Well hello there, it'll be interesting to see if anyone is still about after a year. What have I missed?
I took a well-deserved break from blogging last year. I felt lost with it, my passion for reading wasn't there and I honestly didn't know if I wanted to come back to this blog. I actually didn't miss blogging, or not as much as I expected. I missed the community and the fun parts of talking about books but I also fell a little out of love with reading so didn’t feel like I had anything to contribute when it came to books and I certainly didn’t want to hear about what everyone was reading when I still had 250+ unread books to deal with. Over the last couple of months of 2023 I began thinking about my little old blog more and began to miss the community. I'm not sure the blogging community is still what it was, I don't think I was alone in drifting away a little last year, but I'm willing to give it one final shot given how long blogging has been a part of my life it feels wrong to just disappear.
What inspired my return?
Honestly, a big reason I wanted to come back was BookTok. That is a sentence I never thought I’d write. It’s not exactly BookTok itself, as I only see glimpses of it on my TikTok feed but more the passion for reading which I keep seeing. BookTok itself seems a little out of touch, they are far too in love with Colleen Hoover and ‘spice’ in books. I guess it shows the age of a lot of people on TikTok as I know I certainly went through a similar phase about 6 years ago so I don’t really feel like I fit there. I suppose I am very much the Steve Buscemi gif of how do you do, fellow kids because I feel too old for all that. But I have seen a lot of journals start popping up on my feed, more specifically reading journals and that is what actually inspired me. These BookTok readers have the most amazing reading journals with such creative spreads and I have been inspired by the creativity they have shown. Last year’s attempt at a reading journal was shocking in comparison (I gave up after 2 months) but now I have a journal filler with my challenges and a plan to track my reading and TBR list on there.
In the process of creating my 2024 reading journal I was sad I didn’t have anyone to share it with and I began thinking more and more about my blog. I want to be able to talk books again and I know there are people who feel the same. I want that sense of community back because I’ve been missing it. I’m not sure my reading journal or my return to blogging will be consistent but I’m willing to give it a try. I’ve even made it a New Year’s resolution.
One thing I do know is I will not be on social media as much. I actually think the slow implosion of Twitter helped me care less about blogging as I wasn’t seeing what everyone was reading and doing. I haven’t deleted my twitter yet but I think it will happen. I rarely log on anymore and I just don’t miss the toxicity of that place. I am trying to use Threads but I’m not in love with it yet. It has improved a lot of late so I’m liking it a bit more, we’ll see if I can be consistent about going on there though.
What will I blog about?
It's still going to be books here, and a little of my book journal (maybe) but I think I might get a little less personal. I like talking about my life, but also as I get older I prefer to keep some more of myself back. Is that a sign I’m getting old? Possibly, but I also saw a documentary advertised the other day about trains I thought looked interesting and I then realised I was turning into my nan so really this doesn’t surprise me.
One thing I want from my blog is to keep it low pressure, I’ve found my reading picked up last year when I just spent my time trying to enjoy reading. I need to keep the blog the same because I can’t handle the stress and hardly have the mental energy some days to spend hours making sure I have 5 posts up a week or something crazy. We’ll see how it goes but it should be fun.
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