Blogger Recognition Award

So, two wonderful girls and bloggers, Lacy @ The Ravenclaw Library, and Kara @ Bernard’s Book Blog nominated me for this cool award a long time ago, and I finally got down to doing it. Both of them are super cool and have amazing blogs you should check out ASAP! Go! I’ll wait. Now on to the award formalities:

Rules:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
• Write a post to show your award.
• Give a brief story of how your blog started.
• Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
• Select 15 other bloggers you’d like to give this award to.
• Comment on each blog and let them know you’ve nominated them, providing a link to the post you’ve created.

How I started my blog

I have already mentioned this in my March Roundup post, and in various other posts and comments, but for all of you who haven’t read it until now – I started blogging, actually making my blog in 2016, but then quit. Then as the shit hit the fan at the beginning of this year, I’ve desperately needed a distraction, and what better distraction than a one related to books?

I have a general anxiety disorder which started around 2012 and since I just left it there untreated it has, as I said, hit the fan early this year. I’ve come to realize then that I need: 1. Help, 2. Support, and 3. More fun and enjoyment in my life. I’ve been working as a freelance graphic designer since late 2014, which means I spend 8h a day bending my spine and ruining my eyes in front of my laptop every day; I communicate with my coworkers through the Skype chat, so I have basically no social contact throughout the day; I’ve neglected my health and social life because of it, because that kind of work easily leads to it if you let it, and I did.

So what I’ve needed in my life in general was a change. Now, some of you may fairly think that I made no change whatsoever by adding blogging to my life, and thus prolonging my laptop-staring time during the day and again socializing with people online, so everything stayed the same, if not worse. You can’t be more wrong. I am at least 50% happier because of blogging (I like percentages); I met a bunch of people sharing my interests, which is an important point because I don’t know a single bookworm in real life; I’ve also met many lovely people sharing my disorder, which is excellent because I had no one to talk about it to really understand me before; and the last but not the least I’ve discovered the charms of stating your opinion, be it to people you’ve never even met in real life.

I’ve been active on Goodreads since 2011, but I’ve made very few acquaintances there, even from my own country, and not one single friend. For that reason I was still very afraid to write a review, trying not to hurt someone’s feelings/look like a fool/or just because I was afraid no one would read it. So I pushed myself into finishing that damn blog because of everything I’ve mentioned so far, and because I needed something to stick to, since I was a notorious quitter. So far so good.

Advice to new bloggers

I can’t really give quality advice since I’m only blogging for two months now, but I’ve learned some things from my mistakes:

 

1. Have fun. Both Lacy and Kara used this one, and I completely understand why. Don’t go into this thinking you’ll do 5 posts per week in regular intervals at the same time each day. Don’t believe you have to do 30 scheduled posts in advance or everything will fall apart. Don’t fret about reading quickly enough, or reading a lot of books only because you won’t have anything to post about. Enter into this experience freely and at your own tempo, because no one will forget you if you don’t post anything for a week. Life gets in the way sometimes, and everyone knows that.

 

2. Communicate. Kara also mentioned this one, and I think it’s important, so I’ll use it too. You can’t make friends if you sit and wait for someone to write to you several times, and then you answer with yes or no or with a like. If you follow some interesting blogs then go and drop them a comment from time to time. If someone comments on your post, it’s polite to answer, and preferably with more than a yes/no. In these two months I haven’t met a single rude person here, and I’ve met a lot of people. This is a place where you can freely discuss what’s on your mind, and you need at least two people for a discussion to start, right? Unless you prefer monologues, then just go ahead and shut down the comments section on your blog, but I dare say to claim that’s not the reason you’re here. 🙂

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I tag:

Amalia @ The Opinionated Reader

Lady Orangutan @ The Orangutan Librarian

Gerry @ The Book Nook UK

Lauren @ Always Me

Grainne @ Darkly Whimsical Reader

Abbie @ The Fuzzy Bookworm

I can’t do 15, cause I either don’t know that many people, or they’ve already been tagged. 😀 And because I’m lazy, sorry.