Bookish Musings - Patience is Power and I GOT THE POWER!

Bookish Musings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to share our thoughts and opinions, talk and discuss things happening in the book and blogging community or share a personal book related issue we have. Today, Amanda is talking about having the patience to wait for sequels, new releases and everything bookish. It's called being an awesome person, take a seat and learn from the master..

Patience. It's something readers and bloggers alike don't really have. That book that's not coming out until 2015? Oh yeah, you gotta' sit down, shut up and sift through time until it's released. That book that came out last week and your bank balance is crying dry tears because of all the money you don't have? Mhm, you're just going to have to wait deary. Waiting and having patience isn't something that comes naturally to most of us little ones, but unlike a lot of people, I actually think I'm pretty darn patient when it comes to waiting on new releases and sequels that are yet to be published and while it makes me feel awkward in the community sometimes, it actually makes me feel pretty awesome.



I'm sorry guys, I couldn't help myself, that is a cracking tune and a cracking scene. Back to the topic in hand..
I admit, I have had those moments after finishing a book were I've realised my life is falling apart because I don't have the sequel and won't have for a very long time. I understand, books take time to write, they have to be drafted and rewritten a million times, passed through to publishers, through to Beta Readers and then eventually after what feels like a lifetime of waiting for readers, we got a finished copy. However, somewhere inbetween finishing the previous book and getting the sequel, I seem to almost lose my excitement and overbearing emotions that require me to have the next installment right his second and I'm really worried it's just me, and I don't want it to just be me, I don't want to be all by myself..


Let is me give you a few examples of this loss of excitement I've had recently. The biggest example is Skulduggery Pleasant and as you all know, I became pretty obsessed with the series earlier on this year; I made my way through the entire collection currently out in around two months and then I felt pretty lost after finishing Last Stand of Dead Men. The Dying of the Light wasn't due out for another 4 months and I really didn't know how I was going to manage getting through life between then and the release. A month later I was pretty much over it. I knew I'd get a copy of book nine either on the release date or as close as and I knew I'd read and I'd finally have an ending to my series, but obsessing and counting the days just isn't my scene and I didn't and don't want to annoy too many people over. Another perfect example was Sweet Reckoning. It came out a month earlier in other countries than it did in the UK which was something I wasn't aware of when I read Sweet Peril in March, so that wait felt more painful because the release date was even closer and I knew people would get a copy before me, but after about two weeks, I was once again, very much over it and this is a trend I'm finding more and more common in my reading every week. I do however have a few personal ideas as to why this might be happening:

1. My Job as a Part-Time Carer: It's common knowledge that I'm a part-time carer for my Mum and that I offer her support when I'm at home and one of the biggest ways I do this is with my memory. With her memory problems, a lot of the responsibility to remember things is down to me, so I almost have to create an sieve system in my mind so I can sort out the important things to remember from the no-so-important things and when it comes down to book releases and remembering to pay bills, paying bills sort of naturally comes out on top, so a part of me thinks I might naturally become less excited over new releases and sequels because I have so many other things that require my attention and memory. This is the biggest reason I can think of.
2. So Many New Releases: Before I became a part of Goodreads and the blogging community I didn't even know there were that many publishing companies in the UK, let alone worldwide, so never did I imagine there'd so many new releases every month to dash past my eyes and lose track of. You'd think if a book was big on your radar though that you'd remember it, but believe me, it's very easy for something to slip your mind entirely when you've got 50 other book titles, book covers, descriptions and publishers getting up in your face and I've been known to completely forget that finales were coming out, let alone remember to buy them.
3. Money: Money is a big player on this keeping up with sequels game and a lot of the time, it's the biggest reason why I start to lose track of new releases or just start to care less and less about them. If I can't afford to buy the final book in a series when it comes out, what's the point in worrying and fretting over it? If I have to wait months for the money to become available for me to even consider it then I may as well start letting the book go on without me, right?
4. Losing Interest: Now this is another big player that really shouldn't be that big, but a problem I have when I'm waiting a while for the next installment is boredom. You've been so excited for weeks and you've still got most of the year left, so what are you going to do? You're going to read more books, start more series, fill in the time inbetween now and the release and before you know it, you're not so lost waiting for it and you're pretty bored of waiting and so slowly, but surely, it falls down your priorities and becomes less of a big deal until it's not even on your radar anymore. This has happened a few times with me, it happened with Castor Chronicles after waiting 6 months for book two after finishing book one in the summer due to money, and it happened with The Mortal Instruments for exactly the same reason. I now have these sequels, but they've fallen so far down my radar of books to read I don't even know exactly where they are on my list of priorities.
5. Space: Space is a huge issues for readers and hoarders- I mean, bloggers and collectors and unsurprisingly enough, it's the main reason my Mum refuses to give me the money to buy more books. I'm very close to having no more room for books, (I'm already piling library books up by my wardrobe because I have no space) so she's close to refusing me a book unless I read and give away a different one which in turn affects my patience. If I think I can wait for the new release or the sequel, chances are, I will, and if I can't, I just squeeze the book somewhere..

Sometimes I feel quite unnatural being able to shut out new releases and the hype surrounding them, especially considering I'm a huge user of NetGalley which is essentially ARC central. I know about new releases and I do keep up with them and of course, I post ARC releases on the blog whenever there's one I'm interested in, but the feeling of something amazing and new coming out seems to fade after a while and while I do think it keeps me disconnected from some people who discuss this excitement, I also think that's quite a good thing personally because it means I have a clearer memory for other important things like food buying.

Do you ever get this deflated feeling of losing excitement over new releases or are you always hyped up for the next big thing? Do you let new releases slip you by and concentrate on books you see around you, or do you not really care and not let it bother you? Let me know.