What a year 2020 has been, huh? It's definitely been a bit of a wash out for Once Upon a Bookcase for various reasons - partly due to a lot of re-reading, and partly because I just couldn't face it. As the year draws to a close, I've started to reflect on what I want in the New Year generally, and I thought I would share what I'm thinking for the blog.
I am not shutting the blog down, I love writing for it too much, but having had quite the break, I have looked at what I enjoy about blogging, and what I don't. I really dislike how much time formatting posts takes. So much. I pretty much loathe it now, and it's one of the things that's kept be from posting much. Even with having templates, there are still the things I have to change and add each time, and honestly, I just don't want to do it. While the writing brings me so much joy, the rest has stopped me from writing. So in 2021, there will be a much stripped back, minimalist version of my reviews. They may not be super pretty, but there will hopefully be more of them if I have less to do.
Last year, I changed OUaB from a book blog, to a more personal/lifestyle blog. This was because there were other things I wanted to talk about, but also, after 10 years of book blogging, I was struggling to find things around books to talk about outside of reviews. This is still the case, but some of my interests led to a loss of engagement. I created a separate blog for those particular interests, but as those were things I most wanted to write about, there were fewer lifestyle posts here. Though I even ended up taking a break from that one, too. And the truth is, my audience were my audience for my book posts, and as they decreased, and I was writing about other things, my blog wasn't really what they originally read it for. So I have a lot of thinking about what else I want to discuss on this blog, and where I want to take it. It is definitely no longer just a book blog, and it won't be returning to one. But what it will look like is yet to be seen.
However, I will not be following a posting schedule. I will write about what I want to write about when I want to write about it. I'm not forcing myself to blog when I don't want to, when I'm struggling with ideas, or when I have other things going on. This might not be something readers may like, but I need blogging to work for me, or I'll just end up having another year like this one, where I barely post at all.
I'm also rethinking my relationship with social media. I find I either don't use it very much, or I scroll out of habit, with not much real interest. I'm considering keeping Twitter to share my blog posts, but deleting the app from my phone, but I might just delete it altogether. I barely engage as it is. I do have an Instagram account that isn't related to blogging, but I'm even questioning whether I keep that or not. This is all to say, if you want to keep up with my content, you're probably best following me on Bloglovin' if you don't already, or subscribing by email.
I've also been thinking about more personal reading goals/habits that don't really affect the blog. I'm also thinking about trying out a book buying ban of some kind for the whole of 2021. I've still got to figure out the details of that, and how it would work, so that might be a blog post of it's own. I'm also thinking about reading challenges. I do love them, but being a mood reader means I fail a lot. And a number of my favourites aren't around any more. So maybe I'll just keep track of the books I read instead. The genres, the authors, etc. More personally, I'm thinking of starting a bullet journal for 2021 just for fun spreads, none of the planning side of things, so maybe I'll track my progress there.
So yeah, changes are coming. I'm not 100% certain what exactly those changes will be, but I thought I'd give you a heads up before it all starts happening. If it means you stop reading my blog, no worries. It was nice having you here while you were here.
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