Why I Write: Blog Hop

I was chuffed to pieces to be nominated for the “Why I Write” Blog Hop by the amazing Julie Shackman (author of Rock My World) and you can visit Julie’s fabulous blog here to see her answers.
Basically the blog hop is four questions about your blog and why you love to write. It was started here and I think it’s a brilliant idea as it gives an insight into what motivates you to write and what you think is special about your blog. I could talk about my love of writing until the cows come home (but I won’t, I promise, I’ll keep it short!)

 

Why do I write?

I write because I love it. Reading and writing have always been two of my favourite things in the world and I think they probably always will be. From being a bookworm as a child, to studying English Language, to working in a library, I am happiest when I am either writing or surrounded by words and books. As a ten year old my favourite ever school project was to actually write our own book, we had to design the cover, the blurb, the lot. I was in my element and my story was about a family who won the lottery and bought a pony… Fast forward a few years and you know those English exams where you had to write a magazine article, a letter or some kind of story? I LOVED DOING THOSE. They weren’t exams, surely!? Although I am still very new to book blogging I’m continually asking myself why I didn’t take the plunge sooner as it’s combining two of my favourite things…reading books and then writing about them. That makes for one very happy Holly!

What am I working on?

My blog is coming up to being three months old, so obviously it’s still very new and I’m working hard to get it established. I’m overwhelmed with how supportive fellow bloggers, authors and publishers have been and I get so excited when I receive emails asking me to review books or someone takes the time to comment on a review or blog post. I am happy and extremely grateful that anyone visits or follows my blog, but naturally I would love to see my blog grow and gain more views and followers as time progresses. A way-off dream would be to run a self-hosted blog and have my own domain name, but in the meantime I’m very happy to have a place to chat about books and share my love for my favourite authors, whether that means my blog gets 50 views or 500 views doesn’t matter in the long run.

How does it differ from others of its genre?

As my blog is so new I still feel as though I am finding my feet amongst all of the other fabulous blogs out there. I have tried to put my ‘stamp’ on it as much as possible by incorporating the things I love into the design and set-up. For example I use shoes as a rating system instead of stars. I don’t pretend to be some top-notch literary critic and if I like a character because they like the same things as me (shopping and sausage dogs…yes!) then I will make a big deal of this, because to me, it is a big deal. Of course, of course, of course, I care about how books are written, plot lines, narratives etc, but I hope that my reviews take everything into account and I am honest as to whether the book will appeal to ME. I try to get the balance between books news, reviews and author interviews alongside more personal, fun posts from me (usually getting over excited by my latest fantastic bookish discovery, see Book Chatter.) I have also tried to convey as much of my personality into my blog as possible. It’s very pink, girly and there are a lot of hearts and cute fonts. I want my blog to look professional, but I want it to be special to me as well and I really hope that this is something I have achieved.

 How does my writing process work?

I am one of those annoying people who need complete silence when I’m writing. I can’t even listen to music…I have tried. I like to get my reviews written as soon as possible after reading a book and ideally, before I move onto the next one, so that everything is fresh in my mind and I’m still in that book’s ‘bubble’ so to speak. I find it really useful to jot notes or quotes from the story down too as I go along, and this is where I love e-books….because you can type in a name, quote etc and search the story for it and immediately be taken to that part of the book. Physical books take a little more time to search through if you want to check something. If I’m finding it difficult to think of an idea or get writing a particular review then a good old browse around some of the amazing book blogs out there usually inspires me to get going again. I admire all of my book blogging friends so much now that I know how much time, effort, work and research goes into running these blogs.

My thanks  to Julie for nominating me. ♥

I would like to nominate Candy from Candy’s BookCase. Candy is one of my closest book blogging friends and she’s brilliant. I love her blog and can always trust her reviews. They are honest, entertaining and brilliantly written, so of course I would love to find out more about her writing process…

My second nomination goes to Simona from Sky’s Book Corner. Her blog is amazing, as is Simona. One of the things I love most about Sky’s Book Corner is how she includes a possible cast for the characters in the books that she’s reviewed – what a brilliant idea! I always enjoy reading Simona’s blog so I would love to see how she feels about writing herself…