Celebrating One Year!

Today, August 2nd, marks ONE YEAR since my site went live!!!! *throws confetti and chocolate and candy everywhere* I'll be celebrating my first anniversary in the car for a five hour drive to the Gulf Coast, where we'll be vacationing for four days, but y'all are more than welcome to enjoy the festivities...and learn a little more about the start of my website!

Originally, I blogged a little bit on Goodreads...back in late 2019 to early 2020...and it wasn't until the summer of last year that I started thinking about a website. Actually, I've wanted to have a website/blog for YEARS, but I was leaning more toward games and videos rather than chatting about books.

Anyway, my first idea was actually a site for teenagers who felt called to be missionaries - I wanted a blog, a forum, the whole works, to help connect teens across the world. Well, suffice it to say that didn't pan out. Once I started researching website building, I jumped into designing an author site. #noregrets

Within two days, I had a site. It didn't change much until my recent revamping of the whole thing, so except for adding a few pages back in December, my author site stayed the same. Well, at first, it was novelist056.wixsite.com/graceajohnson. Not my preferred URL. I gave in and paid for the premium site + custom domain back in December, so I'm the simple and lovely graceajohnson.com now!

I'd transferred my Goodreads posts here, but my very first official blog post was Name of the Week: Rina. You can check it out here!

So, real quick, let's check out the stats (because I'm sure y'all find that sooo interesting)!

My top five posts from the last year are:

• Short Story Writing Prompt Contest (215 views)

• Reflections Tag (182 views)

• Guest Post: How to Defeat Writer's Block by Kayleigh Idea (152 views)

• Author Interview: Julie Lessman (Plus a Giveaway!) (135 views)

• Author Interview: Issabelle Perry (134 views)

I have 84 site members/followers (hope to get it up to 100 by the end of the year), I've published a total of 242 blog posts (so far), and I've had 2,965 site sessions - most of which were in the US, Malaysia, South Africa, and Canada!

I'd give y'all my favorite post or whatnot, but how am I supposed to choose from 242 posts?

ANYWAY, I know I'm not the best at throwing parties, so I suggest y'all just chillax, eat ice cream, read this interview I did with my friend Daisy the other day, and have fun!!! I'll see y'all after vacation! *waves*

#happyblogiversary #oneyearanniversary #blognews #partytime #celebrate #loveyouguys #thanksforallthesupport #anyonehaveanysuggestionsforagoodsignoff #peaceoutmylovelies