Happy One-Year Bloggiversary!

Even though I officially began the Wild Blog in the West on February 20, 2012, I published my first real blog post on September 1, 2012... one year ago.

I had never kept a blog before.  I had done lots of ghost writing for other blogs, but the style of writing was very different.  I also wrote recaps for reality shows several years ago, but that was different -- a set subject matter, defined parameters.  What would I do with a blog?  How often would I update it?  What if I ran out of things to talk about?

Thankfully, the fears that I would run out of things to say never came to pass.  If anything, the number of topics has expanded over the months -- the only thing that's contracted is time.  This blog has given me space to be a massive fangirl about things like Les Miserables, the musical, or to rant about things I hate, like leaf blowers.  Despite the fact that the Wild Blog in the West has no major theme or niche, the number of page views for August 2013 was 20 times greater than for September 2012.

Here's to hoping for another great year with more readers and other interesting topics!  What are some things to anticipate?

1.  More About My Novel.  Yes, that's the main reason you come here, right?  I'll continue to give periodic updates about my progress and feature more chapters.  I mentioned that someone in a high place at a publishing company was reading my novel draft; the good news is that she finished it and liked it, and recommended it to the Historical editor.  The bad news is, again, from what I've seen, that publishing company deals with books that are very different from mine, so (1) that makes it highly likely to be rejected and (2) even if it is accepted, would that be a good thing?

Even after my complaints about prejudice against long novels -- which I still think are valid -- I've pruned about 32,000 words from its maximum length.  It's still "too long," but perhaps more acceptably so.  I managed to prune without getting rid of anything significant -- just one chapter that didn't have much to do with the story and which harmed the flow.  It reads a lot sharper, I will admit.  However, I don't think I can cut anything more without having to break apart the story, which I really don't want to do.  Next step: hammer out an awesome query letter and hop on the querying bus.

2.  Movie Musicals.  I've done a number of movie musical reviews by now, with the focus on live-action movie musicals made in the past 15 years or so.  Still in the pipeline: Hairspray, Sweeney Todd, and yes, Moulin Rouge.  After that, the bench starts to get a little thin.  If I can't find any other significant movie musicals from recent years, I'll start working my way backward.  I haven't touched animated musicals because they're so ubiquitous -- really, the main form in which we see musicals now (because it requires such a suspension of disbelief when people in movies sing *eye roll*).  But if I decide to feature them, I might do it in a unique way, like "least expected animated musical" or something of the like.

3.  Downton Abbey.  Downton Abbey will be back... unfortunately not until January because PBS is too greedy for ratings to let it go head to head with network shows.  (Hmm, never thought I would write that sentence.)  Though I suspect I know what will happen beforehand, since I live in the United States, I will be good and hold off on the recaps until January.

4.  Other Series.  I haven't ruled out recapping other series, whether in TV, movie, book, or other form.  The question is finding series that haven't been recapped to death.  The first one that comes to mind is the Hunger Games trilogy, not because that hasn't been reviewed to death, but because I still think Mockingjay has received a bum rap and would like to delve into it further.  I also might focus on past series rather than current, ones that are high-quality, but haven't received the accolades that they should.  One that comes to mind is Big Love, but I don't know whether to commit to it.

5.  Unpopular Opinions.  Yep, I'll always have those. *wink*  Though they might not always be socially critical, just opinions that cut against the grain.

6.  To AdSense or Not to AdSense?  In the near future, I might include AdSense ads on my blog.  I'm not even quite sure what it involves -- pointing and clicking on ad links?  Well, you have the choice to do so or not.

7.  Wildcard!  As in, I don't really know some of the things that might be in store.  I could get inspired.

Anyway, thanks so much to all of you who have read, and who keep coming back to read more.  It's been a great experience so far, and may there be many great years to come.

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