Overview of 2018 & What’s Happening in 2019!

Welcome to the annual overview post. I didn’t get a chance to get to it yesterday so I’m doing a quick one with the look forward to 2019. We could do two posts but I’m honestly not really in the mood to overload anyone with these posts. Its more of a reminder of what I’ve achieved in 2018 and new or adjusted plans to work with for 2019!

OVERVIEW OF 2018

2018 was a rough year in general. I had some PC issues in the beginning of the year which caused a whole lot of crazy as I had to get another PC built which put a lot of stuff behind. We had some other personal issues that caused a lot of worries and issues. However, 2018 is over now and as I look back, there were some really nice achievements and that is what matters. I started Tranquil Dreams to focus on the positives in the first place so that is what we’re going to do right now.

How about some stats to start? I haven’t done those in a while, it feels like at least.

Total Posts in 2018: 374 posts
Total Views: 69,450
Top 5 Countries: USA, India, Canada, UK & Hong Kong SAR
Top 5 posts published in 2018

• TV Series Index
• TV Binge: Ultimate Beastmaster (Season 2, 2017)
• Fantasia Festival: Under the Silver Lake (2018)
• Top 15 Anticipated Movies of 2018
• TV Binge; Zumbo’s Just Desserts 

And then for some achievements:

• Goodreads Challenge – 30 Books
• Fantasia Festival coverage of 20 films
• Festival du Nouveau Cinema coverage of 9 films
• Blood in the Snow Festival – remote coverage of 8 films
• Montreal Comiccon coverage for Game Warp Podcast
• Ultimate Decades Blogathon co-hosted with Drew’s Movie Reviews
• Started up and co-host Movies and Tea Podcast with Elwood
• Set Up the Facebook page for Tranquil Dreams
• What’s Up segment on Youtube
• Set Up a Weibo social media account

What to Expect in 2019!

2019 is here! A lot was done last year when I look back so I’m hoping to keep up and polish some social media skills and hopefully promote the blog a little better. Its all about working on the content right now. A lot of my issues this past year when I look back is procrastination and that sprouted from lack of organization or following through with tentative schedules and just not having the motivation from all the garbage that life threw at me. Then I added on a few segments as well (probably should of mentioned in the above section).

Resolutions: Less Procrastination (because none would be impossible) & Better Organization

BOOKS

• Goodreads Challenge: 40 Books (might increase to 50 depending on what happens)
• More focus on Graphic Novels and Comics
• Getting back to reading Classics
• Other TBR books that I own, outstanding book requests and blog tours

MOVIES & TV

• What stays the same: Most movies and TV from Netflix and rentals and Web series on Youtube as well as film festival coverages
• Adding in focus on Chinese language Asian movies and TV series (could be China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan, Singapore)

FOOD & DINING

• Battle of Ingredients, Goodfood recap, Food Festivals and Restaurants
• Baking Through Disney revival (whether its Disney reviews and conceptualizing baking projects)

WEEKLY/MONTHLY SEGMENTS

• Music Obsessions (first weekend of each month)
• Wine Recap (10th of each month)
• Weekly Adventures (15th and 30/31 of each month)
• What’s Up (everyday Wednesday – possibly back to video format)
• Sunday Lists (biweekly to monthly frequency)

The main shift this year is the focus on Chinese language Movies, TV and possibly books since I’ve been meaning to get back to some Chinese reading. I’ve felt like a part of what started off a lot of my interests in the first place so when I moved into blogging and gave up a lot of it, its been always something that I’ve been trying to get back to. Its a risky move because no one really reads those posts but this space is about my interests and I do want to share those interests with you especially since a lot of it is now moved to more modern platforms like Netflix and Youtube having access.

Other than that, after some thought, I’m also heading back to more food-oriented content. It might be a slow start but I have changed my approach on the Baking Through Disney project and will start on reviewing Disney films while figuring out how to approach the design for baking. That way the project doesn’t get held up and ends up falling apart again.

As for What’s Up, as I’ve mentioned before, will end up going back to a video and written format. Both formats are fun to do so depending on time, I will work on trying to have both of them  paired up.

Its kind of long but quite a bit of the same going on!
A lot of the repeat for those new to the blog to see where you can navigate.