Sometimes You Just Gotta Shake It Off

If you've been by the blog lately, you've probably noticed that April hasn't been around as much. But if you've been around the blogosphere much at all, you've probably noticed this is kind of a trend among those of us who've been blogging for any length of time. Whether it's the recent author drama, real-life stuff, or just a serious reading slump, we all need a break every now and then.

Jen: And that's the point I was at earlier this year, when I saw April mention on Twitter that she wished she could just co-blog with someone else to alleviate some of the stress. I had honestly been contemplating a hiatus of my own at the time because blogging had become more of a chore than a hobby. I didn't want to take a break, but I wanted blogging to be fun again. So, when I saw April's tweet, I jumped at the opportunity without any real deliberation. (You can read more about that here.)

It's worked out beautifully as far as I'm concerned. We're there to help out when the other has things come up that keep us from posting on our scheduled day. We've got each other's back when drama rears its ugly head. And our different styles and preferred genres provide some much-needed variety on the blog. Plus, it's fun again! I love our joint reviews and discussions like this!

But what do you do when you're BOTH kind of in a funk? I'm not in a reading slump per se, but it's taking me forever to finish a book these days. I used to read three books a week, stay up till 2am doing so, and never think twice about it. Now, I can barely make it to 10pm before my head hits the pillow, which means very little reading is getting done each night. I'm still flying through some audio, though. That's really been my saving grace.

April: I feel terrible for this. I feel like I let Jen down the last couple months. When we started out blogging together, we were both fed up. I was so ready to shut my blog down and say goodbye. Blogging here with Jen was fun again and gave me a new life in the blogging community. Now I'm back to barely posting. It sucks, but it's unavoidable. I barely have time to email with Jen; this week will be the most we have emailed in months and that makes me sad.

It goes to show you how quickly life can change. Early this year when I joined Jen, I was working part time at a company I had been at for almost 10 years. Then I was told I'd be laid off this winter, so the job hunt began. Now working full time with a ton of new responsibilities, reading and blogging have taken a back seat.

I've never been one to stay up until 2am reading. I value sleep too much but I used to read a lot in the evening. Now I'm too tired from work, and Aubrey wants my attention and she is most important. I'm having trouble finding a balance now. Half the time I don't even want to read.. I'm just not into it. It's become such a stress to me, and I think part of the reason is that I feel pressured to read. My turn to review a book on the blog is two days away. I'm 10%. And it's not even a review book, so it's not the stress of reading for publishers. It's the pressure to read for review in general. I miss the days of leisurely reading.

Jen: April has no reason to feel bad...this is the beauty of the co-blogging relationship: we pick up the slack for each other whenever life has us otherwise occupied. I mean, just this week, I caught whatever is going around and ended up laid up on the couch with nothing to post. Luckily, we usually schedule our meme posts a week out, so there was something on the blog each day, but this will be the first week ever that we've not posted a single review.

And you know what? I'm kind of okay with that. Reviews take me the most time to write because I want to sound intelligent while getting my point across, and yet, those are the posts that see the fewest comments. Oh, they get loads of views, but I know from experience that I rarely comment on reviews myself unless I have something worthwhile to say that hasn't already been said. The posts that get the most attention are ones like this -- discussion posts where everyone wants to voice their own experiences and opinions.

I've been forcing myself for months now to review everything I read and listen to each week, and it's really starting to drain me. After my forced mini-haitus this week due to illness, it's even more apparent to me that I've got to read for the pure enjoyment of it or I'm going to burn out that much quicker. I've essentially turned every book I read into a review copy, and that's just sad. It's one thing to post a short review on Goodreads for every book so others can gauge your enjoyment of a story, but to full-on review every book is kind of ridiculous. I wish it hadn't taken getting sick to realize that, but it is what it is.

I'm going to take a break from reviewing every book. Sure, I'm still going to post a review or two a week for upcoming books that I'm excited about. But I also want to focus more on discussion posts and other creative outlets on the blog since those do seem to garner more interaction with readers. And I know I've been terrible at that lately, but maybe taking a break from so much reviewing will give me more time to socialize with everyone. It's been at least a month since I've visited any of you, and I feel absolutely awful about that.

April: Oh my gosh, yes to turning every book into a review copy. I've been doing the same. Even the books I want to read, I have been viewing them as review books. It is sad, because it really takes the fun out of reading. We should read because we want to, not so we can form an opinion and have a post to schedule on the blog.

I agree with taking a break on reviewing. I've pretty much already been doing that, but I feel like we haven't had time to do fun creative discussion posts. And that's one of the things love the most about blogging with Jen. We need to get back to that stuff. When I posted earlier this week about not being able to get into books, a lot of you suggested we take a break to avoid getting burned out. I've been stewing over it all week. I would miss it too much I think.

Jen is on to something for sure though, with the whole creative outlets idea. I just had my computer redone and I'm dying to get back into making more SIMS videos. There are so many amazing books I've read over the years and wanted to put into video. Also, the holidays are coming up and I love doing crafts with Aubrey and sharing our creations. My only concern with that is would people want to see those things?

And I'm 100% with Jen on socializing more. If we aren't so pressured to post time-consuming reviews, then we can venture out and visit you all. I cannot remember the last time I've sat down and just browsed through blogs. It's terrible, because I love doing so, but there just hasn't been any time.

I'm ready for a change, but I'm not giving up, Jen. No way. ♥ We are in this slump together and we will come out of it together!

Jen: I think we owe it to ourselves to take it down a notch, to make this blog what it originally started as: a place to connect with like-minded individuals. I hate how competitive blogging has made me, especially since I'm competitive by nature. I hate comparing what we've got going on here to what else is out there and vice versa. I just want to talk books and ships and fandoms with people who get me. I don't want to worry or feel left out when I didn't get this advance copy or that one. I don't want to worry about not getting invited to the bigger tours or not being able to attend conventions and hob-knob with the publishers at events. Because I have plenty of unread books on my shelf as it is and I'll be able to read that book I'm anticipating soon enough. I don't think I'll ever want for reading material again, ya know?

How did it come to this? How did I let it get to this point? April seems pretty well-adjusted, but I've somehow let blogging consume me. Stressing out about reading and writing reviews and keeping up with the schedule -- in addition to all of the other stuff I've got going on -- may just have contributed to me getting sick this week. Stress isn't good for anyone, but I've always tended to take it a step too far, until it reached an unhealthy level and I was forced to take a step back. (Senior year of high school, I tried to juggle 4 AP classes and two part-time jobs and nearly gave myself an ulcer because of it, just to give you an idea of how I tend to let stress rule me.)

I don't want to take a break. I don't have it in me to take a break. Taking a break would feel too much like giving up, and I'm no quitter. Though, sometimes I have to admit it would feel like kicking an addiction or bad habit rather than giving up a hobby. :( Still, at the heart of it, I do still love blogging. I think we just need to get it back on track and stop forcing ourselves to crank out reviews and focus more on what we loved about it in the first place. And like April said, maybe branch off into other, sort of related hobbies. I like photography, and if you follow me on Instagram, you know I like to take pictures of my books. April likes to make book trailers featuring SIMS characters on her YouTube channel. And we both seem to love these discussion posts, though we haven't done many recently.

So, I think for the rest of the year, we focus on the good things, the things that brought us together in the first place. I have a ton of review books piling up for 2015 already, but I'm almost done with those for 2014, so I plan on reading what I want. Reviewing just what I have to. And spending more time with friends, visiting your blogs and hanging out on Twitter and such. I think it's high time we made time for the fun stuff.

This was going to be one of my blogging resolutions for the new year, much like it always is, but I think it's time to really work on it, and I think April will keep me on track with that now that she's here. She'll hold me accountable. I don't worry about her so much...she's pretty good at prioritizing real life versus blogging. I could learn a thing or two from her, actually. ;0)



I think what we're both saying is, we just want to go back to being READERS. There's just something about opening a book with no expectations, without having read 20 different reviews first, without having Tweet-stalked the author, without knowing the publicist for the book. No worrying about whether so-and-so has already read a book or whether their opinions are going to influence ours. No forcing ourselves to finish a book just to review it or stockpiling DNFs for a later date just because we can't get into them now.

We're taking it back to the days of reading for the sheer joy of it. If we get a few reviews done each week, so be it. But we're not putting that pressure on ourselves. This is not a job and there's zero reason to stress out about it. (Someone please remind me I said that in a few months when I let all of the 2015 titles start to freak me out.)

Labels: blogging breaks, blogging confessions, co-blogging, discussion