What a fun week this has been! I’m super keen for more people to go and answer the questions I set on Day 2 – I’d love to know more about how you discovered this corner of the blogging world, and your favourite books – but today’s question is…
One of the unfortunate side effects of reading and blogging like rockstars seems to be a tendency toward burnout. How do you keep things fresh on your blog and in your reading?
It is one of the sad things in blogging, when bloggers disappear. Particularly when they do it without any warning or any other means of contact: one can’t help worrying about them. Others keep to various social media channels, but decide their time of blogging has come to an end – which is, of course, up to them entirely.
I see this less nowadays, perhaps because most of the blogs I read are those I’ve been reading for years, and people who’ve last five years (say) are likely to keep going.
What I noticed a lot was that the 18 month mark was telling. People either left the blogosphere, or changed how they went about blogging. I certainly changed. It was at that point that I decided only to read and review books that I wanted to read. Before that, getting review copies had been such an unexpected delight that I read all of them, and StuckinaBook started to not reflect my taste.
So, how do I avoid burnout? I stick to reading and writing what I want to write. When I have bigger ideas, I jump at them – before I might have been a bit anxious that nobody would join in, or nobody would be interested. Now, I say “Let’s do the 1924 club!” or “Why not start a podcast?” and I see what happens. I also have no targets on how often I’ll blog.
As for keeping things fresh… well, I suppose that’s not for me to say. I take a month or so away every few years, to have a bit of time to myself, and I certainly don’t do everything I can to become the biggest book blogger out there. Regular readers of StuckinaBook have become such a loved group, I treasure you all, and it is wonderful to bring together like-minded people – here, and in the comments sections of all the blogs I read of a similar mindset. Who’d think, as we go about our everyday lives, that there was a place we could retreat to where people have heard of Rose Macaulay, E.M. Delafield, Denis Mackail, etc. – and who know precisely which Elizabeth Taylor we’re talking about.
So actually, thinking about it, my answer to ‘how do you avoid burnout’ is pretty simple. It’s you guys.
