Book Blogger Confession is a new blog meme hosted by Tiger of All Consuming Books and Karen of For What It’s Worth. The meme will run on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of every month to discuss some of the frustrations that are unique to book bloggers.
You can read the introductory post here.
Q: Have you ever had reading/blogging slumps? How do you work through them or work around them?
I can’t remember the last time I had a reading slump. For me the problem is more that I run into times when I don’t get any reading in because too much else is going on in life. There may be a few days where I just don’t find any time during the day to read and then I end up so tired that when I get in to bed to read, I only get a few pages done. Luckily for me, this doesn’t happen to often.
As far as blogging slumps – I’ve found myself in a few. The first time it happened, I had been trying to post something every day and just simply burned out. I then realized that it was ok not to post every day, which is really just a personal choice, but one you have to be able to live with. I also stopped participating in all the memes I used to do. I was trying to do almost one every day. Doing all these memes when I first started blogging did help, as it allowed me to find some really good blogs out there that I still follow today. I just realized that it would stress me out if I couldn’t get to the meme or commenting on other blogs who were doing the meme. So then I stopped with the memes and just concentrated on posting book reviews. That became another stress because then if I didn’t get a chance to write up so many reviews each week, I felt I was neglecting my blog. My solution was to pick a few memes that I would be ok with missing if life got in the way and I try to post a review or two each week – nothing set in stone. Since deciding on this plan, it doesn’t stress me out if I don’t get to my blog for a few days.
I never want blogging to become a “I need to blog” type of hobby. I want it to be fun and for the most part it is. I enjoy getting review books and posting my thoughts, but recently I have cut back on taking too many review requests. I have so many books on my shelves that I have not had time to read yet and this year I am focusing on reading them. I think this will also help to prevent any reading or blogging slumps. I am free to pick what I want to read when I want and then I feel that my reviews are that much easier to get done.
So what about you? Do you find yourself in the occasional reading or blogging slump? If so, what do you do to get out of it?
I'm the opposite of you. I find myself in reading slumps every now and then, but I rarely ever have blogging slumps.
-Kim
I guess that sometimes you feel the pressure because you see all these bloggers posting every day or even more than once per day and you feel so awful. Then you start to try and keep up but then you realize that you can't and that's when you sort of have this realization that it's okay, you can do your thing, at the pace it's more comfortable to you and stuff.
– Mary | Anxirium
I've cut back on the memes also. If I have a book for a WoW pick or IMM then great but if not I can let it go. Same with the Friday Hops – I used to do all of them but now I do whatever one sounds fun that day or maybe none at all.
I get into both reading and blogging slumps, more and more as times go on. I think the answer is just patience. The desire to read/blog comes back with time 🙂
Definitely reading slumps. There was a time I couldn't have imagined that such a thing would be possible, but there you go.