Fashionably late to the party, of course, I thought it’d be worth jumping in and saying hi either way! For those of you who don’t know what Blaugust is by now, I mentioned in a previous Weekend Wrap-Up I would be taking part in Blaugust 2021, although Belghast’s initial post explains it much better. It’s an annual event among the video game blogging circle intended to foster community and get people blogging and interacting a little more. The original point of this event was to blog every day in August. It’s also the time of year when we train our spellchecks that no, it’s not August, it’s Blaugust, I said what I meant!

Now… I will neither be blogging daily (I know my limits) nor blogging about gaming (exclusively, at least), but this is the community I got my start in and they are my people so I plan to give my Blaugust a little bookish spin, perhaps other topics if they come to me, I’m pretty easy.

What will I be blogging about? Frankly, the usual. I have drafts for a couple of book reviews, we’ll see a continuation of the Buffyverse Project and my first steps into horror fiction, which I’m really enjoying. I made a whole bunch of drafts when I first came back to book blogging, honestly, just to make sure I always had ideas for posts. I have yet to actually use any of those drafts but it could be fun to pull some of those out. Those are mostly book related, though there are some Dungeons & Dragons and cross stitch ideas in that pile, along with some video games but really, my focus has not been on gaming for a very long time. That is unless you ask me to play Phasmophobia with you, then I will pull my headset on, load up Steam and yell obscenities at digital ghosts who just want us dead. I would also really like to resubscribe to Final Fantasy XIV but I have limited funds and limited horror books right now and I need to save up for a Glastonbury (town) trip and I’m looking into getting my blog hosted, you understand.

We shall see!

August is my oyster. It could be fruitful, it could be relaxed, we’ll just have to see how I go. Regardless, Belghast has a list of all the participants this year and I’m sure it’s not too late to sign up and join us. I even had some ideas for the suggested prompts Bel listed.

• Week One: Welcome to Blaugust Week (pretty universal)
• Week Two: Getting to Know You Week (again… universal)
• Week Three: Developer Appreciation Week (rather than game developers, this could give thanks to publishers, editors, writers, marketers, cover artists… or whatever your focus is – the people behind the things we love)
• Week Four: Staying Motivated Week (perhaps more intended for daily bloggers but this could be any form of motivation, maybe you struggle with reading slumps or just really need to tidy your shelves)
• Week Five: Lessons Learned

These are, of course, just ideas to help you along. You can write about anything and I absolutely plan to do that, but if a day goes by when I’m sure I want to get a post up but feel a little unsure on what to write, we have a baseline to go from. And if you need any more ideas, Naithin has a nice post about “bouncing ideas” around which is a really nice way to get involved in the community and boost each other.

Welcome to Blaugust!