Bookish Musings - Why Stacie Turned To Blogging

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, Stacie is talking about why she started blogging, the difference in her expectations when she started to those she has now, and what she hopes for the year..

When I first decided to try my hand at reviewing books online I didn't really know what I was getting myself in to. I wasn't unrealistic though I just lacked experience. Though I had been 'blogging' on and off since I was a teenager, be it on Tumblr or personal blogs where I complained about everything and anything (I was very much emo haha), I never had an idea how I was supposed to review books or how I go about getting books to review. I read a few other blogs before making my mind up, but yet again I was left with the predicament of; 'what do I actually say'. I decided I wouldn't follow any specific way of doing it, I was just say what I wanted to say even if that was just fangirling.

When I first started I never imagined I would get x amount of followers and x amount of views, I didn't care about them because I never thought I was going to be any good or that anyone would actually pay attention, so in essence I was doing it for myself.  I mean, that's why I started it in the first place, it was just a place for me to vent or rave about a book and I didn't expect anyone to read it, really I just liked doing it. As you can imagine, I like many other people who read, have very strong opinions about said book when finished and it was getting harder and harder to express that at home, not because my OH or family didn't listen, but they didn't understand. I am the only full time fiction reader out of my family and my partner. My dad reads, but not as much as he used to, my nephew and my sister-in-law read, but every now and again, and the rest who read stick to non-fiction, so at the end of the day, I'm left with no one to talk to about the books I read.

No one really other than my daughter fully understand my love of books, and that's because at the age of 4 (soon to be 5), she's already such a bookaholic herself.  When I was a teenager I had a group of friends I could talk to all the time about books that I loved or what was wrong with the book I was reading, but then I grew apart from them, had Caitlyn and I went from reading 4/5 books a week and constantly talking to people about them, to reading 10 books in the first year she was born and not uttering a word. I felt like I was missing a part of me and when my OH bought me a Kindle, I started to read more and more again because of the freedom I had with holding it in one hand while rocking Caitlyn to sleep in the other. Still I was left without someone to talk to and though he would have never said it, I got the feeling I was boring my OH - (it's the same when he talks to me about football sometimes..)

Basically what I'm trying to say is, though I've had some ups and downs with blogging along the way, I never imagined I would be where I am today, co-blogging with someone who I consider a friend and someone who makes me a better blogger (I have become so much more organised and on top of everything lately, it's brilliant!) When I first started I never thought I would be receiving books to review from publishers be it physical or digital, and I never thought that the blogs followers and views would be growing over night. Though I will always read, its blogging and talking about the books that keeps me sane.

I never really had any expectations as such when I started, like I've already said, all I cared about is having fun and doing what I loved, talking about books. As the years went on my expectations just got lower and lower because of the amount of time I had to take of here and there, to the point were I really wasn't sure if I wanted to do it any more or not. Now? I don't have expectations but I am a lot more hopeful for this, we've been co-blogging for a month now and I think we work well together and I'm really surprised to see how far the blog has come so far. I really cant wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for us :)