The Blog Squad: A Blogger Collaboration - Part XXV

We are a group of three book bloggers situated on different continents but brought together by our love for books and a penchant for talking about them. We’ve joined our forces to create a collaborative series of posts about book blogging and we hope you’ll enjoy the discussions.

A MAGICAL WORLD OF WORDS - AmyNikita 

BOOKS.BAGS.BURGERS - Uma K 

BOOK REVIEWS BY DI - Di Hewlett

After a brief hiatus last week due to ALL of us having insane lives, we're back this week :) 

What’s the strangest thing you’ve done in the name of blogging?

Like the other chicas, the strangest thing I’ve done is learn technology *gasp* If you know me, you probably know that me and technology don’t get along all that well. I break my phones a lot, I am very hesitant about online payments and I just don’t trust technology (hence technology doesn’t trust me either). So having to learn all HTML and CSS stuff for my blog was pretty weird. Like I never thought I’d be learning about this stuff?

My points are very similar to Di’s:

• I stay up late to get reading done. I hardly read at all in the day, to be honest, so that means I do most - if not all - of my reading at night.
• I’ve got Instagram and Twitter accounts, which I never thought I’d have. I was against them for so long and I’m not sure why, but in retrospect it would’ve been impossible to do the things I’m doing with my blog if I didn’t at least have Twitter.
• Image/graphic design and HTML = #stress. But it has been so good for me to fiddle with HTML and CSS and learn more about them. I’m still terrified, but I definitely feel more confident playing with it than I was before the blog. Heck, I hardly even knew about it then...

What do you do about blogging slumps?

Like Amy, I think I’m in a slump currently! Though it’s not for the lack of inspiration or interest but rather due to the fact that college = working in hell. I literally have no time to post these days, let alone reply to comments and blog hop. Even my holidays are spent doing study work!

But if you feel you’re in a slump due to the fact you’re not much interested in writing your posts, maybe it’s time to analyse why and think about taking a break. If you can’t think of much to say, then it’s probably time to take a little break until you feel inspired again! Also have fun blogging! If we get all formal about it, I think the pressure might tire us out.

Ha. Ha.
I think I’m actually in a blogging slump at the moment ;) I’m so behind on replying to comments, blog hopping, and I’m procrastinating writing certain posts. I just have very little motivation to do any of that. As far as beating it goes, I guess you can either embrace the break and have some down-time, or force yourself into your chair and make yourself blog (I may be taking that approach....)

But I think a better piece of advice would be how to avoid a blogging slump. I think I’m in a slump because I’ve been blogging so much; posting too much, blogging every day…...it’s seriously draining, and if you do that you’re gonna run the risk of burning-out.
So take it slow. Blogging is a hobby, so treat it like one. It mustn’t overwhelm your life.
(And yes, I really need to start taking my own advice...)

Have you ever struggled to write a review?

OMG yes I have! MANY A TIMES! Sometimes it’s because I’m writing a negative review, sometimes because I’m not not in a writing mood, sometimes because I’m busy and sometimes because I’m forcing myself to write a review due to time constraint. If I ever struggle to write a book review, I don’t. Not right away anyway. I just start doing other works and try to forget about the review for a while. Later when I’m in a better mood or have the time to work through the review slowly, I get back to it. This mostly works for me!

Oh YEAH. Like, that makes up most of my blogging life, let’s be real. #bloggerproblems
When I’m struggling to try a write a review, it’s usually because I’m not in the mood, or I’m rushing it, or the book isn’t giving me much to work with (when in doubt, blame something other than yourself...). Sometimes the words just won’t come, or you find yourself going off on tangents or waffling, or trying to hard to please the people you know will be reading the review.

My advice? Take a break. Leave the words alone for a while, write out your thoughts on paper and organise them, take a deep breath, or do something totally different for a while. Then a few hours - or days (if you can afford to) - later, come back to the review and work on it again.

I always start my reviews days before I post them, so I have time to edit them and read over them a few times to make sure they’re the best they can be. By the time I actually publish the review, I’ve probably read through it about five times.

To see my answers make sure to visit the other collab posts!

A MAGICAL WORLD OF WORDS

BOOKS.BAGS.BURGERS

We hope you’ve enjoyed our discussion post! Please talk to us and let us know YOUR answers below. What do you think of our responses? If you have any specific questions you’d like us to address in the future, please let us know in the comments section below. Stay tuned for next week’s questions!