Let's have a chat about my absence.

Mostly mine. I went into a slump, and it was my own fault. In the beginning I got so intimidated by the world of book blogging!! There are so many interesting, unique, and talented bloggers who I admire greatly. I constantly found myself saying "Wow, I'm not good enough to be that awesome." But I had to tell myself to shut up, because I shouldn't want to be like others no matter how greatly I admire them. I also had to remind myself, I've only been blogging for less than a year, really. I've yet to get into the swing of things. I'm also usually not one to give up, especially when it comes to things that matter most to me. 

Also, when I build up fear of something I often put it out of mind and avoid it, and that happened with this blog. I put it out of mind. Then, life did get a bit busy. I ended up spending the summer while out of school helping my mom out by babysitting my littlest brother while she had to work, and then I was prepping to go back to school. Then I had a birthday (I'm 22 now!). Once at school, I had to give it a lot of focus because my classes this semester are bit more stressful than usual. When I'm not busy with school I tend to get very lazy with how I spend my time. I make it worse by being a procrastinator, and procrastinating getting back into blogging was exactly what I ended up doing.

However, while spending some time getting my head straight, I did not stop reading. Reading is actually one of the most constant activities I practice, and I did end up meeting my reading goal of 100 books for the year, so there's one feat I managed to complete! Over the course of the rest of the year I'll try and do reviews on all the books I read over the time I was absent, as well as some newer reads to complete the YA Contemporary Challenge I signed up for earlier this year. I have some posts for the week already set up, so I'll try to use my weekends to write posts out ahead of time, that might also help regulate things.

One positive of this slump: I'm more determined to keep the doubts out of my head and to do this blog right and do it for myself, as I had originally set out to do. Ultimately, this is a hobby to spend my free time on not something I have to succeed and be the best at such as one would try to be in school or with their work. At least for me, considering school isn't as fun as this! It's a creative outlet, and I will kick myself in the butt anytime those doubts try to set in.

p.s. I also did some remodeling of my blog theme this week. I'm no good with color schemes so I changed to the simple and clean look of a black and white color scheme.

Best wishes,
Alysia