OKAY WAIT. Before I start this post I just want to leave this here because I just rediscovered it.
Hi guys! So I think about my blog a lot. Often I need more than 140 characters but less than a whole blog post to discuss, so I started writing down little snippets that eventually became this post. Yay! But brace yourself! This post turned out to be longer than I had planned originally. Oops.
1. Series that have novellas
With the posting of my list of series I’ve started, I got a little bit flustered at the amount of books to read (or not read). Like, I’ve had at least one dream about it. Thinking about all these series becomes more daunting when you factor in the novellas in a series as well. I like novellas in a series, I do, but it can get to be a little much. I feel like it adds SO much more to read and look out for. It’s cool to have a novella come out when you’re anxiously waiting for the next book in the series, but when someone new (me) comes into the series and sees all the books plus four novellas in some situations… it’s kind of stressful. Just thinking about, like, “Where can I get all these novellas?” is just sakjfbdjvssd.
2. My Kindle
I would read more ebooks if my Kindle weren’t so difficult to organize. Don’t get me wrong! I adore my Kindle (Keyboard), but the organization features are total shit. You have go to this menu to get to this menu to do this thing that will do this… etc. I don’t even know what interface I would want, but it’s definitely not this. I feel like things always get lost in my Kindle and there’s not really a good way to sort through things, make lists, and whatnot. I feel like I need something that’s drag-and-drop or similar. A pain in the butt Kindle is better than no Kindle, of course.
3. Personal life vs. blogging life
When I started my blog my aim was to keep my blogging life and my personal life completely separate—then a little personal stuff became okay… and then more and more. My personal life has bled into my blogging life so much that I hardly use my personal account anymore. Particularly when it comes to Twitter. I would literally rather chat with blogging buddies and readers than anyone I know in my “real” life. I’m not even upset about it. I quite like it, but I’m starting to feel like there is no point in my personal Twitter account anymore. Ha!
4. Hiatus and blog changes
So I went on a blogging hiatus in January. Like, I haven’t even completely decided the hiatus is over, but I definitely needed it. One thing I thought about a lot was what I was doing wrong in my blogging that made it start to feel like a chore. I decided to start writing shorter reviews, not force myself to participate in memes like Top Ten Tuesday or Waiting on Wednesday if I don’t feel like it, and I’m thinking about not doing book hauls anymore. The biggest change, by far, was the review length. I feel like the decision to write shorter reviews has alleviated the pressure to write said reviews. I don’t feel smothered by all the books I should write reviews for. I write when I feel like it and only as much as I feel like. I’m not worrying about review length anymore. If it’s kind of short then it’s kind of short. If it’s really long then so be it. Giving myself this freedom has helped so much. Before, I used to try and add more thoughts to reach a word count bracket. Now I sort of just say whatever the hell I want. It’s great! (I hope you guys don’t hate it.)
5. Review books
I’m really bad at reading review books. Like, really bad. I don’t mean to be, but sometimes I let what I want to read overshadow what I said I will… More likely, though, I forgot about the book/ARC because it ended up in the book graveyard on my Kindle. (Remember what I said about my Kindle? Yeah.) Most of the time, unless I start reading the review book immediately, it’s not going to happen. I need to make a list of all the review books I have and get to it. I feel so awful.
So yeah. Those were some things I’ve been thinking about lately. Looking back, it kind of seems like a few of those things circled back to my frustration with my Kindle. I love it a lot, but dang it! I wish it were easier to organize.
Lisa Likes Books 
10 responses to “Bookish Thoughts I’ve Been Having Lately”
Perhaps it would be helpful to use a program like Calibre to organize your e-books even more? I love using this program in combination with my e-reader and you can add different columns you can customize yourself.
I actually used to use Calibre AND a spreadsheet, but it didn’t help. Haha. I’m going to give Calibre another go, though. The only reason I stopped using it was because my computer crashed a while ago and it got deleted. Thanks for the input! (:
Ahahaha I am so terrible at reviewing things! Seriously. There are at least 5 ARC’s I was supposed to have reviewed in the past month or so. Oops? But I’m the same way – if I don’t read it right away…it’s probably not happening (any time soon anyway). And I have all the same issues with novellas! The only novellas I’ve committed to reading is the Throne of Glass ones, though. I’ve never really understood the point of them to be honest (although the ToG ones actually give you some pertinent information. I didn’t realize novellas could do that for some reason)
That’s true too! Sometimes you HAVE to read the novellas. I really do like novellas because they give good backstory and all that jazz, it’s just overwhelming when there are a million different books/elements in a series.
I get what you mean about the series with novellas, I feel the same with long series as well. While it is good in that you get to enjoy it for longer, sometimes its pretty exhausting and off-putting, I’m definitely on the look out for more standalones this year
Standalones are a definite want! I feel like lately even the standalones have been growing into series/companions after the fact. *shrugs* I don’t know.
I don’t use my blog twitter as much as I should, but I gave up on my personal twitter a couple of months ago. I just wasn’t into it anymore. I added a couple of nonblogging friends that I wanted to keep in touch with to my blog twitter, but no one else seems to have noticed I’m no longer using the old one. Looks like I made a good call!
I don’t care much for novellas, but I’m a completist, so I feel like I have to read them or I haven’t finished the series. But it’s so hard to keep track of them, even when I’m reading the series as it’s being published. Half the time I don’t even know there’s a novella until I’m on Goodreads looking to see when the next (full-length) book is coming out.
1. Ohmygosh YES. I think the whole novella craze kind of needs to stop. Like, seriously. Like you said, it adds SO MUCH MORE READING to every single series. I guess you could forgo reading them, but what if you miss out on some integral thing? But then again, I really do not think that novellas should have integral things in them. They should definitely only be additive. And finding them is stressful for me. If they’re not on Amazon – where are they?
2. My Kindle’s organisational features are not so great, either. I can make folders, but then the folder sits with my books. No. I want a page for folders, and a page for books, My folder is not a book! My Kobo is much better at being able to organise my books. We have ‘shelves’, and then there’s a page for shelves, and you can put multiple books in the shelf at one time. Yes, much easier.
3. I never had a personal Twitter account. But I didn’t think that I would be as personal as I am with blogging. I never thought I would have posts about my life, and yet they’re some of the most popular ones I had. And I never thought I would find friends that I would be able to share weird and personal info with (like our swoony emails XD). It’s all kinds of fantastic, though.
4. I’m glad you’re more at peace with your blog! I think the worst thing that can happen to a blogger is to lose the passion for blogging. At the moment, I am not so keen on writing reviews, but I have HEAPS of reviews piled up so I am not too worried about the fact that I am not feeling the love for review writing so much at the moment. Hopefully I will get back into the swing of things. I only do two memes now, and I feel better. TTT used to stress me out for some reason, so I decided I wouldn’t do them any more, and it’s great.
I’m glad you don’t try and hit a word limit on your reviews any more! I’ve never done that, but I have felt like my review wasn’t long enough/didn’t say enough. So I get what you mean about review stress. Hopefully we can both get over it! 😀
5. I am not so great with the review books, either. I have some from June of last year, and I mean to read them I REALLY DO but then all these other shiny novels push their way into my line of vision, and then the less than shiny review books kind of take a back seat. I have made a list of all the ones I need to read, and I am slowly getting through them. I will definitely cut down on (if not eliminate) review requests/acceptances in the future.
I loved this post, if you cannot tell by the excessively long comment! 😀
1. Yeah, I agree. Novellas are cool, but if something was really THAT important then why not just put it in one of the main novels? I often wonder if all these authors WANT to put out novellas or if there is prodding from the publishers, you know?
2. My Kindle is the exact same way. I wonder what the organization is like for the Kindle Fires…. Huh, it sounds like Kobo is much better at that. I’m sure most e-readers are getting better at the whole e-reader thing in general… but it’d be nice if I could just have a system update instead of having to buy a completely different reader. I mean, MAN.
3. I totally get what you mean. I feel like a lot of bloggers walk into this with the idea that it will be separate from personal life… but they have a way of bleeding into each other. I suppose we should have expected it to happen. Haha.
4. TTT used to stress me out a lot too. I never really forced myself to do them, but eventually I stopped wanting to any AT ALL because finding all the books and then formatting the posts and whatnot was just ugh. It’s so much work and I feel like a lot of people (not all of them!) are just looking for comments. That’s bad to say, but still.
Yeah, definitely. I hope you can learn to like reviewing again. Jaime (Perpetual Page-Turner) just posted something about this recently. I like the idea of having book talks rather than book reviews.
5. Cutting down on review books seems like a good idea to me! They sound like a great idea at first, but sometimes they turn into homework… lots of obligation if it’s a book you’re not SUPER looking forward to.
Man, this comment turned into such a drag. I’m sorry! It totally wasn’t the plan at first. Haha.
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