The Escapist: One year. New name. New look.

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Michelle Shouts Random is now The Escapist. And together with the new blog name and layout, I--we--are also celebrating my first ever blogoversary. COULD YOU BELIEVER THAT? I COULDN'T!

One year of blogging. If this thought would came into me more than one year ago I would laugh at the idea. Because really, I never saw myself blogging. I never dreamt to become a blogger. I didn't even knew how blogging works! Creating this blog--Michelle Shouts Random--was never planned. This is what really happened...

I liked reading. But to be honest, I was never born a bookworm. Most bookworms would say they were reading for the rest of their lives. My love for reading started on year 2008. The  Twilight year. Since then I became interested in reading and on year 2011 (year when I become really obsessed with reading), I guess, when I was searching for a good romance read, I stumbled upon a blog with a list of awesome young adult romance reads. I didn't know what happened next, I just saw myself joining giveaways. I won once in a hundred giveaways and just imagine how happy I felt that time. And then I started tweeting Kai of Amaterasu Reads (the blog I first stumbled upon) when I found out that she's a Filipino book blogger. I asked her some things about books and I found myself asking about blogging. She then asked me if I'm planning to have a blog but I said no. She said I should try and go for it! Which I...did.

Starting a blog with no background or any idea how every button in Blogger works sucks. It does. I hated myself then why did I created one when I don't know how everything works. I've posted the crappiest review ever (wait for it...) for not one, but several books. I just realized it was crappy when I re-read them months ago. But I'm not done yet. The hardest thing to do is think about a catchy blog name. Since I plan my blog to be about random stuff, I came with Michelle Shouts Random, which is lame. Okay. I admit. I'm not really a fan of my previous blog name. For me, it sounds weird, but I still launched it. Haha My goal that time was to get this blog over with. XD

But over time, I learned a lot of things, I've met cool bookworms and bloggers, read amazing books, met awesome authors (online, of course) and contact fantastic publishers. Oh! And the most amazing thing about blogging? Receiving FREE books. *sighs dreamily* Yes, one of the main reasons I jumped into blogging is to receive free books because I'm not that rich to buy all the books that I want. :P

Months ago, I realized why not re-launch this blog with a new name and even a layout? It also came into my mind that I could do it on my blogoversary so it'll be all-in-one celebration.  I weighed the consequences. What if my readers would be lost if they visited Michelle Shouts Random? I could lose them. So I decided to announce it ahead of time so all of you would know. And here we are now.

Flashback:

Michelle Shouts Random blog banner

Michelle Shouts Random blog button and favicon

Michelle Shouts Random blog post divider

Why The Escapist? I picked the name because that's what I'm feeling whenever I read books or listen to music. Escaping. I'd always be in a different world whenever I start turning the pages of the book or hearing the intro of a song. I also decided to blog about books only and a few of music. I won't be blogging random stuff since I already didn't met that goal after a few months of launching Michelle Shouts Random. And I also have a tag line--which I really loved, to be honest. :D That is.. Escaping reality through books and music.

There are a lot of people I want to thank. I don't want to name because I know I might forget someone and he/she could hate me and I could lose a friend. :( :)And I don't want for that to happen. So let me have this opportunity to thank every one of you. You. You, who had the time reading this very post. You, who reads my posts, review or not. Giveaway or not. You, for being an epic reader and/or follower. You, who contributes to my pageviews on my statistics count, for you only knew how many times. You, who tweets, retweets and favorites me. You, who comments on my posts. You, who's helping me share the word about my posts and/or giveaways. You, for helping me develop my blogging/review skills. You, for being excited for this event. You, who's just being simply awesome. YOU are part of my one year of successful blogging. THANK YOU. And did I told you I love you all? :)

Super thanks as well to the awesome publishers who's trusting me with their titles. You don't know how grateful I am to all of you. You made one of my dreams come true. I hope you will continue to trust me with your titles.

Okay, over with the talk. Heehee. Just remember: Thank you! If I could hug you all right now, I'll squeeze you tight! Now let's proceed to the fun part! Could you guess what is it? .....

GIVEAWAY! Yay! :D

This giveaways is sponsored by yours truly to thank every one of you. Two winners could get their book of choice from Book Depository or Amazon. This is open internationally. The only mandatory entry here is to click the green button of FREE entry, which you can get every day. Throughout the week, I will be posting three more giveaways sponsored by two awesome publishers and one of my fave authors. I will still also be posting regular stuff such as reviews and memes. Stay tuned for some major fun! Enjoy and good luck! :)

*Enter my blogoversary giveaway part 2 (2 INT winners, choice from HarperCollins YA 2013 titles), part 3 (3 INT winners, The Lunar Chronicles swag pack + interview with Marissa Meyer) and part 4 (5 US winners, books from Simon Pulse YA contemporary list)

The EVENT button:

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The new BLOG button:

<div align="center"> <a href="http://www.michelletheescapist.blogspot.com" title="The Escapist"><img src="http://i597.photobucket.com/albums/tt52/chimHEARTdanger/Untitled1-7_zps0244dd7d.png?t=1369805175" alt="The Escapist" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

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