Top Ten Tuesday is an original weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. I thought this would be a fun way to share a condensed version of potential rambles and thoughts that I have.
This Week’s Theme:
Top Ten Blogging Confessions
Initial Thoughts:
So I guess you’ve heard that I have this thing called a blog. Go figure? But what is a blog without a good ranty rant? This turned out extremely long and so I apologize. So for all those who can’t stand me rolling my face all over the keyboard, here’s a tl;dr condensed version:
1. I have migrated through a few blogs; 2. I take a long time to write any post; 3. I feel bad for writing long reviews; 4. I dislike using rating metrics; 5. I don’t listen to music when blogging; 6. I am bad at user-interaction; 7. I prefer writing over reading; 8. I may perhaps one day booktube; 9. I would like to find another male co-blogger; 10. You reading this makes me happy.
1. I have migrated through a few blogs
It started with Freewebs and Microsoft Frontpage. Then Xanga came along with a heaping spoonful of teenage angst and random expletives. With the discovery of greater communities, LiveJournal was the next destination. This was followed by the move to this thing called WordPress. I think you might have heard of it?
So here we are: this blog and you reading this post.
2. I take a long time to write any post
Like so many of my posts, they often take an unnecessary amount of time to write up—and even more-so to draft the intent behind each article. While I do peg myself as a keyboard smasher who enjoys transparency, you’d be surprised (maybe?) to know that it’s really difficult for me to post things on a whim without given a decent amount of thought. Let’s consider book reviews for a second. Regardless of any book characteristic (length, genre, etc.), a review will often take several hours-to-a few days to actually write itself. While this is could be credited to sorting the usual ~10 pages of notes taken; with critical thoughts and tangents that spring up as I read (and write), the whole process is indeed messy and evidently time-consuming—but I still wouldn’t change a thing.
But this does bring up concerns regarding: the cost-benefit of writing extremely long-winded reviews.
3. I feel bad for writing long reviews
In this very “go go go!” world of needing quick and accessible information, I understand the benefits of having short and concise reviews. So I do feel at fault sometimes when my reviews are 2k words too long when it could simply be condensed into a 100-word paragraph. Yet it’s either the stubbornness in what I deem as necessary value-added content or the integrity and voice as a blogger/reviewer/regular person with opinions that makes me think otherwise about cutting corners and skimping on content that I find relevant and that which should be discussed.
This is also part of the reason why:
4. I dislike using rating metrics
I dislike using superficial, quantitative ratings as the sole and key metric in gauging a critique (hypocrisy: goodreads/amazon requires a star rating, so I digress). I honestly feel that it detracts from the overall substance of the review to validate preferential treatment and biases we have. If one continually reads into and favours certain niche elements, then it’s very possible to dismiss what’s good (or bad) about alternative novels simply based on not fitting the usual tropes or narrative elements one may enjoy. For the most part, it’s okay to have a star-rating value supported by an opinion. However, with information retention scanning for quick info-grabs…the rating is usually what the eye may likely gravitate towards; causing the substance of the review to fall onto the shoulder of the rating and not so much the other way around. Don’t get me wrong though…if you’re satisfied with how you roll with the use of metrics then super rad cool beans to you! It just isn’t for me and that’s just my supportive rant. (Now I feel like I’m going to get heat for the above.)
But through all of this backstage content curation nonsense:
5. I don’t listen to music when blogging
I cannot listen to any music while I’m focusing on writing a post. Grey noise or the sound of the fan is okay. But music is a pretty big distraction (on the basis that I might jam along or something) and while time is well-wasted…it is not the ideal outlet when posts already take forever to write. This, unfortunately, also applies to when I peruse posts and blog hop. Le sigh.
To tangent on commenting:
6. I am bad at user-interaction
It actually takes me a good few minutes after reading a post to think about the comment that I want to make. I mean…if I were to type freely, I can guarantee that there would be some expletives, plenty of random LOL’s and emoticons in the mix (not to mention that my thoughts would be all over the place). But there’s knowing where boundaries lie for people you haven’t met yet and what they’d think. Which is why I guess I feel like I’m not always able to put a face on a voice? Except I’m sure people are thinking “why is this kid ending all his replies with cheers and a link to his post?!” Indeed that may simply be a marketing ploy but one to hopefully encourage a long-standing dialogue.
7. I prefer writing over reading
While reading and writing are (for-the-most-part) synonymous, I actually enjoy the writing process more than actually reading a book. Am I crazy? Indeed. But I think that’s why I don’t even consider myself a reader any more than an individual who simply likes to think and rationalize the shit out of everything. So I guess now is when I get torched by the community…?
8. I may perhaps one day booktube (but probably not)
Like many, I wanted to start booktubing (or maybe just YouTube in general). But then again…maybe I liked the idea more than actually going through with it. Full disclosure: I don’t even follow anything related to booktubing sooooo I guess that idea is a flop. I think it actually comes down to bandwidth issues (dear Canada, please fix your net rates) but that’s an issue for another day.
9. I would like to find another male co-blogger;
I wish there were more guys who book blog (or would consider it) so I could find another voice to work alongside with. I mean, there are plenty of male booktubers but I seldom see that many that are primarily text-bloggers..? So yes, I’ve been sort of trying to finding a co-blogger for this…but it’s some difficult stuff yo. And no, I’m not trying to be sexist or anything in not looking for a female co-blogger. To be blunt, I really just wanted to create an environment to bro out and ramble nonsense with someone and have topics from a guy’s perspective (to basically suggest that for-the-most-part guys aren’t too different from girls and vice-versa in what is read—or something to that extreme, maybe). Think about segments like: “Bro’s on YA”, “Bro’s on literary foreplay via BDSM”, “Bro’s on Testosterone Injections to get Noticed”. You see? Endless possibilities of amazeballs discussions. Or maybe only I think it’d be fun to see two randoms talking nonsense about nothing and everything. But this is definitely a potential long-term plan because I’m currently a nobody in this community (and having zero content doesn’t help at all haha).
10. You reading this makes me happy
Anything that remotely resembles a presence on my blog makes me happy. All them little celebrations all day, am I right? It’s basically like…“oh look a like”—bam, some feels. “Oh look a comment”—bam, right in the heart. Just me? Damn.
Afterthoughts:
Annnnnnd…I think that’s enough nonsense for tonight.
But man… I need to figure out some of these reviews that I’m behind for by a month LOL. It is quite unfortunate that my online MMORPG released new content too….ughhhhh. gaming antics tho.
Cheers,
Joey
thoughts and afterthoughts. 
I almost mentioned not being able to listen to music while blogging as one of my confessions too. I’ve never understood people who can read and watch tv at the same time, or blast music while studying. I suppose I wasn’t born to multi-task. Likes and comments are definitely feel-inducing. I get push notifications on my iphone when I get one and it’s like an immediate mood booster, especially if I’m at work!
LikeLike
Full disclosure: I was listening to ariana grande’s break free just now and had to turn it off after I read your comment because I couldn’t think of a reply…I’m such a fail.
And I hear ya, I don’t understand the logic behind the thought that having noise to help people do any of the things you’ve listed above. So weird. But I do get a sense that there’s a different set of feels between content curating “likes/comments” compared to those on facebook or twitter per se. It’s probably because you’re putting forth an opinion in the open and there’s at least one person in the world that appreciates it!
LikeLike
I feel bad for writing long reviews too. But, I feel if a book review is too short, that it’s a bad thing. I just don’t want to spoil anything for the next reader.
LikeLike
There’s definitely a fine line between throwing that infamous disclaimer to let readers know of oncoming spoilers with or without actually having spoilers. It’s actually a pretty dubious affair (I find at least) to only graze key topics of the books’ content without going too far in-depth. Ahh–how much is too much and how much is too little?! The subjectivity kills me!
LikeLike
I don’t like writing really short reviews! I can find them quite pointless! Great confessions, Joey.
LikeLike
It’s surprising how many of these “short reviews” are actually published in the newspaper and stuff. To me, I find that most of them sound basically the same, “if you like these tropes, read this. 5 stars!” …and I’m sitting there wondering how superficial they all seem to be!
LikeLike
Oh Xanga, how I miss thee……NOT! Too much drama on xanga, that is for sure. And good grief, it takes me FOREVER to write a post! Which is why a lot of mine never get done, because by the time I get back around to it I have forgotten what I wanted to say in the first place! And I feel like my reviews are longer than most people’s, but I mostly hate the “oh, this is great” reviews that give you nothing! So I try and give my readers SOMETHING, and then it’s long, and maybe that is why I don’t get many comments…=\ And I hope that you do find a male co-blogger, because I really would love to see a corner of the bookish internet dominated by two boys “bro-ing out” as you say 😉
Thanks for stoppin’ by! I like it when you do, you always leave good insight! =)
LikeLike
It’s such a daunting task to determine how much you can give without giving too much per reviewing. I think every book is a unique case to this…which is why I’m often baffled by those reviews as you list who basically tell me nothing about the book. But then again, I think what it comes down to is maybe (possibly) just my dislike for reviews that are overtly subjective and very superficial. Now, I know opinions and all that jazz are that (subj.) in nature (so I can’t really fault people on how they choose to go about something) but when it’s simply like “oh, I loved this book because the character was strong; cool world building; trope abc didn’t work; i really ship the protags, etcetcetcetc.” without context and substance.. I’m just shaking my head. And…the biggest problem I have is when people throw around the word contrived as if it’s the holy judgment word that if you have that in your review…you’re safe to throw in a 2-star rating. Like, what? Explanations , validations, support >> WHERE YOU AT?!
…okay. now I’m just ranting. and I had to cut some rant out. I apologize. Good day to you.
LikeLike
This is very thoughtful. I try to not really write long reviews if I can help it but sometimes I get carried away. I think the reason for this is because, personally, I’m more likely to skim a really long review so think others will do the same? I can’t listen to music when I’m reading or writing – it just distracts me or makes me think of other things. As to ratings – I don’t rate my books – but this is because I found myself being inconsistent and I want my enthusiasm, or lack of it, to come over in the review rather than people focusing on a number. Having said that I really appreciate ratings in others so it’s a conundrum.
You’re right about there being less male bloggers – I feel for you with that. I consider a lot of bloggers to be real friends now and I enjoy chatting about books with them. I know that you can still chat with all of us but I see where you’re coming from!
About comments – I always comment – if I have something to say. Sometimes I read a blog and have no particular comment so I might just like the post. You’re still stopping by and visiting after all!
Lynn 😀
LikeLike
That’s the problem that I think I face too, when I write long reviews–the fear that people won’t read it. So it’s quite the internal struggle to either stick to my guns or cave into what people want to read (which is why I threw in a too long;didn’t read TL;DR section in the beginning for skimmers haha). I just don’t want to give up the possibility of a good ranty rant!
I feel you about the rating conundrum when I search for a new book to read…inevitable the star-rating on goodreads is what I set my initial perceptions on. This is especially true when I’m at Indigo/Chapters and I need a quick answer to potential picking up a discounted read that’s so cheap to not buy…but you stare at it wondering if the reason for liquidation is that it’s not a good book or anything else haha.
There’s a definite discrepancy in the number of male book bloggers versus the number of male booktubers, I think? Not that I’d know cause I don’t really watch any of them but that’s my impression at least on the gender disparity.
LikeLike
I’m the complete opposite, I worry about making too short of a review and I always have to go back and add more to my reviews. I also want to start Booktubing but I suck at editing videos I’m not the best with technology.
Thanks for stopping by!
LikeLike
Since I don’t watch any booktubing at all..it’s pretty difficult to comment on the amount of editing an average video has but it would seem to me that you could totally just record one impeccable session of ranting/reviewing/what-have-you and then just edit the beginning and end of the video (assuming it’s one long video recording) and bam. There are probably gritty details that I’m not mentioning in the mix…but there’s tutorials for that! You should consider giving it a shot!
LikeLike
I LOVE number 9, because there aren’t enough male bloggers out there. But then you could flip it on its head and do a feature where you and a female blogger *ahem* hi *waves* both read the same book each month say and do a male/female perspective on the same read, like a conversational post!! Flash of inspiration much??? I’m down. Let’s do this. You can bro out with your other co-blogger when you find him. 😀
LikeLike
LOLOLOL. Pretty sure this has been a dialogue we’ve revisited often. But yes that “he said, she said” discussion/feature/review does sound like a possible idea. WE CAN TALK BOUT IT. (Maybe to get started, and make this for an august thing? sept? because I’m backlogged like hell and you’re busy with exams, right?)
All the male bloggers are actually male booktubers. I’m so lonely 😦
LikeLike
Yea, but we’ve never really had a solid idea! “He said/She said” – it’s on! We could pick a topic and chat it out or do a review, a topic might be easier for the first one since a review would mean reading the same book…or reviewing a book we’ve both already read – gonna go stalk your GRs. My exams finished today 😀 but I’m backlogged with overdue reviews. August sounds good. It’s ON.
Also, don’t be lonely, be awesome. Out there doing it for the dudes!
LikeLike
Oh…my goodreads is actually very limited as I don’t update that shit very often. If anything, we should just choose a few books and have people vote on it, maybe? Community involvement, yo!
Hope your exam went well! I do have some ideas that I might want to consider dabbling in..but I’ll DM you those deets in twitter after I catch up on commenting/replying haha.
LikeLike
Tut tut. Mine is extensive – bookish OCD.
A poll sounds good. Intro post to the feature with a vote…
Went pretty good, thanks! I’ll ping you my email address, DMs with 140 characters are not good for this lol
LikeLike
I never thought about it but yea, there aren’t many male bloggers. =/ Weird.
I’ve seen the vlog/booktube thing mentioned on a few several confession lists and none of us know where to start or anything. We are so hopelessly lost. I think it would be cool to at least try it. =)
LikeLike
For the most part, every single guy I’ve asked to book blog/review/anything basically says that they don’t have a knack for formulating words together, basically. So I’m at a stalemate with this one! Maybe I’ll go peruse goodreads again for people but it does seem hopeless!
And with that comment, it’d be totally funny if some primarily book-bloggers just banned together and created a unified booktubing account LOL. That’d be funny and definitely a bad recipe for politics, fame, and what have you.
LikeLike
Aw, Xanga! That makes me nostalgic for my college days. I also thought you make a good point about male book bloggers. Almost every blog I follow are females and most of the male bloggers are author sites. I would love to see more guy opinions on YA books.
LikeLike
I remember spending so much time customizing Xanga–time well wasted!
I thought about starting a feature on that by myself but would totally be stoked if there were other guys who would join me haha.
LikeLike
Really like your confessions. I’m also thinking of making a BookTube channel but I’m still not sure and confident about it.
LikeLike
It definitely sounds like a hurdle to overcome speaking to…a camera! I don’t know if I could do it without sounding extremely awkward. With just regular blogging/typical, I feel in my own environment but videos..yikes!
LikeLike
I feel the same way!
LikeLike
If I’m in a writing mood, I could probably whip up a post in half an hour (though after publishing it, I notice a billion errors :P), but if I’m not in a writing mood, it takes days to get a post live.
I can totally relate with #10, though!
LikeLike
Sometimes, it’s not even the writing that gets to me…it’s the editing/proofreading that kills me! So sometimes what I had original is totally scraped when a spark of thought occurs and I have to redo a section over again (and over again when I press that edit post button again and see more things “wrong”).
And yes, experience all the feels of the glowing button signaling a notification!
LikeLike
I’m a guy,but I seldom read YA books!
I share your idea about goodreads,though I have a profile there.I rate my books not the way goodreads want me to.For instance,I’ve seen someone recently telling me how much he loved Lord of the Flies,but I afterwards was quite surprised when I saw him giving 4/5 stars to the book! -_-
If you* really,really liked the book,why don’t you give it 5 stars?!
I noticed many people saying how they very rarely give their books five stars,as if their judgement is very critical and they need to create a disparity between books!
Of course,I’m not referring to you here! 😉
LikeLike
The disparity in the number of our kind is crazy! Well..I guess I do feel kind of special being the 1%…but still, where’s everyone at!?
Yeah the whole GR rating system in itself is pretty wishy-washy at best. I get a kick out of reviews when people throw around the “contrived” word as if it’s nobody’s business. “Plot or trope ABC is contrived. 2 stars.” and then they tangent off into something completely irrelevant. But to each their own I guess…
Oh, the whole bro-talk on [topic (i.e. YA)] was just an example. Could really be about anything! I just think it’d be a nice avenue for greater testosterone-filled dialogue– except not really at the same time since I’d probably want to make the point that guys/girls aren’t that much different for taking interest in certain things (or something to that extent, maybe).
LikeLike
I completely understand your feelings about writing long reviews. I used to write longer reviews on my blog but I decided to change it up a bit and write a structured or outlined review mostly because it helps me organize my thoughts. Now I’m even contemplating on doing different formats for reviews.
LikeLike
I’ve already come to the conclusion that as bloggers, we’ll never be satisfied with the content we curate…although that’s a good thing, I think?
LikeLike
I want to start a youtube too, but I have no Idea what I would do. I watch booktube EVERY night before I go to bed, but I just don’t have the courage to make one myself. Maybe I’ll make it a new years resolution next yr lol
LikeLike
I’m sure with all the booktubing you seem to watch, you’ll be able to find inspiration somewhere and just run with it–just remember not to forget us little fish when you swim into a different pond!
LikeLike
Wow!!! I just love the confessions this week… I feel like I’ve gleaned some interesting insight into fellow blogger’s mind set!
That being said a lot of your confessions really resonate with me! Especially the writing of Loooooonnnnnngg reviews that take DAYS to finish… I do that. Always.
Truth is, I didn’t start blogging to ‘review’ books, I started blogging to discuss them & I write crazy posts with all sorts of side thoughts because that’s what the darn book made me think about! And yes… It takes me forever to put those together!!
So, for the record I personally appreciate your book blogging style.
And I truly hope you’ll find that male YA blogger because I’d love to read a guys perspective on a lot of these popular YA topics! At the moment I’m stuck asking my husband lots of questions about the male psyche (see my Grasshopper Jungle post) but he doesn’t read all the books I try to shove down his throat… 😉
LikeLike
That is amazing to hear–when you can just talk out a concept (or anything, actually) and then transition that into what would otherwise be a review. I never really thought about things that way in my reviews. I always thought discussions were just another necessary part to it, but you make a good point about putting the idea of reviews/critiques in the back-burner to a good simple talk.
I hope I’ll find one soon but I’ve been working at this for a while and still no luck. But truthfully, I don’t really want to limit myself or this blog to simply YA content even if that’s what I sort of currently gravitate towards (I read some other stuff too!) The end goal really is just to make the point that guys/girls are no different in perceptions on topics/tropes/etc. Well, maybe a little different. Point is, I’d hope to just get the message that we all read the same thing because we’re all readers in the end.
I’m a cheeseball.
LikeLike
Gosh, i’m ALL about #6. The “networking”; i hate it and i’m bad at it. I’m rubbishing at reading and commenting on other people’s blogs, and replying to comments on my own. It often feels so forced and false. It’s hard to find people to genuinely connect to.
And rating metrics… i agree, to an extent. I think most people will mis-use them. Personally, i head straight to the one-star reviews and read them. If the things they hated about the book don’t put me off, i’m in. Like-wise, if my friends and people whose opinion i respect are giving a book 4/5 stars, i will read up on it a little more. It’s when people only focus on the rating that i think the system fails; what three stars means to me might mean something different to you, etc.
LikeLike
I have phases of being good at commenting but then I’m mostly bad at commenting. Tuesdays usually push me to comment more (because I try my best to blog hop the ‘top ten tuesday’ tag search and just go down the list). All other posts depends on interest though haha.
What a hypocrite of me to talk down on metrics though haha. Since writing that post, I’ve adapted my reviews to have a sort-of-metric system to compensate for my extremely long (1.5k+ word) reviews. But yeah, I think my main beef is that glowing reviews = fangirl/boying = instant 5 stars. Maybe it’s just me but 5 star books are hard to come by (and even I give it 5 stars on goodreads, it’s still really a 4~4.99 rating. Because I’m stingy.)
LikeLike