Thank You Blogging!

Before I started blogging, I was a quiet reader. I pretty much kept myself to myself. My friends weren't really aware that I was such a heavy reader.  I didn't talk about reading an awful lot and during my time in high school because leisurely reading was the "strangest hobby ever" (according to everyone in my year) and it also meant you didn't have a life, which I also found out when I expressed my liking for crafting in my English class (it was an presentation assessment, bleeehh!). I only had three friend who read for entertainment but we all had very different reading tastes. But I think in secondary school reading YA books seemed much more acceptable than now that I'm in college. 

I guess my friends now know how much I read now. They know how much money I spend on my book hauls. They also know that I attended tonnes of book events last year, since most of them were after college and I would be lugging a massive bag around college full of books!


But from secondary school to college there's a bit of a difference.


When I hit college, everyone expects you to be an adult. Doing adult things, organizing time and then reading what adults read. Something complex and educational, bettering your internal dictionary. I can't say I disagree with that but then leisurely reading is supposed to be fun, right? So if I picked up a book with several words in one sentence that I didn't understand, where is the fun in that?


I don't care so much who knows about my reading habits. Ok, so I don't go round broadcasting it to every person I see, but I talk about books without feeling so ashamed. Basically everyone in the English department know me as a very heavy young adult reader, especially since I handed in my proposal (I also spent my second year English Language coursework focusing on YA dystopian and romance. It was so much fun!). I have never been able to get into classics, not being able to get through the few pages of heavy description, and there are only a small bunch of adult books that I read.

And where did this change of hiding my reading habits change? The turth is it has actually come from blogging!

I have come to the idea that some people will always disagree with what I want to do in the end, be a UKYA author. People will always look down on authors who write YA but the blogging community has really opened my eyes. As well as being able to project my voice into the internet void, I have been able to read other posts done by various bloggers who aren't ashamed of what they read or write.


(And yeah, I kinda use my blog as a bit of a diary entry. It's pretty awesome because I can ramble and you'll read it anyway ;P haha..)

When I was in the process of writing my personal statement my tutor commented how I said 'amazing' so much. He said it didn't sound like I really meant it and that I should take the 'George Orwell way of writing.' I missed out on studying Animal Farm, so had no clue what he was on about. But apparently, simple is the way I should of written. No exaggeration of emotion. I was a bit of a stubborn student and didn't do anything he said and instead gave it to my English teacher to read over, and thank god I did because I have got the turn out that I couldn't be happier about!

So why did you read that massive chunk of a post? It was a very long way of saying thank you, which is all I seem to be doing most of the time. Thanks to those who've been super kind to me, those who've followed me every and anywhere and those, who don't know it, but post their normal posts for people to read and give me a little boost of determination of what I want to do in the future! 


So hopefully this blog will be around for a while!

Should be a fun ride! (Just put in that cliché there!!)

Thank you!

2 comments:

  1. I'm sure we all hope that you'll be around on the blogosphere for awhile! But I totally agree with this post. It's a bit weird to tell people how much you read, but I'm a lot more open about it now that I blog about reading. I don't really know why. Maybe it gives me confidence that I'm not weird?

    And I'll totally pick up your books if you get published!

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  2. I agree and I find it really difficult to tell people how much I read. I love my group of friends but I'm the bookworm of the group and so if I were to tell people this year so far I've read 8 books they would be in shock, but I don't find that much of a big deal.
    My friends know I'm a blogger although they don't read it, which means it's still hard to talk about reading but I've got a lot more confidence because I've made friends like you through blogging.
    Holly x

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