now that all of that good stuff is out of the way, time to bring out the bad.

1) Lower anime watching rate

This seems kind of obvious, but it’s obvious for a reason. I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t watch subbed anime and blog at the same time. I am watching Escaflowne and writing this post at the same time, but that’s only because I’m checking out its new dub and it’s not the most complex anime that I’ve ever watched. In general though, about 90% of the anime that I watch is subbed. I do watch older stuff dubbed when I can, but simulcasted shows are subbed. I also don’t care for a lot of the broadcast dubs that Funimation is involved with, so that’s not an option. With my busy schedule, I am able to squeak in maybe two or three episodes of anime a night and write about a little bit if there is time. That means my slow watch rate is slower because of it.

2) Pressure to Post

Maybe this is just me, but I always feel this mental pressure to have a post up as soon as possible. When I don’t have time to write a post, I never mentally feel alright with myself. Considering this blog life style revolves around sharing opinions with what we write, it always annoys me I don’t do my part by sharing as many post as I can. Of course, I always have this same mental pressure on everything that I do. I do my best to push myself and accomplish as many things as I can.

3) Writers’ Block

This is something all of us writers face from time to time. Sure, it’s easy to write a review about that show you just watched or that episode that you just watch, but what if you want to expand your horizons more? What if you want to write a post about something that will set you apart from the other bloggers but you can’t do it because you don’t any ideas on what to write? It’s a constant challenge because you may not be able to see all of the infinite possibilities that you can write about. You might be in that room of ideas, but you may have nothing but a flash light to see glimpses of what you can write about.

4) Balance of hard work vs view count

Let’s assume that you get your post out on time and its creative and everything. You may have put a ton of hours building into this post that you think people are going to like. This post is going to be your magnum opus, the best thing that you have ever done. After posting it, you find out that nobody wants to read it because it doesn’t interesting people. While I am not looking for views, it still hurts when nobody reads what I consider the best post ever at that time. Why? Because that post I spent maybe half an hour on and posted it immediately sometimes gains a much larger following and has a bigger reaction behind it. Its really weird.

5) My post is never good enough

Maybe this is another thing for people like me, but do you ever get the feeling what you just posted isn’t good enough. This is apart of that artist constant improvement thing, but still. I can barely look at some of my previous posts. Heck, I sometimes scoff at a post as I post it. Maybe it has to do with finding how I want to write my posts or it could be that I suck. Who knows really? Not me that’s for sure. The best thing I can do is try to find a different way to write my posts or try to feel better about what I am posting. Eh we all know that the later is more likely. It’s that sort of feeling that artist use to improve their work. Find that flaw, nitpick and improve on it, find a new flaw, and continue the cycle.

These are the challenges that new bloggers have face along with staying interested in blogging. These things are also why bloggers take hiatuses from blogging from time to time. Taking a break clears your mind of all the stress behind blogging and bring you back into the game. In the end though, just make sure you know you want to continue blogging because that will make all of this stress completely worth it. With everything else, just know that the positives heavily out weigh the negatives. The negatives still have an effect though, so never count them out.