Top Ten Tuesday

Can I just say a big Happy Blogoversary to The Broke and the Bookish?! One whole year of bloggerising and whatnot, and creating a fun game of making lists and stuff that was a part of why I wanted to blog at all, just to participate in the funness of listing books and bookish type things. So thanks for that, guys! Now onto the rampant listing mania that overtakes me at about this time of the week!

Top Ten Reasons I Love Being a Book Blogger/A Bookish Person


1. The Other Bloggers- To be honest, without the other bloggers I'm not really sure how long I would have carried this on for (especially when I got a job), and really being a book blogger is like joining a great big family network, all of which's members are as nerdy about reading as you!

2. The constant reinforcement that you're good, a.k.a. comments!- I honestly love comments- the idea that a total stranger has stumbled upon my blog and read what I've written is honestly mind-blowing enough for me, but when they comment too, it's just like 'whoa! They've taken time out of their day to actually write something and to compliment/agree/interact with me!' Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

3. It gave me something to do- Or, more specifically, it gave me something to do when I was going out of my mind with boredom; something I could focus on and really put a lot of effort into to make it a nice little corner of the internet, at a point when it felt like nothing was really going right in my life. Thank you blog, for giving me back some kind of control over my life!

4. You can read all the time and nobody can say anything!- 'Can you do the washing up please, Laura?' 'Sorry, I have to read so I can blog and the people will still love me!' I have never actually said this in my life, but you get the idea. I feel like it's ok to put aside other, possibly more important things to focus on reading, because really, you all need me to blog, am I right?!

5. I am physically able to share my writing with other people now!- Seriously, this was a massive problem I had- I could write, but nobody else was allowed to read it, and I could barely even read it back to edit it myself! I like to call it 'embarrassment at my own writing', others would probably refer to it as low self esteem. Whatever, I'm sort of over it now. Mostly. Until someone I know in real life asks if they can read my blog and I get excruciatingly embarrassed all over again...

6. Writing improvements..?- Well, I think so anyway. Sort of. Maybe. I read back a few of my old posts the other day, and, while I avoided being embarrassed by them, I did think that I could do better now, so that's probably an indication of improvement, right? Well, I think so anyway, you may entirely disagree (please don't disagree!)

7. There's always something to do- Whether it's writing a blog post or reading some more so I can write a blog post, or even just taking part in a blog hop or a bookish meme, I find that there is always something I can do, and so I never have to be bored. This applies to just sitting at home, but also out and about, on trains, sitting in parks and whatnot. You always have something nice and heavy to carry around in your bag too!

8. The other blogs- This is sort of the same as the other bloggers. But sort of not, in that the other blogs provide sources of inspiration, fun reading material, other perspectives on books I've read, stuff like that. It's like a wonderful insight into other people's brains, and a really fabulous way to spend an evening, reading other people's blogs and stuff.

9. Opinioning- I'm a pretty opinionated woman, and so having a blog is like the perfect soapbox for anything I want to say ever, which is why you may have seen a post on feminism here before, and usually a feminist perspective of books that I've been reading because, quite frankly, it just comes out! But that's the way everyone loves me to be, am I right?!

10. Reading is so awesome- I mean really. Reading just on it's own is pretty bloody amazing, but when you can discuss it afterwards and share your favourite parts of the story and just generally your joy to the rest of the world (or to my followers/twitter followers anyway)? How much better could an activity be?!

So that's why blogging is awesome, according to me. One bonus thing- as my friend put it the other day, Blogs are the new 'Zines! And isn't that what we're doing, really? Self-publishing the things that we think, and that we have to say, because, let's face it, they're just as important as anyone elses, am I right?! Yeah! Can't wait to read what all of you love best about blogging, and let's all keep on keeping on!