Monday, April 4, 2011

It's time to say goodbye...

Hello to all of my readers....

I have been doing a lot of soul searching lately and trying to find the source of my complete an utter stress and anxiety, and had to really look at the things in my life that are causing a drain on my energy and love of life.

I started blogging mainly because I love to read and love books.  The community is fantastic, and the publishers that I have had the great fortune to work with has been phenomenal.  There has been a great many books that have come my way thru authors and publishers that I would have never even looked at, let alone read and loved.

But through this blog there is always the constant feeling of obligation to not only post, but obviously to read.  And as you blog for longer you get solicited for more and more books until you are drowning in a pile of ARC's and books that I could never read in my life time (if you count the hundreds and hundreds of books already lining my shelves). 

As a blogger some of you might say, "Lisa are you nuts??!! That is a book bloggers dream!"  Not for me.  I feel a great sense of guilt when I do not get to read a book that was sent my way, worse if I hated it.  And I feel like life is too short to live with that kind of pressure for something that was supposed to be a hobby.  I told myself as soon as it started feeling like a job that I was not getting paid for (yes you get free books, but many I would normally never read if I had the choice, just not my style or genre) and once this blog began to sap my happiness I would let it go.

I have enjoyed meeting so many of you and joining in on discussions about blogs, books and the like.  But I am now officially declaring this to be my last weeks of being "open' and then my blog will be shut down for good.  I will close the doors and shut off the lights sometime in the next couple of weeks.

I hope you all understand and I will continue to follow all of the blogs I have followed and will enjoy hearing of many great reads from all of you!!

Lisa

12 Blabs:

Michelle (Red Headed Book Child) said...

I hear ya! Good luck!

Unknown said...

Lisa, I understand completely. I feel the same way. I get the guilt and the irony of not reading the books you love, hating ones that were given, and the imposing stress. I hope you change your mind. Even if you only post sporadically, we love to hear your thoughts & recommendations!

Mary (Bookfan) said...

Lisa, it sounds like you gave this a lot of thought. I completely understand and wish you all the best. And Happy Reading :)

April (BooksandWine) said...

:-( Sad.

However, your decision is completely understandable. Best of luck in all of your future endeavors and if you ever come back to blogging, give us a shout!

Julie@My5monkeys said...

I understand those feelings and good luck

alitareads said...

I'm sorry to see you go, but I understand your reasons. Hopefully you can begin to enjoy reading again!

Karen and Gerard said...

Why don't you just review the books you choose and forget about the solicitations? That's what we do. We only reviewed very few that people asked us to do. We prefer finding our own books at the library.

Anonymous said...

Good luck Lisa, this is suppose to be fun.

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

Say it isn't so? Perhaps you could jut stop accepting review copies and read and blog about only books you want to read?

Lisa said...

Thanks so much everyone!
Diane and Karen/Gerard:
I totally get what you both are saying, but it's not just the review books that get sent to me, it's also just the pressure of posting regularily. I know when I don't post for weeks at a time that my blog then becomes off of everyone's radar and people drop off. I feel bad because I want to stay connected to it by posting more often, but it is just not a priority, but it still weighs heavy on my mind that I'm not posting. The same exact thing happened to my personal blog, and I only had 11 followers!

ANYway, I am not actually deleting my blog (for one thing I paid a designer 185 bucks to design it!) I am just going to make a last post and who knows, sometime in the future I may come back to it, but my intention is to just let it be.

:0)

Natalie W said...

I just saw this and can totally relate. I quit accepting books - can't keep up with it and its to stressful. I decided I would read the books that I have and do reviews whenever I felt like it. You gotta do what works for you!
I see that you decided to keep you blog, welcome back LOL!
Natalie ;0)

Lisa said...

Thank you so much, Natalie! I feel so much better now! As I was looking around blogs, including yours! I realized how much I adore the book blogging people, and feel such a kinship with all of you, and I would miss that way too much. I am so glad you shared that with me about not accepting books. It can so easily get out of hand!

And thanks for the welcome back! And the irony is, I'll probably be more active now that the pressure is off! :0)

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