Bookish Whimsy: Behind the Scenes

Today is my birthday!  And since this is a certified Me-day, I wanted to share a little bit about my reading and blogging routine.  I've been book blogging for over a year, and have learned a few things about what works best for me when it comes to managing the work load and keeping organized.  It's especially nice to have a few book reviews banked against future life happenings, which I was able to do once I got organized.  It's usually a little bit of daily upkeep to make sure I'm on track.  As for reading, I usually read a book off and on during the week, and on the weekends I shun friends and family and read, read, read.  In ideal circumstances I can get through at least two books after I finish up the first book I was reading during the week.  But the TBR pile refuses to diminish!

So these are some of my preciousss my books!  I could use another bookcase - if only to house all the trinkets I like to decorate my shelves with! - but at the moment, the 'case is looking pretty good I think - not shockingly crowded.  I did some book pruning earlier and moved some of my lesser appreciated books or more recent purchases to a different area.  The first picture on the left is of my specialfavoriteawesome books that sit on my desk because I like to have them on hand for occasional perusal.

I hope Alisa from Picture Me Reading sees the lovely Ariel and Ursula POP figures on my shelf! She was so amazing to give them to me for Christmas! I love them!  And continuing the Disney theme, I have lots of Minnie and Mickey and yet more Little Mermaid things.  I love them so.  There's a Minnie Mouse in a pink car that I got on my birthday cake when I was 9 or 10 years old.  :)

For the blogging side, I have pictured:

1. The Chair: that I usually read on in my room.  It's from Ikea.  Not amazing, but serviceable.
2. The Notebook: where I like to take notes when I go to bookish events, or sometimes write out my reviews.  I usually like to type up my reviews directly but when I was on vacation or sometimes in a boring meeting at work *wink* I write down my reviews while the book is fresh in my mind.
3. The Laptop: or my Beloved. And pictured is an absolutely fabulous book I just wrote my review for!
4. The Calendar: I don't always write down what I'm posting every day, I usually just schedule a blank post in Blogger to keep track, but when I went on vacation in June and knew I had to prepare for two weeks away I pretty much scheduled posts a month in advance and it helped to see everything written down.  I normally just use the calendar for important days I need to remember - book tour stops or book releases of any ARCs I'm lucky to get.

Having a calendar and a notebook are two things I recently decided to start using to help me keep up with an almost daily blogging schedule and it's been very helpful.  The notebook in particular for when I've just finished a book and I don't feel like writing a review yet, I jot down some thoughts and notes that I can refer to when I start the review.

I feel like this post should also make up for missing posting about my first year blogoversary back in March, so to make up for that, here are some of the things that learned and/or work well for me as a book blogger that I didn't know when I first started:

1. TURN OFF CAPTCHA.  It's annoying.
2. Don't accept books from authors or publishers that you do not truly want to read.  In the beginning it really made me feel bad to send back a "no".  I still feel a little bad, but I know it is for the best.
3. Whenever I get stuck on what to write for a review, I just try to think about how the book made me feel.  The feels are always fun to write about!
4. You can not edit yourself enough.  I like to write a review days before it's supposed to be posted, so I can read it over again later and see what mistakes I missed, or maybe fix some ideas that didn't flow as well as I wanted.  But still I seem to miss things!
5. Comment a little bit every day. I was not very good at commenting in the beginning because the sheer amount of posts to read seemed so daunting so when I tried not to feel like I have to comment on every one, and just try to comment on blogs that are my regular reads, and random ones besides with posts that catch my interest I got better. And using Bloglovin helped!  Sometimes if I'm at work and I have a spare minute, I like to read the top post on my blog feed and comment.
6. Use Twitter.  I only really started checking my twitter feeds a few months ago, but it's been a much better way to keep connected with the blogging world and with the authors and book events, and with what my new favorite bloggers are doing.  And it's fun to have the instant interaction!  

If you've read this far, wow thank you so much!  I hope this post was just a little bit interesting!  Last picture is me at a book signing for one of my favorite authors, Shannon Hale.   The film adaptation of her book Austenland is coming out this month (in select cities) and I can't wait for it!  It's my most anticipated film of the year! I didn't blog about her book signing event, partly because I got there late so I didn't get a seat and didn't want to bust out my notebook and take notes standing up, and partly because I had a Doctor Who convention to go to the next day so time, I had not.  But she's so nice in person, and it was lovely to meet her. (I got to squee a little bit about J.J. Feild with her!)  And I don't mind this picture of me (shocker) so I'll post it. 

This past year (well by my birth years) has gone by so fast, and I've had so much fun with blogging and with going to author events, that I can't imagine things getting better than this.  But I'm sure it will because there are so many wonderful and enthusiastic book bloggers and lovers out there and I look forward to meeting many more.

If you have any tips you didn't know before you started blogging please comment with them, I would love to read them!

Oh and by the way, I've started a Pinterest account (click the image to visit) - not sure how much I'll use it, but I do like to see all those book covers in one place!