Recognizing the Otaku Author! (Blogger Recognition Award 2)

It’s been seven months since I released my first Blogger Recognition Award post, so now seems like the perfect time for another. It’s always nice to get recognized… unless it’s in a lineup!

1. Say thanks to who nominated you and leave a link back to that person’s blog.

Amazingly, I’ve managed to amass three separate nominations this time around and unlike last time, I’m going to get this post out before any more come in.

Yomu at Umai Yomu Anime Blog

I think this may be the second time Yomu has nominated me for this award, but it’s the first time I’ve responded. It’s not that I don’t like Yomu… well, maybe a little bit… Ah, who am I kidding, Yomu made me watch Sankarea and I can never forgive him for that. Anyhow, thanks for the nomination.

Chris Joynson at Never Argue with a Fish

Bizarrely, this is also the second time Chris has nominated me. I don’t know if he forgot or not, but it’s all good. I’ve said before that I love completing the tag posts and I mean it. Chris recently got some great news and I want to be the first to say congratulations. It’s not every day that a second season gets announced. Princess Connect! Re:Dive, we’re ready and waiting for more!

Irina at Drunken Anime Blog

So this is my first nomination from Irina for the Blogger Recognition Award and it’s quite the honour. Irina is practically the Godfather of ani-blogging and likes to dabble with colour theory. She famously once rode through the streets of Quebec on the back of a moose, naked, and very drunk, having just watched Natsume Yuujinchou where she took a sip every time a cat was on the screen. This just in, that story probably isn’t true, but what is true anymore?

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2. Give the story or history of your blog.

If you’re looking for a long post that documents my efforts in blogging then you’ve come to the wrong place. For that, you should check out my first post – Chronicling the Otaku Author! It’s pretty detailed and covers the many different blogs that I’ve been involved in. As that already exists, I felt like I should try to focus more on the now.

It’s come to my attention that many bloggers have only just started using the Gutenberg format of WordPress. I don’t know if this was a forced move over or a simultaneous jump from many, but all I can say is welcome. I’ve been using it since they first started to make it available. Normally, I’m not an early adopter, but since I spend so much time on my blogs and I could see that it was going to be mandatory at some point in the future, I decided to get on as soon as possible. So, since I’ve been using it for well over a year, I thought I would leave some tips on using the block editor rather than generic blogging tips.

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3. Give two or more pieces of advice for new bloggers.

Is it a Block if it can Move?

When you first start using blocks is can feel a little odd starting a new block for every paragraph, title, image, etc, but the more you use them the more normal it feels. Having a clear separation between paragraphs is a good thing. I know that when I start reading posts that if I see the dreaded wall of text, I am very unlikely to continue reading. I may skim it at best.

Ultimately, we all want our words to be read, so why not make it as easy for the reader as possible. Reading on a screen is not the same as reading in a magazine or a book, so you have to format things accordingly. The block editor makes this simple. Just hit Enter to start a new block.

Ah, but that’s not all. What if you’re editing your post and decide that something you said would be better in a different spot? Well, that’s easy. Simply put your cursor in the block and you’ll see a couple of arrows appear in the left margin. You can move the entire block up or down one block at a time or even drag it to wherever you want.

It’s true, however, that you will need to format each block individually. Worry not, for this is where my second tip comes in!

Don’t Hate Duplicate!

I tend to develop a format for posts and then stick with them for a while. A fairly common one will involve a header, a block of text and then an image. It’s fine to build that every once and a while, but if I was doing a list post like Anime Favorites A-Z Challenge (Sunday Twenty-Sixes) where I needed at least twenty-six of them, it could get pretty boring pretty quickly.

Well, with blocks, we have the ability to duplicate them. The best thing about this is that I can highlight multiple blocks at once and duplicate them all as a group. That way I get the header, the text, the image all set up exactly like the last one. All I need to do then is edit them which is easy.

And just like my last tip, you can move the highlighted section in the same way, all at once. Also, if you look at the dropdown menu you have the ability to group blocks which is nice if you want to make sure they all stay together.

The next thing I want to talk about is also present in that dropdown and it’s possibly my favourite thing about Gutenberg. You might want to sit down for this one.

The Wonder that is Resuable Blocks!

Aren’t all blocks reusable? Well, yes, of course they are. But what if you have a block that you want to appear on multiple posts? For me, this comes into play with the section at the end of my posts where I link to other posts in the series. This is incredibly handy if you’re doing episode reviews or have similar posts that you want to link together.

Basically, a reusable block is like a separate entity that shows up on all the posts you put it on. The best part about this is that you only have to edit it once for it to populate all the other posts it appears on. That’s right. You don’t have to go to each of your old posts in the series and update them individually. This has been a huge timesaver for me, especially when reviewing a series like Fruits Basket which has almost fifty episodes so far.

Now, here’s a little trick with reusable blocks. If you look back at the dropdown image from the last tip, you’ll see that it says “Add to Reusable Blocks”. This is the easiest way to create a new reusable block. There is a way to view all of your existing reusable blocks and you can create them there, but it’s not as simple. Basically, you put together the block or group of blocks that you want to reuse. Then select “Add to Reusable Blocks”, give it a name and it’s made.

To add the reusable block to another post simply press the plus sign after the block where you want to place it and type the name of the block in the search bar. Click on the one you want and it will appear. You can then edit the reusable block on the post, save it, and again it will populate all instances of that block.

You can, of course, get creative. I have my footer as a reusable block so if I want to add another social media link or change the image, it will update every one of my posts. I’ve even used it to create an advert block on one of my blogs. I can change the advert as and when I see fit and, again, it does them all at once. No hassle!

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4. Nominate other bloggers.

I realise that I’ve been doing a lot of tag posts lately and as such have nominated a lot of people, so I shall just put this out there to all that read this and ask that you respond with your favourite Block Editor tips. I only covered three in this post, but I love the editor and find it so much easier to work with than the old version. Maybe, I’ll try to put together a follow-up post with more tips in the near future.

Anyhow, thanks for reading. Once more, if you have any questions or you’d like me to expand on anything I’ve said, let me know in the comments. I’ll be happy to help.

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Other tag posts

• Once a Geek! (The Geeky Childhood Tag)
• Chronicling the Otaku Author! (Blogger Recognition Award)
• Well, this is Neat! (Real Neat Blog Award)
• How Bizarre! (Mystery Blogger Award)
• Grab your Shades! (The Sunshine Blogger Award)
• Length Matters! (Give it a Light Novel Title)
• Anime Favorites A-Z Challenge
• My Unpopular Anime Opinions (The Unpopular Opinions Tag)
• Even More Dazzling Radiance! (The Sunshine Blogger Award)
• Length Really Matters! (Give it a Light Novel Title 2)
• Twenty Questions!? (Let’s Blog Award)
• Friends to the End! (The Bubble Tag)
• Putting Me in Anime! (The Kore Wa Watashi Blog Award)

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