A Look Back At The Past & A Look To The Future

(Or New Year's Eve, technically)

I wouldn't say 2014 was one of my best years.



It was the most stressful in regards to school, and the first part upcoming year will be too, depending on how things go for my spring semester (if all goes well it will be my last one but don't want to get my hopes up). However, 2014 was good for me personally in terms of dealing with some of the more tough parts of my personal life. Such as realizations about my anxiety and how it affects me as well as how I can learn to not let it rule me, or try, at the least. It's a long process I still struggle with but I'm no longer avoiding the knowledge of it. Not willing to give up beating it back.

In terms of blogging, 2014 was the start of this blog. I actually created Fiction Addictions in December of 2013 but afterwards I sort of just let it sit here on blogspot until April 8, 2014! I wrote out a review and made it my first post, a way to get over my nerves about creating it. I knew from the start it would be something that took up a lot of my time, something I'd have to put my all into, and that's not something I take lightly. However, I still feel like I started this place with some ideas that weren't the best for me and the blog.

While I knew it would take a lot, I still had the silly idea it would be easy, or parts of it would be. That ideas, creativity, and personality would just flow out of me and into this blog with the tap of my fingers on the keyboard! Obvious I proved myself wrong, and it wasn't long before I took a short break to sort myself out and to experience a little bit of an epiphany! So while the blog started close to the beginning of 2014, I've only got about 5 months of blogging under my belt, with December being more relaxed on post due to the holidays. However, I'm happy with what I've managed to do so far, as a blogger. I could honestly go further in a separate posts about all my thoughts on blogging and what it means for me personally. Overall, I'm glad I decided to join the book blogging community. I hope to continue to grow as a blogger.

What I look forward to with the start of 2015.

Growth in my abilities to be creative. Or really, to think creatively and foster ideas. I've mention this word before, probably enough that it may seem just a touch repetitive. But in the time I spent away from blogging and from the time that I've been exploring blogs, commenting, and discovering, it's the one thing that is a constant with bloggers and the content they post. Creativity and personality. Not just about creating brand new features but spinning the simplest twists that puts pieces of you into the blog your love. This is what I really hope to do. To share what I enjoy, in the way I enjoy it. And we all enjoy things differently. Uniquely, at it's core.

I hope to sort out the kind of reviews I post. So far, I've mostly posted reviews for books from the Young Adult genre, one new adult book, with a few adult romances, and one adult thriller. I read just as many books in the adult romance genre as I do the young adult genre, though with the start of blogging I've begun to read a lot more YA than I did before, because a lot of good books within the genre have been brought to my attention with more time spent in among book blogs. Before, I was purchasing books that were more prevalent (and cheap) at the Walmart in my hometown: adult romances. We haven't had a bookstore since I was a sophomore in high school, and it's been dreadful. Thankfully our library was stocked, but I'd already read 90% of the Young Adult books there, and they didn't purchase new YA nearly as much as they acquired Adult Fiction, oddly enough. Then when I got a kindle and discovered the world of amazon, I simply stuck to what I new most, especially while at school (oops, rambling again). Long story short: I'll probably be posting other genres just as frequently as I post young adult. Or I'll try. I tend to enjoy variety, after all, and my reviews are about the books I enjoy, more than anything.

Finally, I hope to communicate with other bloggers more. This is something I've struggle with most, especially on twitter where I've only accumulated a total of 361 tweets so far. When I talk/tweet with others and try to be social, I feel like I'm a bit of a nuisance. So this is something I want to try harder at because I enjoy the tweets from everyone I follow. There are lots of fun tweets (and people) and conversations being had. This is one goal that will be tough to act out for me!

Here's to hoping and praying that 2015 is an improvement in all the ways that count most, for everyone! What are you most looking forward to? What changes do you plan to make?