(flings confetti in the air for Future Me to deal with later)

Slice the cake and polish your tiaras! It’s the annual celebration of another year of bookmarkedone!

First order of business, the thank-yous and the stats:

Thank you to each and every one of my 220 followers for reading and following the blog, from @ailishsinclair7, three years ago, to @saiira, joining us last week.

Sometimes I have days where I just don’t want to get up the nerve to blog, and it means a lot that I have people out there who want to read the stories from my kooky little bookshelf in this mad corner of the universe.

And while I’m singing my own praises (which I don’t like to do all that much), may I please draw your attention to the coolest moments for the blog in the last year?

“Blunt the Knives” opening drumroll on the table please, for:

Getting Retweeted by James Riley

(muffled bookmarkedone screaming into a pillow because I’m still not sure what happened)

Story goes like this: I finally get my grubby claws on a copy of James Riley’s The Revenge of Magic, first in his new MG book series. I read. I enjoy. I judge. I rant. I write a review. I publish on the blog (ja, go read it, please). And then I tag James Riley on social media, as one does…

…and he saw it, read the review, and liked it.

In case you do not believe me, I have proof.

Okay, so at this point, I’m a blushing puddle of confused elation hovering over my keyboard because a real writer has acknowledged my existence and enjoyed my work. Hold it together, bookmarkeone. You just insulted a NYT bestselling author. No biggie.

I respond:

Right. Suave. I’m good. I’m good.

I was grinning to myself all week. It’s not every day you get to call someone you admire an idiot and get away with it.

And fun fact–I didn’t tell some loved ones this story until…a few weeks ago? And they know of James Riley from me ranting and shoving books in their faces since Story Thieves was a thing, so…

Their reactions were kind of…

(flips table) “You what now? No, sit down. I need to hear this.”

Not an exact quote. You get the idea.

So…yeah. Thank you, James Riley. My dad now thinks I’m cool.

So next up, we have:

Bookmarkedone on Social Media!

So technically this belongs to last year’s blogiversary, but I’d only been on Twitter for a few days at that point, so…yeah. I’m @bookmarkedone, same as here on WordPress. And I have a lot of fun over there. I post most days, just random little observations too short for a blog post.

Examples?

Well, since you insist:

Um.

Some of those tweets are from during university finals.

I’d like to say I’m not such an unhinged force of chaos the rest of the time, but you follow my blog.

You know it’s a lie.

Next up!

Luke Wildman Reads BookmarkedOne

So in case you are woefully ignorant, Luke Wildman is one of the new and emerging SF/F authors featured in L. Ron Hubbard presents Writers of the Future Vol. 37 which I reviewed on the blog. I think I’ve gushed about his short story enough at this point (Have I, though? Have I?).

I’d like to say Wildman just found the blog and was dazzled by my wit…but I’m pretty sure I was so excited after reading “How to Steal the Plot Armor” that he got a message from some random snob yelling about the quality of his writing on social media.

No introduction. No explanation Just YOU WRITE GOOD MORE PLEASE.

…I can’t find the message now to be sure.

(clears throat).

Right, well, maybe I wasn’t as awkward as I’m remembering, because this still happened:

Like, getting a compliment like that pretty much knocks me over on any day, but hearing that from someone who can seriously actually write wow dude–that’s kind of a different story.

Sometimes I write posts and everybody’s busy (hey! I am too! I know how it feels!) and they slip through the cracks into The Hungry Void. So on the rare occasions something like this happens…I hold on to them.

It’s like “Hey! I’ve convinced them into thinking I’m a real blogger, mwahaha!”

…and then I remember I am a real blogger. It’s the human being part that’s tripping me up occasionally.

So…yeah. Long story short, Luke Wildman follows my blog and it’s been half a year, but I’m still pretty stoked about that.

Moving on to more recent events…

Bookmarkedone is now on Ko-fi!

You may have noticed the characteristic coffee cup make its appearance at the very bottom of the bookmarkedone homepage yesterday.

Just to clarify–the blog is free, always has been, and will continue to be.

But, you know, any mysterious rich benefactors out there who want to visit my tip jar at Ko-fi.com/bookmarkedone, knock yourself out. Tips are great. I’m a musician. Believe me, I think tips are great.

And that brings us to–

The Future

I know there’s probably a lot more in the last year that I could have talked about (and if I skipped anything important, please feel free to remind me of your favorite bookmarkedone moments!), but I don’t want this post to get too long and there’s something important I want to make sure to talk about.

The future of bookmarkedone.

Don’t worry. The blog’s not going anywhere.

But.

On the other hand, I’m always refining just what I want BookmarkedOne to be. Let’s be honest–I don’t review books quite as often as I used to. And the truth is–I’m not the ideal indie book reviewer. Everyone says you should be gentler to books from a small press, and–I’m not good at that. I want brilliant quality no matter where the story comes from. Part of the reason that I established bookmarkedone under an alias is so that I can say whatever I want. Not to be cruel, but to say what I think needs to be said. To be honest, in a way you often can’t when you’re looking someone in the eye.

And so I can meet authors like James Riley and Patrick Rothfuss at conventions or book signings one day and not fear for my life because of my own bardic mockery.

Anyway.

That means I’m not a book blogger quite the same way that everyone else is…and I have to chart my own course from here.

So where should we go? What should we do next?

I confess I’m not entirely without ideas. I mean, it’s pretty weird that I blog so much about music and most of you have never heard a single note. I’d post more about Renaissance festivals and cosplay, but it’s harder to publicize something so niche and I can’t tell if bookish adventures are more popular. Should I post more nonfiction like the mango story? Stick to reviewing what others have written?

Not a clue.

So I’m doing something I really don’t like to often do:

I’m asking for help.

I’ve been thinking pretty hard about starting a bookmarkedone YouTube channel/podcast for all things bookish. But the thing is, I don’t want to do it if it’s going to get buried and totally ignored. I’m a musician too, remember, and tiny audiences (or no audience!) can make me really sad. Writers, for all that we hide and type and avoid seeing people, are still storytellers. We’re still performers playing to the crowd, after all.

So here’s my deal. If I can get enough comments, enough positive attention regarding bookmarkedone in video or streaming format to satisfy me that I won’t be telling fairytales to the Void, I’ll sharpen my mental swords and do battle with that which is daunting me.

And if all is calm and still waters, well, you’ll still have bookmarkedone as you know it.

Can’t get rid of me yet.

The future’s up to you, darlings! Let’s raise our glasses to another year, and I’ll hold my breath to see what adventure you send me on next.

Until then,

thanks for the fun, and happy reading.