Hello all!! Long time no see! I haven't fallen off the face of the planet I promise. I've been stuck in a reading slump but Maggie Stiefvater and The Raven Boys Cycle came to my rescue. Anyway, it's been a while but I'm back to celebrate some super exciting news: Cait from my all time favorite book blog, The Notebook Sisters, has changed her blog name to Paper Fury and moved over to Wordpress! There was a lot of scary and worries involved but everything turned out spectacular and her new blog looks fantastic! So if you don't know Cait and her all around frabjous-ness already, do check out her page! In the mean time, to celebrate, she is hosting a book tag party in which I spill all my secrets about my own blog... well, not really. Anywho, let's get this party started!!
1. Why did you start blogging?
I started blogging for the same reason any book blogger blogs: I read a lot and had no outlet to really talk about the things I read. Now the process of me starting a blog was rather interesting. I bounced back and forth between vlogging or blogging but didn't have the guts to do either for about a year. Then I realized a few things: 1. I don't have a camera aside from the crappy webcam on my laptop, 2. even if I did have a proper camera, I don't have the right software to edit videos, and 3. even if i had the right software, chances are I wouldn't know how to work it. Therefore, by process of elimination, creating a book blog won out over vlogging on YouTube.
2. What’s the story behind your blog’s name?
It's sort of funny really, some bloggers go through a bunch of names before they find the right one but I had a blog name even before I had 100% decided that I'd start a blog. Once I had a name, it was only about two or three weeks after that the little blog you see before you came to be. The name comes from me having been a dancer mixed with my love of books. I thought it was quite catchy and perfect for me and it was the final deciding point on this blog's creation.
3. How many designs have you been through since you started blogging? (Pictures! We demand pictures!)
It has been almost a year now and I have never once changed my blog design. This is of course, not counting the default template Blogger starts you out with. There's a few reasons why I haven't changed my design though most of which involve my having no talent at all in design creations. This is closely followed by the fact that Blogger's editing setup confuses me to know end. I have been contemplating the idea of paying for an original design to be made for me but that costs money, obviously, and I haven't decided yet if I really want to pay for something that I could probably figure out eventually for myself.
4. Have you ever switched blog platforms? What made you move? If you haven’t ever changed…why?
Nope, no switching here. I've only ever been on Blogger even though it frustrates that crap out of me and the whole reason why I disappeared for a month was because it wouldn't let me put pictures into my posts. Honestly, it just kept showing me the little loading logo every time i tried to upload a picture. Not cool, Blogger, not cool. Eventually, I figured out that it was because I was using an older version of Internet Explorer but it had worked just fine for almost a year and then...
Am I the only one out there who thinks Atlantis is one of the most underrated Disney movies?
5. How long does it take you to write a post? What’s your postly process like?
Haha funny you should ask. Process? Pfft, what process? I'm notorious for starting posts then forgetting about them for days only to come back to them and be like, what was I even writing about? I'm the worst with reviews. I'll let you in on a little secret here. I started this blog to talk about books, but I hate writing reviews. They feel so homework-y sometimes that I procrastinate on them so much that I end up forgetting all the points that I wanted to talk about while I read the book. But when I do starting writing consistently, I end up writing a little, searching for gifs a lot a bit, playing Diner Dash on my phone, going back to writing, then gif searching again, deciding which of the 15 gifs I found i actually want to use, editing my post then finally publishing it. It's all a rather mixed up random process but when the mood strikes me I've been known to be a tad bit more efficient about it.
6. Have you ever been super nervous about a post? Why?! What was it?
Yes actually! When I wrote about DNF-ing a book, I was quite nervous about posting that. Not because DNFs are uncommon but because the reason I had for not finishing this particular book touched upon a more serious subject than I usually write about. I hadn't wanted the post to turn into a book bashing so I had to rewrite it twice to eliminate all traces that might have led to the specific book I was referring to. My reason was because the main character was a fairly weak girl who was afraid of everything and seemed overly dependent on the men around her. I can't stand that. I like to read about strong female characters who can stand up for themselves and this particular character was just the opposite of all of that.
7. Do you have a blogging schedule?
Haha... please refer to my answer to question 5. I did want to have a blogging schedule and be all organized about how I ran this blog but life has a bad habit of getting in the way of that and as soon as I think I'm ahead, I'm not anymore.
8. Do you tell people In-Real-Life about your blog? Their reactions?
Not really but I have mentioned it in passing a couple of time. I've told a few friends and I'm pretty sure I told my mom but I never gave any of them the link to actually come visit.
9. Top ten blogs you read/comment on the most! Go! Go!
1. Paper Fury - I have to get used to not saying Notebook Sisters.
2. The Book's Buzz
3. Enchanted by YA
4. Fictionally Obsessed
5. The Loony Teen Writer
6. Beauty and the Bookshelf
7. Forever Literary
These are only some of my favorite blogs out there. Sorry, I couldn't think of 10. I keep reading the same blogs over and over without branching out to find new ones. Don't be surprised if you see yourself here and I've never commented on your blog. I'm really bad at doing that. Like it's really bad. I'm working on that though.
10. If you could change/improve things about your blog, what would they be?
I'd like to have a cool design that pops more than the generic one I have now. I would also like to actually have a blog schedule or at least post more often. I'd like to post more reviews even though I'm not a fan of writing them. And though this doesn't pertain to my blog specifically, I'd really like to work on commenting more often on the posts I read on other people's blogs and commenting back for everyone who comments here.
That's all I have for now. But before I go, let's give one final toast to Cait and her awesome new blog! Good luck Cait! I'll miss seeing all your posts on my Blogger Dashboard but you've now given me reason to check my Bloglovin' feed more often. Yay for Cait and the lovely new Paper Fury!!
