Happy birthday blog

Greetings, fellow fantasy lovers, and thank you all for your attendance on this very special day. For those of you who have just wandered in off the street and have no idea why today is special (or, in fact, where on earth or indeed the multiverse you are), I'll tell you: the Reflections of Reality blog is now a year old. Yay!

[pauses for congratulatory cheers and applause]

Thank you. Thank you. Have some cake.

It's hard to believe so much time has passed since I set out on my quest for blogdom. This time last year, I'd barely started using Twitter (shock). I'd only just signed my author-self up to Facebook (horror). As far as my personal life goes, my partner and I hadn't then found out we were expecting a baby – yet now he's nearly four months old and our lives have taken on a whole new shape.

So what pearls of wisdom have I gleaned from my blogging adventures so far? Here are a few, in no particular order:

1. It's not a very good idea to commit yourself to daily blog posts for a month when you're meant to be preparing for the arrival of your firstborn. 

2. One of the best ways to get visitors to your blog is to mention Justin Bieber. (Oh look, I did it again.)

3. Dogs enjoy fantasy fiction.

4. Writing your blog posts in advance would save you time and anguish, but the various interruptions and unexpectednesses of life mean you'll always end up writing them the day they're due.*

5. If your readers are mainly other fantasy authors/fans, you won't be able to come up with a more popular topic than why fantasy is great. Sometimes preaching to the converted works.

6. Blogging, and reading other people's blogs, is a great way to find online friends/colleagues/acquaintances who share your interests. There are more readers and writers out there than you can possibly imagine.

7. No-one else can see the tentacles.**

So there you have it: my first year in the blogosphere. In honour of the occasion, over the next few weeks I will be taking part in a series of blog swaps with some other fantasy authors, fabulous bloggers and all-round awesome people. That's right – for the first time, I'm stepping off the podium and opening my doors to guest speakers. I'm sure they will entertain and thrill you more than I ever do. But if you miss my ready wit (ha), you'll find me hanging out on their blogs in return. There may even be more cake.

In the meantime, thank you all for your support (and listening ears), and I hope the next year will be just as exciting as the last. See you back here in a few weeks!

[bows, puts on magic ring and disappears]



* On second thought, maybe that's just me. I was the same with school essays. Impending deadlines are my prime source of inspiration.

** At least, I don't think they can. Maybe the tentacles are like Thestrals, except instead of needing to have witnessed death in order to see them, you have to have read one of my books.***

*** In which case, as soon as I actually publish something, there'll be hundreds of thousands**** of people screaming because they can suddenly see the big blue tentacles coming out of their walls.

**** Wishful thinking never hurt anybody.*****

***** How long can I keep footnoting my footnotes, I wonder?