Growing Pains: It's Been Nine Years, And I Need a New Blogging Plan

Hello sweeties!

As some of you already heard via Twitter, I finally decided to make some small adjustments to my blog. You will probably have noticed by now that I'm a creature of order, a perfectionist, and my real superpower is to resist change. Which is fine until it makes you feel good and empowered and whatnot - but when you start to resent your own routine, it's time for you to try a different approach. Even if you have to fight yourself because darn, are you stubborn.

Back when this blog was born (it will be 9 years on October 14th!), I planned to only review my own (usually backlist) books. My typical procedure was to reread each and every one of those books (no matter how familiar I was with them) for review purposes. Reading with a review in mind is a different approach for me than reading for pleasure only (though with time I may have gotten better at doing the two things together). This method had worked well for me for years, until I joined NetGalley in 2019 (and Edelweiss in 2020) and started to get a small, but still significant (for me) number of ARCs from there. I slowly realised that I wouldn't always be able to read all those books TWICE prior to reviewing them - not if I wanted to deliver those reviews in time (even when the publisher doesn't request it, I make it my mission to post my ARC reviews before or around pub date) AND not to fall behind with my backlist books in the process. (Not to mention NG/EW ARCs have an expiration date, except for a few downloadable copies now and then). So I found myself reading some of those ARCs only once, being careful to keep a review mindset - and even so? I felt GUILTY, because to me, each and every book would have deserved the same treatment, not to mention, sometimes I like my books more the second time around. (Since then, I've gotten better at leaving that guilt feeling behind, but it was a bit rough at first, and I kept telling myself that my reading ARCs only once would be temporary. Ha!). Anyhow, for a year and a half, that was the only crack in my reviewer's armour.

Fast forward to these latest weeks, and me endlessly scrolling through my post schedule and making adjustments, postponing my backlist reviews to a later and later date to make room for my ARCs, struggling to make a dent into such backlist and feeling overwhelmed by all the oldies that never couldn't seem to get a full review, and at the same time resenting having to keep my new books on hold while rereading the old ones for review purposes. (Also, I read fast, but it usually takes me three days to complete a review - and that's when I don't procrastinate for any given reason). Until a bold idea started to take shape in my mind - WHAT IF I DIDN'T WRITE A FULL REVIEW FOR ALL MY BOOKS? 😱 WOULD THE WORLD STOP TURNING?

Go figure - the answer was, no, it wouldn't. So I took a look at my books past, present and future, and formulated the following plan:

• from now on I'll only write full reviews for books I rated 3 stars and up (unless they're part of a series). This pains me to no end, but as I said, it isn't realistic for me to think I can go on reviewing all my books in full anymore (not to mention, I harbour no desire to reread my under-3-star books for review purposes);
• even for my 3-star books, a mini review will suffice if I don't have enough to say to justify writing a full-length one. I've come to realise that sometimes I do manage to encapsulate my thoughts in a mini, and again, I don't have the time and energy to "properly" review every single book anymore...
• I'll write mini reviews for anthologies/novellas/short stories as well (unless they're part of a series). My anthology and novella reviews will probably be longer than my usual minis, but not a full-blown review. Again...time and energy.

I still haven't decided what to do with Christopher Pike's books under 3 stars though (oh, I have a few). They might end up being the only exception to my new rule about only reviewing books from 3 stars up, because even at their worst, those matter more to me than their non-Pike counterparts (yeah, I'm weird 😂). Also, he's one of my favourite authors, so 🤷‍♀️. We'll see. Anyhow, for what concerns all the other books, my mind is set.

But wait! there's more!

One of the things I was struggling with lately were my Tooting Your Trumpet posts. Back when I started doing them, I was excited, because I thought it was a neat way to give more visibility to other people's posts, sites or endeavours. Alas, I soon realised that, on a good month, writing them was a chore, because putting together the post itself was more time-consuming that one might think. On a bad month...all the stuff I wanted to highlight had already been linked to in someone else's weekly or monthly recap, and I thought, what's the point in working so hard on my own post? That's why I've barely done one of them lately. Then I thought, why not do the simplest thing and list my favourite posts, etc. in a monthly recap of my own like everybody else? Better than not mentioning them at all, right? But wait, can I sustain a monthly recap? I used to think my life was too uneventful, but after what happened to me this year, I'm not so sure anymore. However, in case I run short of disasters (and I don't manage to have what you would call a life), I can always talk about the little things 😉. So...

...starting in October, I'll have this monthly recap post series called Offbeat Offline (I can't tell you how many hours I spent trying to come up with a pun), where I'll also showcase my favourite posts of the month by you folks! Now, since I know myself too well, I'll have to keep the whole thing simple or it won't stick (I used to do a MONTHLY Sunday Post years ago, and it only lasted 3 months). Offbeat Offline won't be a blog recap (or it hardly will) - just a real life/behind the scenes one (hence the title), with a section devoted to your lovely shenanigans 😉. I'm confident it will work, and I'm actually excited to start a different thing.

It's been nine years, and my blog is turning over a new leaf.