Today’s the day! Happy 1st Blogaversary, The Untold Spiral! Wow, what a year it’s been. Remember this post? That’s where it all started. Despite being a fairly experienced blogger when I began (thanks to my Adventures of the Spiral position), creating a blog did make me nervous. Right from the get-go I wanted to hold myself to very high standards. I’m a perfectionist at heart, so it was only natural for me. One of my goals was to remain consistent with my posts, meaning that I would write and publish a post every x number of days. Because of my school work and all my other community leadership positions, I thought a week was a good place to start. I knew that it would be tough sometimes, but I’m always up for a challenge.
Well, one year later and I can proudly say that I’ve published a blog post every week since my blog started. Go ahead … check. ;) It’s something that I’m very proud of and hope to continue to do as this site progresses. Not including this one, my site has had 68 posts in its first year. Although I can point to memorable aspects of each, I of course do have my favorites. Today I’ll be counting down my top 10 posts from The Untold Spiral’s first year (and list your favorites as well!)
*Click on the blue headings to visit each post!*
10. How to Write a Ravenwood Paper
One of the things I love to do when writing is put myself inside the game! If I really were a Ravenwood student, wouldn’t I need to do … schoolwork? I took that question to heart and wrote what it would be like to write a Ravenwood paper for Cyrus Drake. I had a blast experimenting with the chat and thought bubbles and even threw in a SpongeBob reference. Can you catch it? ;)
9. Friendship is in the Air
I love cheesy valentines and decided to make some of my own for last year’s Friendship Festival. I’m extremely happy with the end result and hope some wizards try them out this year! What could possibly go wrong?!
8. Astral Schools – Which are Worth it?
My Astral Schools article was a monster of an informative post and took me a lot of time to put together. I’ve received a ton of positive feedback from it and I’m super happy that it’s been able to help many people!
7. Yuletide Carols
To help celebrate 2015’s 12 Days of the Spiral, I created a Christmas song parody for every day of the event. Because they’re two of my most unique posts, they will always have a special place in my heart. (Plus, they were a lot of fun to write!)
6. Dear Halfang
Halfang is arguably the most popular and efficient way to quickly obtain gold. In fact, we’re so busy beating him to a pulp that many of us don’t stop to think how he feels about it. In an attempt to explore that different point of view, I wrote a letter to Halfang apologizing for the endless torture we put him through.
5. Understanding the Buff List
I love buffs. When it was announced that a buff list was going to be added to the game … I was ecstatic! It only made sense to try to test the system and see how it functioned. I reported my findings in guide form and people went crazy for it. I still think that this post is one of my most helpful to date and even I refer back to it sometimes.
4. KingsIsle Employee Interviews (#JuliaFromKI and Kevin Chin)
To me, nothing is more exciting than getting to know the people who make the games we love come to life. I can’t thank KingsIsle enough for the opportunity to interview #JuliaFromKI and Kevin Chin. Sadly, Julia was caught in the company layoffs back in May, but I hope she’s found success elsewhere.
3. Enjoy Paradise: The Floating Land
The Floating Land is the perfect vacation spot … on the surface. You just have to ignore all the killer Wildclaws and Crazed Water-Moles. Running with that idea, I made a sarcastic Floating Land advertisement that mimicked those cheesy TV commercials.
2. Dear Cyrus Drake
To me, Cyrus Drake is more than a meanie. He cares about his students in the most hidden and bizarre way, but he cares nonetheless. I think very few people think of him as a true “mentor,” and I wanted to shed some light on that side of him. One of the reasons why this is my second favorite post is because it mirrored my own journey with Wizard101. By thanking Professor Drake for everything he’s done for me, I also had to reflect on my past adventures. And boy, does time fly.
1. Letters to Malistaire
By far the post that I put the most effort into was Letters to Malistaire. From the crinkled sheets of paper, to the newspaper articles and photographs, I went all out. I’ve mentioned before that I’m very interested in character backstories. Malistaire is definitely one of the most intriguing, yet unexplored examples. I was aware that Malistaire was a death professor and that meant that he had to have had taught many many students. I wondered what his transformation to the dark side would seem like in the eyes of those who knew him well before that period. Thus, Letters to Malistiare was born. I couldn’t be happier with how it came out.
Your Favorites
In order to enter my raffle, I asked my readers on this post to comment with what their favorite post was. Now it’s time to share the current tally. (Please keep in mind that all raffle entries have to be in by tonight!)
- Dear Halfang – 7 Votes
- Astral Schools – Which are Worth it? – 6 Votes
- Letters to Malistaire -2 Votes
- Celestial Power – 2 Votes
- Enjoy Paradise: The Floating Land
- Understanding the Buff List
- Diary of a Pet
- Wizard101’s 8th Birthday Celebration
- Yuletide Carols
- Ding Dong! The Duck is Dead
- My Top 10 Things about Polaris
- The Finish Line
Thank you all for an amazing first year!