In 2014, I accomplished something that I had wanted to do since I was fourteen years old, and that was to write reviews. A few attempts were made prior to my initial decision, but they were scrapped as I didn't feel confident in my opinions and writing. This changed in 2014 when I decided that if I was going to start writing reviews then I would either have to commit to it or not, but I decided on the former. Unfortunately, the best laid plans can always get messed up, which was the unfortunate case. Simply put, I wasn't following the schedule that I had set up; I was slacking off, and it showed in my output and in my writing quality.
Most of the reviews I had planned for the first half of 2014 were either scrapped or delayed to the latter part of the year, and the delaying and scrapping of planned reviews carried over into the other half of 2014. It reached a point where I stopped writing and posting to my original blog, as well as Gamefaqs, because I had to rethink everything I was doing. 2015 rolls around and I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to continue writing, then I would have to: A. Improve my writing/reviewing skills, and B. Plan a schedule and stick to it. And I did, though one of the things I chose to do before jumping back into writing was delete my old blog, since I wanted to create a new blog that reflected the improvements I was striving for. Since I started writing again, I would have to say that the new blog does reflect those goals I was aiming for, but there are still some areas that I want to improve on.
Since I started writing reviews again, my writing skills have greatly improved and I better proofread my reviews in order to get rid of any grammatical errors that may have popped up. Granted, I have noticed a grammatical error, or two, or three that I overlooked when publishing the reviews, but otherwise, I've managed to do a good job at avoiding and correcting grammatical errors. Also, I better explain the different aspects of what I'm reviewing, as well as what works and what doesn't work, so that I'm skimping on the information. The normal length of my reviews is three to five pages, the only review that was not that long was the Aliens: Colonial Marines review, which took seven pages, but looking back, I probably could have narrowed it down to five or six pages.
While I would say that this year was a great improvement for me in terms of my writing, the one issue that I want to avoid in 2016 which was still a prevalent, but not major issue this year was the occasional slaggy content output. While my output has much improved from before, there were a few reviews that got scrapped, such as reviews for Mass Effect 2, Resident Evil 4, Back to the Future, and LEGO Marvel Superheroes. However, in 2016 I aim to make sure that every review that I plan to write and publish next year will get written and published during their respective month. If something comes, for example, a black belt grading that I will be attending in March, then I'll just work my way around such occurrences in order to get the review finished and published.
With a new year encroaching upon us, I want to expand the blog by introducing some new things. I can't hint at everything new you can expect to see next year, but I will say that during the summer and winter there will be more movie reviews published because my gaming schedule tends to slow down during those times of the year. I'll also be writing reviews of TV shows next year as well; specifically reviews of anime, but I will review live action shows and American animated shows in the future. These reviews, much like the movie reviews, will be published during the summer and winter times. Don't worry, though, even though there will be more reviews of movies and TV shows starting next year, the primary focus of my blog shall and will always be game reviews.
One of the reasons I first started writing is because my future career is to become a journalist; specifically, a gaming journalist. The point of this editorial is to show that I do care about my writing and I want to improve and get better at what I do, as well as keep the content output consistent and avoid any scrapped reviews or other plans I come up with. 2016 marks the year that I fulfill both of those aspects instead of one over the other, and next year I aim to make it an interesting and entertaining one for the blog.
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