Better Reading & Blogging in 2016
I’ve never been much about New Year resolutions (let’s be real, I can never keep them), but this year I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my reading and blogging habits, and where I want to go with it in the next few months. Both of these have always been passions and hobbies, and when they start feeling like obligations, I tend to neglect them. With the Infinite Curio turning 7 tomorrow, now is as good a time as any to make some good resolutions, isn’t it? 🙂
So, here are a few decisions I made for myself for 2016 :
Blogging :
I won’t be doing a new “In my mailbox” post every week. Most weeks, probably, but not every week. New books don’t need to be announced immediately. I’ll still stop by to see what everyone is getting though – otherwise, how would my wishlist keep growing?
It’s okay not to review every book I read. I really struggle with this one, because I almost always have at least one thought to share, but very often I don’t have enough material for a full length review. I might try a quick format like one-sentence-reviews – could that be fun?
I really, really, really need to comment more, both in replies here and on other blogs. It’s kind of shameful how little I interact on blogs nowadays…
Reading :
Abandon books! There’s no sense in latching to a sinking ship. I’ve been doing better with this over the years, but 2015 really showed me how satisfying it is to drop a book that just doesn’t work.
2016 will be the year of reading series. I have so many series on my shelves, it’s crazy! I want to read all of these “first in series” so that I can see which ones interest me, and which ones I can drop. The good (shameful) thing? I’m so late to most of these, that a lot of them are now completed. Hopefully, I can also complete some series this year.
Reading 2 hours a day. I’m guessing this may sound like a lot to some, and not enough to others. I used to read on my commute, which was 40 minutes to an hour, twice a day. Now that I work from home and avoid the commute (YAY!), I also found that I struggle to make time to read.
All in all, I want simplicity. I want all of my reading to be amazing. I want variety in all genres and formats, and I want to make my blogging experience a reflection of this.
And if any of you have also made some blogging or reading resolutions for 2016, I’d love to hear them!
These are things that I have been thinking for some time, as I reconsidered rejoining the book blogging community as a blog-owner and involving myself on a deeper level than I have been. It’s been years since I last regularly reviewed, and I’ll admit it is quite daunting.
So to counter that and also make for a better blog I am making similar resolutions to you: don’t have to review everything, it’s okay to DNF etc. And, of course, comment more (which I am totally sticking to by commenting here :D). I’m also going to stop worrying about not keeping up with the latest releases, especially since a lot don’t make it to my country. I’ll read what I want, and review what I want, whether it’s the latest hot YA everyone apparently must read or some Star Wars novel thrust out of canon and into Legends.
I stopped keeping a book blog because it stopped being fun. This time around I’m going to make sure it stays fun.
Haha! I appreciate your effort in commenting! 😀
You make a great point about the latest releases too. It’s just impossible to always be on trend – unless you want your reading to be completely dictated by said trends. I’ve been doing more and more “read what I want when I want” these past couple years and it’s much more fun.
So let’s keep reading and blogging fun!
And if you let me know once your blog is online (I clicked and it seems under maintenance now), I’ll honor my comment commitment too! 🙂
I will let you know. Sadly the set-up is taking longer than I anticipated.
First let me say that I hope that your year 2016 will be a wonderful one.
Commenting more is something I also want to do, too often I read an interesting blog post but don’t comment, this needs to change.
I’m trying out something new for my book blog to make blogging interesting for me again, so far it’s working and I’m very happy about it.
Thank you Sabrina, and I wish you a happy 2016 too!
I do the same as you, I’m very passive about my blog-reading; I read a lot of posts that I don’t comment on, unfortunately.
It’s good to change things when we need it, isn’t it? I’m happy to hear your changes are working out well for you! 🙂
I love the freedom of mini-reviews! 🙂
I love them too! I used to do more of them and I think I’ll give them another try 🙂