Hello everyone! ♥
How are you today? I’m currently swamped with work after a long Eid holiday but look at me here, I managed to post again and not relapse into my hiatus 😛 I have a little confession though, finding the time to blog while working full time and not having reliable internet connection is HARD. I admire any of you who’s been doing this all the time and I hope I could keep this up and settle into a comfortable routine soon.
Aaaaanyway, today I’ll be talking about things I miss the most from blogging. After more than a year neglecting Sparkling Letters, there are plenty of things I miss from blogging 😦
Without further ado, let’s get down to the list!
Putting down my thoughts into words
Ever since I was younger, I’ve always considered myself a writer. I blog, I write short stories, I attempt writing a novel, and even in my darkest and saddest moment, I poured my feelings through writing. It’s a therapy. But writing doesn’t always come easy, sometimes you know what you want to say but you have a hard time writing them down. Or you just can’t find the right words. Or you’ve done writing but somehow you don’t like what you just wrote.
Blogging is a good practice—a really good one. Through blogging I get used to translating my thoughts and feelings into words and in the process I expand my vocabulary, I discover my preferable writing style, and most importantly, I find my voice.
After a year of not blogging, I realized I was a little rusty. There were times I had a hard time composing long work emails. When I tried to continue writing my first draft, I couldn’t get the words flowing. When I wrote for fun, I just… didn’t completely like my writing. And there are some instances I couldn’t find the right words to explain things—even my English vocabulary is deteriorating 😦
Having people read my thoughts
Let’s be real, even if we write for ourselves, it’s nice to have audiences, isn’t it? 😛 I LOVE my readers and I’m always happy when they take time to read my posts and share their thoughts about it afterward. It’s rewarding to know all the effort you spend for that post is worth it
Interacting with other bloggers
I think I speak for everyone here when I say the best part of blogging is THE PEOPLE! I mean, you get to meet people from all over the world who share the same interests with you 😀 it’s difficult to find bookworms in real life, so I always cherish my online bookworm friends ♥
Losing my blogging friends is one of my biggest fear from getting back into blogging. A year is a plenty of time for things to happen on the internet, what if they forget about me? If I’ve dropped by your blog, you may have noticed that sometimes I started my comment with “do you remember me”. It’s more than just ice breaker because because I’m honestly scared to just barge in your post being all excited and enthusiastic and there you are thinking, do I remember this person? also I noticed that there has been a lot of changes : people who were active before no longer are and there are lots of new bloggers.
P.S. I can’t wait to talk to all of you ♥
Being in the loop with the bookish community
Still related to my point before, I realized I’ve fallen so out of the loop with the book community 😦 during my first few months of hiatus, I still tried to maintain communication with my blogging friends through twitter. But then I started running out things to talk about—mostly because I no longer read. And soon I just… stopped. I stopped sharing stories and I don’t know, I guess I got too wrapped up in my routine.
But I still followed you all, you know. I never unfollowed anyone, so I watched the interaction between my blogging friends. I saw what they’re talking about, but I felt irrelevant. I don’t read the books they’re hyping, I don’t know those new authors they’re talking about, and there are a lot of new bloggers I just didn’t know.
You know that feeling when you’ve been away from friends for too long and things change and it’s just too awkward for you to join now? That’s pretty much how I feel and the reason I shy away from people. But now that I’m back to blogging, I can’t wait to rekindle those friendships and start some new ones 😀
Being excited to read and review
Remember the time when I read like 3 books per week and regularly post reviews of them? Yeah, me neither. It seems like a long time ago I have to admit : I love reading from when I was a kid, but blogging about the books I read actually motivate me to keep reading. When I was blogging, I always want to read the latest releases because of the hype—and frankly to ramble about them on my own blog.
But when I wasn’t blogging : 1) I didn’t even keep up with the latest release, I had no idea that my favorite authors are publishing new books. 2) I didn’t get the hype. 3) I’m too lazy to read because where’s the push? It’s not like I’m going to review it afterward 🙈
Coming up with fresh ideas regularly
Like it or not, having a blog forces you to be creative. It’s like running a magazine. You have to constantly come up with original post ideas, take pictures, play around with designs, and interact with other bloggers. It’s a constant challenge, but I like it. During my year of blogging, I have to say I’ve come up with several amazing & highly original post ideas that I’m proud of 😛
And that feeling motivated me to keep looking. I did regular brainstorming to come up with fresh ideas, but now? I’m running out of ideas. I grabbed my blogging notebook and looked at the list of post ideas I’ve had so far : most of them are no longer relevant, or overused. So, yeah… I think going back into blogging will get that creative juice flowing again
We’re finally at the end of the post! Phewwww it’s been a while I write anything this long 😛 Anyway, those are all the things I miss the most from blogging. I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can think for now. Have you ever gone on hiatus before? If so, what do you miss the most from blogging? LET’S CHAT! ♥
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