The 2024 Discussion Challenge hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction and Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight.
First, let me say that I'm not one of those people who think a person can't read over 100 books in a year or people don't remember the books if they read over 100 books a year. I'm a librarian. I've seen it all, and once upon a time, I was that person.
But what I do sometimes feel anxiety about is actually this, book blogs, or Tik Tok, or Instagram. One thing that I love and want to do more of is connect with readers outside of library land. Books have always been my passion, then I turned my passion into my hobby (there are ups and downs to that) and while I always want books to be a part of my life I don't want them to always feel like they're tied to my job (i.e. reading and talking about award winners, mock Newberry, state book awards), so making non library book friends seemed like a great way to do that.
The only problem is that I know that in the past, I've paid the most attention to accounts or blogs that post more reviews because there's just more to read, more to know, more to see, but as is clearly obvious, I am not one of those people. I try, but I'm not there, and I find myself kicking myself for not doing better.
It's silly, you should never compare yourself to others, but I feel wanting/needing to post more consistently is a side effect of the way the internet works right now if you're looking to connect with other people.
All of that being said, I'm going to do my best to push those thoughts to the back of the brain and have fun documenting my reading journey in a way that feels more authentic!
Ohhh I feel this in my SOUL. I used to be so very hard on myself to post constantly, and was basically making it incredibly not-fun for myself. I applaud you for trying to push through those thoughts, because doing that was the best thing I ever did. It took me a loooong time (and occasionally, I still feel that tug to post more!) but it is so much better with less pressure. AND, if it helps, I think you end up having perhaps a smaller audience, but an audience that actually cares about what you have to say? Which is to say, I think that the people who stick around even if you are not churning out content are the ones who you end up building the best relationships with anyway, and to me, it is a win-win!
ReplyDeleteI know when I first started blogging, I felt like I had to read certain books, be present and active on all platforms, and write my reviews in a certain way. Ten years later, I do what I enjoy instead of what I think I should be doing. It's made this a lot more enjoyable for me. In all honesty, my goal was never to be an "influencer". Like you, I wanted to connect to other readers, and I have been lucky enough to have a great group I interact with regularly.
ReplyDeleteBeing an influencer sounds like way more trouble that it's worth and I have way too many hobbies that take up way too much time for for all of that. I had a bad habit of deleting my blogs and starting new ones, but something feels better about this one, so I'm looking forward to the journey!
DeleteI'm going to echo what Shannon and Sam said. When I started blogging, I had so much more time and energy. Now my blogging is much more sporadic, but I definitely don't want to give up on it! We have to be kind to ourselves and do what we can do.
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