Weekly Highlights; The Post-BEA, Very Busy Edition

Post Highlights

Oh. I just realised I haven’t done a weekly highlights post in almost two months. This just goes to show how busy and un-motivated I have been when it comes to blogging and I just want to apologise to you all for the lack of posts (and weekly highlights!) and hope that you all can forgive me and will stick around! I’m hoping that I’ll be back on my feet soon enough. I’m going to try and just catch up but also I’m trying not to stress so much when I only post once or twice a week but I’ll talk more about this below. *nods*

Now… as I haven’t done one of these in a while, I thought I’d do a sort of wrap up of the last few weeks.

This month I posted THREE reviews;
Glaze by Kim Curran (FOUR HEARTS)
Don’t Even Think About It by Sarah Mylnowski (FOUR HEARTS)
The History Keepers: Nightship to China by Damian Dibben (FOUR HEARTS)

Things you may have missed;
I interviewed the lovely Nigel McDowell for Countdown to 5th June. Check that out here

I helped reveal the cover of Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie by Jeff Norton, with an exclusive excerpt! Click here to see it in all its glory!

And finally I signed up for the YALC Readathon! Find out what books I will be choosing from and how many I plan to read (and also more info on the readathon) in this post.

Upcoming

I know I haven’t been around a lot and I’m not promising these things will go up next week because life may get in the way but if all goes to plan you should see these things happening!

Top Ten Books on my Summer TBR

A hopefully fun post about something I’ve been noticing recently!

And, if all goes well, I’ll also have two reviews go up.

And maybe I’ll even have time to treat you all to some BEA things! Like more info on what happened, things that happened in NYC and possibly some tips and tricks as well!

But First…

As you may have noticed above, I haven’t posted in a while and I mentioned that I have been unmotivated to post. This is something that has been stirring within me for a while and I have unofficially been declaring myself in a blogging slump. Even when I have time to blog, I end up turning on the television or picking up a book instead of actually sitting down and writing and that is because I just haven’t had the right kind of energy for blogging. Being busy, moving house, going on BEA, have all seemed to wipe my energy but I also feel like these things are just excuses and I don’t want to make excuses anymore.

Blogging stopped being fun.

There, I said it.

I often go through small phases like this but this has been going on for a while and it’s time I just told you all how I’ve been feeling because it’s something I need to deal with. Every time I watch TV instead of blog or read, I feel guilty. Whenever I read instead of blog or vlog, I feel guilty. Whenever I just fall asleep instead of blogging or reading, I feel guilty. And it needs to stop. I can’t go around feeling guilty anymore because it is no way to live.

I’m not saying I can change my attitude in a day but what I am saying is that I am going to try and stop putting my blogging and vlogging so high in my “to-do” list. If I don’t feel like blogging, so what? It is not the end of the world. It is a hobby and I really want it to stay that way. So I’m going to do everything I can to keep it that way but I still just want to apologise for what will likely be a very sporadic schedule on this blog. I hope that you can forgive me for it and still stick by me, but I totally understand if you can’t.

I am, by no means, going to stop blogging, but I am going to be stepping back until I can get my rhythm back.

Around The Blogosphere

Ever wondered what Blogging is like from a non-blogger’s perspective? Now you can find out on Lucy’s blog here where she had a lovely guest post from Becky!

I have always had friends on the internet. From the minute we finally got dial-up and I was allowed thirty minutes every evening to spend on it, I found people to talk to online. In a way, speaking to people online was safer. I could tell them anything and they wouldn’t judge me because they didn’t know me. Never did my thirteen year old self think I would ever MEET anyone from online but now I have and it is just… amazing. Lucy wrote a blog post about internet friends and discusses whether or not they can be seen as real friends. I definitely think they can be (I met my flatmate online!) but what do you think? Read the post here.

Do you think Young Adult books can be funny? This fab guest post from Rachel Hamilton on YA Contemporary explains how they can be and lists recommendations! Check it out.

Personally I’m usually quite honest about being a book blogger and generally okay with handing out my URL to people who ask but I also know there are still some people I wouldn’t hand my blog URL to. This week Amber is asking, why do we hide our book blogs? Check out the post here and let me know if you take her up on her dare!

Do you own an android phone? Do you love books? If so, you should check out this post which tells you about some great bookish apps!

Have you seen all the #bookaday tweets lately? Are you joining in? If there is one person to highlight for this it is Stacey’s wrap up posts of these photos. All I can say is that I LOVE her photography and seeing all the books together is just so lovely! Check out week one, here, and week two, here.

And finally, you need to check out this website. It is called Dear Bully, and is a website created by a lot of authors to help combat bullying. There are also ways in which you can help so please, visit this site and share it on because it is so, so important.

Letterbox Love

These are all the books I got in the last two weeks! I don’t know how I’ll get to read them all with all the BEA books I got but there we go! Hopefully I’ll get fewer books in the next few weeks…

And there you have it, my Weekly Highlights!
I hope to visit all posts of this manner, so feel free to link to your own IMMs, Sunday Showcase, Sunday Posts, Letterbox Loves or whatever it is you do below!
what did you get this week? what cool blog posts did you stumble upon? what are you waiting to happen this week?