June 12, 2021.
After only dreaming it for many long years, I did it! I finally made my website! My very own art blog! Yay~! There’s still a lot of work to put into building the website, but I’m so happy that I managed to come this far. It’s never too late to realize our dreams! I’d like to write a little about my journey, in case it might inspire somebody.
If this is the first time we meet, my name is Tenko. I draw, make things and post about them. Hope you enjoy your stroll through my art blog! (About Me)
Fell in Love with Blogging
I used to be on several art sites some 7 or so years ago, back in my school days. I usually uploaded my art there, but I’d also write journal entries and travel logs sometimes. (I’ve deleted all my accounts when I left those sites, though.)
Having written diary entries daily in middle school and high school, I naturally found blogging to be very enjoyable and relaxing. It was nice to have a record of all the fun things that happened, while also keeping track of my growth as an artist. Figuring out how to organize all my posts and drawings into tags and pages that were easy to navigate was fun too.
Having done that for at least 4 years, I sometimes thought about having my own personal space to display all my works. Having my own website or blog which I can personalize to my heart’s content certainly fits the bill, so I found it really tempting! But of course, things happened and I couldn’t do it right there and then.
Obstacles
The main problem was that I didn’t have anyone to teach me, and that I was unfamiliar with online payment. I remembered Googling about how to set up a blog but feeling stumped no matter what I read. At the time, I didn’t have a credit card, which was commonly required for buying a domain, etc. I had no idea how to make one either. (No one taught me anything about credit cards and I had no idea where to look for information. Plus I just moved to Japan and didn’t know about Japan’s credit card companies.)
Couple that with the fact that I was going crazy job-hunting. My student visa was going to expire after graduation, so if I didn’t get a job by then, I’d have been kicked back to my home country! (Yeah, life’s always high tension for foreign students.)
Luckily, I was eventually able to get a job in my favourite game company after a lot of hard work. (Cheers!) I was really glad, but the hectic days were far from over. Settling in into work life, learning new skills for my job, as well as my other ongoing art projects certainly took a lot of time and effort. I had to postpone a lot of things that I wanted to do for the things that I had to do. Alas, the dream to create my online home would have to lie half-forgotten at the back of my mind for a few years.
The Dream’s not Dead!
2020. A twist of fate ended with me becoming a guild master in an online game I was playing. My position forced me to develop a lot of independence and leadership skills. I learned a lot about how to not give up when things didn’t go well. I also gained the ability to take action and initiative when something needs to be done. All the things necessary to move forward in my real life!
Come 2021, I was using all those skills to revive the dreams that I’ve ignored or was overwhelmed with in the past. The newly acquired now-or-never attitude got me to challenge website creation again, along with my other dreams. Unlike my ignorant self all those years ago, I’ve also discovered that YouTube is an amazing source of education. I found that video tutorials are easier to follow along somehow (for me, anyway). It’s probably because there’s a lot of visual information and every step is shown clearly.
With a lot of good tutorials on YouTube, I’ve successfully accomplished a lot in the past 6 months. So far, I’m halfway to completing my first book, finally made my credit card, and started a YouTube Channel. Then I made my first vlog, my first song cover, and then this blog. Considering I had zero knowledge about how to make all of the above before I watched the tutorials, I think I made a significant progress!
Atelier Tenko
After seeing several tutorials, I went with the bluehost x WordPress combination for this blog. Then I named it ‘Atelier Tenko’ as this is a place where I post my various works. I also considered ‘gallery’ or ‘studio’, but ‘atelier’ just felt like it fits better somehow (and it’s stylish!). It felt really amazing when I saw my original domain name in the address bar.
I haven’t blogged for a few years ever since I deleted my previous blogs and migrated sites. When I made this site yesterday and started setting it up, I felt an excitement that I haven’t felt in ages! I really missed typing blog posts, so I’m glad that I made this site.
While there’s a sense of familiarity, this is also very new to me at the same time. The site’s completely my own with no rule on how I should make it look or structure it. It’s also the first time I use WordPress, so I’m still unfamiliar with a lot of the functions and plugins. I curiously wonder how this site will turn out when I finish. I’ll figure things out along the way and work hard to make it as enjoyable as possible for anyone who may visit.
Reflection
The things I did this year and the creation of this website really reminded me that it was never too late to do anything. I’m pretty sure that we all wish to be able to do a lot of things in the past. But when they didn’t go well, we gave up and slowly forget about them. If you have a few dreams forgotten in the dust, try challenging them again now. The more mature outlook and experiences we have by now are certainly game changers. You’d be surprised how well you can do things now compared to back then!
Anyway, I’ll continue to fulfill as many of my goals and dreams this year. So far, it’s looking great! Whatever you’re aiming for, I hope that things work out well for you too, fellow adventurer! All the best and good luck!
Setting up this site and readying it for Google Adsense
