I’ve been blogging since 2006, although not always about books. I started my blogging journey talking about games, anime, and manga. It was during the transition of high school to university and I was still playing a lot of games and I wanted to share my thoughts and excitement, which helped me to find more friends. This became especially important after I got sick. The world around me collapsed, real life friendships faded as I had to say ‘no’ to more and more social engagements. The rescheduled outings were delayed indefinitely.
But online, I had friends. I could play games with them whenever I wanted and had the energy. There was always someone online.
The blogger community was big during those years. We linked to each other’s pages and posts, started and continued discussions across blogs. Some bloggers posted every day, others (like me) had a more irregular and spread out schedule.
One of the daily posters was Belghast, a game blogger and later podcaster. He started a blogging event that would later be renamed to Blaugust. Through this event, he wanted to encourage both newbie bloggers and veterans to post every day and forge a stronger connection in the blogging space. The veterans shared their tips for the newbies as well as their regular content while newbies launched their own blogs and figured everything out.
It was fun and exciting. It was a great way to discover blogs from people who never heard of. I took part in it for years, first as a newbie, later as a mentor. I’ve earned several rainbow badges, meaning I posted more than 31 times during the month of August. I was prolific.
Then my blogging burnout hit.
By that time, I had two blogs, one for gaming, one for all my bookish content. I had my regular twice a week posting schedule here, while I also posted daily on my gaming blog. It was a lot. Without prewritten posts, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I learned to pace myself and work on posts in advance. I learned how to use my blogging tools (WordPress and Canva) more efficiently. I also learned that maintain two blogs was too much when you have a day job and want to write books.
Something had to give, and my gaming blog went on hiatus.
I don’t blog much anymore but being part of Blaugust taught me something about community. How to grow one and how important it is. And that’s all because of Belghast.
Even though I haven’t been active in the Blaugust community since my blogging burnout, I saw Bel’s posts on Bluesky. I knew the misfortune that happened to his wife last year, I read about his diagnosis earlier this year. But I didn’t know about his passing until a week after he was gone.
He was still young (I don’t think he was much older than me) and he too, expected to be around for many more years. For many, he was the core of their gaming community, either through the Discord, his blog, or the podcast. Part of me feels incredibly sad I didn’t interact with him more because he was a genuinely good guy.
I feel very much on the fringes of this community because of my absence, but I can’t deny how much Bel’s vision helped shape me in how I approach things. The Narratess Indie Sale, for example, is held in August. It was already one of the months where I was focusing on community and highlighting media that I loved. Combining the two made sense.
The mentorship program in the Discord also inspired how I see community. Sharing knowledge is important, especially in a scene where so much changes all the time. Being open to new people and help guide them through the process is vital to keeping a community healthy. People come and go, old and new, but everyone deserves a helping hand. It’s nice to have a place where you can ask a question and it’ll be taken seriously, no matter how silly the question might sound. We’ve all been there at some point.
His legacy lives on, and it’s up to us to keep it going. Thank you, Bel, for inspiring me and everything you’ve done.
