Hello! My name is Nikkie! I’m an avid reader! I’m also a gamer!

For quite a while, I’ve been feeling like blogging was a chore. I thought if I revamped it that it would help. Then I took a health hit. My mental health took a hit too. I took the time to really reflect upon myself. There are things that I want to start doing, and there are things that I want to stop doing.

One of the biggest mistakes I feel like I made was trying to turn the blog into a full-time income. I know that there are people that have made it. I just realize now that I’m not cut out for it. Would it be amazing if I could? Yes. Do I have the experience and drive to push it to that point? I don’t really think so. I would like to think of something that I can do to earn an income that puts me more in charge of my work. I just don’t know what to look into. I’m willing to put in the training to make it happen. I just need a starting point and I’m good to go. I’ll get there.

The other biggest mistake I made is posting what I felt others wanted to see. Some of the posts I’ve made I’ve really enjoyed, but there are some that I only posted because I thought I had to. I even posted three blogs a day at one point. It was a lot. I started to realize while I was down that if I’m not enjoying making the blogs, it’s going to fall flat.

So enough about the negatives. Let’s focus on the positive. What will be changed from here? How will I find my love for blogging again? To start with, I’m focusing on what’s important to me. Reading and connecting with people. The number of views are great. Don’t get me wrong. My priority is to make friends here that I have things in common with. Another thing I did was a makeover to my blog. I tried to use something that fit my personality a bit more. I probably would have chosen something Avril Lavinge related. I’m so obsessed with her. LOL!

My Goals:

1. I will still post every day. It will just be things I’m in the mood to talk about rather than something scheduled. And it won’t all be book related. For instance, next week, I’ll be in Savannah for the yearly convention I go to. I’ll probably do a post every day about how the day before was. Maybe share my goodies I got as well. Just whatever topic is on my mind that day.
2. I plan to get better at posting my book reviews right away. I am strongly considering giving myself a day or so to reflect on the book before I review it though. I still have reviews I need to get written and posted. That will happen!
3. I’m going to start getting better at visiting and interacting with other blogs. I also plan to follow anybody who follows me back. As long as I can tell it’s a real account and not a bot or suspicious blog.
4. Enjoy the books I read. One of the things I’ve really done that I wish I could take back is that I said yes to every single request and signed up for every blog tour with a review. I didn’t respect my lack of time to read. Working a full-time job makes reading time precious. I was expecting to read 3-5 books a week. When in reality, I was lucky to get 1-3 in. I felt like I’ve let so many people down when I’m constantly falling behind. That’s weighed heavily on me. I do plan on getting the books I promised read and reviewed, but I’m going to do it on my terms so reading doesn’t become a chore again.

I’m not going to share my reading progress anymore. It started making me feel certain ways. I’m not trying to compete with other readers. I’m trying to share my love of reading and connect with people who read books similar to what I read. I think that the reviews I post will be good enough on sharing my progress.

That’s all I can think of to include in this blog. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. You are amazing to me. You take time out of your busy day to read my blog. I am grateful to you and want to interact with you! If you have a blog, I want to follow it if I’m not already. I’ll do my best to start reading blogs and interacting with them soon. I’m turning over a new leaf and looking forward to seeing how things go!