coming to terms with change -- updates, the end of iread as we know it, and a potential podcast?

As we enter a new year, I would like to firstly extend my gratitude and love and appreciation for every single reader and supporter I have, even if that's only one person. I love speaking to the void on the internet and even if I've yet to "go viral" as is the dream for the internet-users of the world, it's such a relief to vent and rant and cry to the void.

Anyways, I wanted to talk today about coming to terms with change and moving on from things that used to be a constant. It's something I've been thinking a lot about recently as I've made one of the biggest transitions of my life so far (going to college) and it's time the rest of you out there heard my thoughts about it. 

I've been blogging since 2016. I remember excitedly starting my first website, iRead, in seventh grade. I was a literal child then. I am a whole different person since then and yet, I've managed to retain that blog. This one, I cannot lie, it's been a little spotty. But that book blog has a chokehold on me. I've been thinking to myself lately: is it going to die soon? Nobody reads that thing and I don't blame them. I get most of my book affirmations from Goodreads (which I might also be leaving for "better" websites... eh, I probably won't). I think about just quitting one day and the thought makes my skin crawl. This has become a part of my life, whether I like it or not. 

However, it's super super time consuming. As a college student, I've learned that writing book reviews and meeting my self-imposed deadlines is not the easiest thing to do. It's super demanding and it's something I've begun to procrastinate, as I'm sure the rare few of you have noticed by my inundation of last-minute reviews in the last two or three days of each month. I just don't know if I can keep it up at the same level as I have been all these years. 

But at the same time, I love doing it. I love writing my thoughts about books (especially those I hated) and just clicking post. It's so nice to look back on everything I've written and if I want to talk about a book with friends that I read years ago, I can just pull up my reviews (though my mind has probably changed).

So this is hard. I am NOT quitting. I would like to start out by saying that. Not that any of you really care but I am just putting it out there that I am by no means giving up that blog. I want to buy a real domain for it and convert it to my own real website and maybe add in some new posts that aren't just blocks of book reviews. I also want to build my social media on other platforms to better increase my audience for that website so that my reviews aren't going to waste. However, this is going to be hard. 

I have decided that I MIGHT (MIGHT!) be starting a podcast dedicated to books (and other stuff, like TV shows and music and films and hobbies and anything that strikes my fancy) so that I can talk about my thoughts instead of spending so much time writing them down. These will obviously be much more in-depth reviews and better-thought out because I won't be typing and feeling like I'm writing an essay. However, I have no clue how a podcast works so it'll be a learning process. However, for this new year, I feel like it's a cool new idea I could implement. 

What does this mean for iRead? 

Basically, I think my reviews are going to become a lot more condensed for a larger majority of the books I read. This is especially going to be true if I end up reading a lot (which I'm not sure how successful that will be with the busy year ahead). For books I feel super strongly about, I'll be writing with the same caliber as usual but for those that were just mediocre, I honestly feel like I'm going to be switching to the three-to-four paragraph thing and call it a day. I just simply do not have the time to firstly read as much and then write full-length reviews about a hundred books each year now that I'm a student looking for internships, working at the library, studying, and trying to make friends. It's just too much. 

I love that blog. I love what I've done for it. I hope that this year will be the greatest you'll ever see me. Don't worry, this is a good change (something I've struggled to accept). This is going to be amazing! 

Anyways, I will also work on posting more on here because for some unknown reason, this blog is 43829424 times more popular than iRead (which is very disheartening). But anyways, I hope you enjoyed this little life update nobody asked for because I've been thinking a lot about all of this lately and decided this is a necessary and healthy change :) 

Thanks for reading :)

Malayna