Yesterday was my birthday, which is why this post didn’t happen sooner. (I did have an awesome birthday, though. Hell yeah fondue!)

This is a farewell post. It gets pretty tl;dr and contains my thoughts on yaoi book blogging as a subculture so continue at your own risk!

Friends, I have been considering this website and this blog since the summer when an author got butthurt at me, and lo, I have discovered something! Something that has made me feel deliriously happy! Something that revealed to me a truth I had forgotten!

When I started book blogging on Livejournal, I did so because of my love of books.

I love books. All books; even books I dislike.

I then forgot that love in a desire to be read and consumed as a lover of books, as a reviewer, as an Authority. I was marketing myself because everyone else was marketing themselves, which is a lousy reason to do things. I really, really shouldn’t have, because that’s not why I started blogging about books.

I moved away from Livejournal because I couldn’t get any traction with book bloggers; they didn’t take Livejournal seriously or it was too hard or something. The UI is not very intuitive, but that codebase is not hard by any stretch of imagination and it has been around just as long as blogspot—it’s a difference of what people got comfy with first. Like, people wouldn’t link my reviews because it was on the same journal as my writing and my writing was rated R. Seriously, that happened. I was pissed. Can you tell I’m still not over my bitterness about that. >>

But, really, time for me to fess up: I blog mostly on Dreamwidth and before, Livejournal, because I like the codebase. Blogger as a blogging platform can kiss my ass and Wordpress is okay on the hosted service but it’s too limited, and I don’t have time for the maintenance self-hosting requires. Even knowing my experiences on Blogger in 1999 – 2001, I gave it another shot, then a hosted wordpress site, then this site. I put on some sheep clothing and wandered into the flock. I kept failing, over and over and over, because I kept trying to fit into a larger book culture by stripping away the rest of my (questionable?) hobbies and being All Books All The Time on codebases I didn’t like.

What’s even less awesome is me with two journals. I simply don’t have the resources, the time, and truly, the inclination. I want to do other things, too, and talk about them. This culture of splitting interests across blogs just to retain readers that might find one or two of them offensive or objectionable or oh NO, boring boggles me. I have tried! I am honestly, never, ever going to manage it. Splitting book stuff apart just to cater to some set of folks who don’t like the service I use to journal or that I write about gay people is silly. Just because I write fanfic where dudes make out and that appears on my feed right before my Books I Want to Read Part XXXIV doesn’t mean I am not a book blogger. It doesn’t mean I should have to split my blog apart in order to post those reviews so Dinosaur Internet User #7525 doesn’t have to be exposed to The Gay. Seriously, just walk away, Dinosaur Internet User #7525, and spend your time elsewhere. It’s limited enough as it is.

A blog doesn’t have to be all books, all the time for the author to be considered a book blogger, and I am starting to resent that and it is definitely a vibe I get from various corners. Not all, and not a majority and not the circle I have inserted myself into, but when I run into it, it is pretty awful! I am also sick of the self-loathing and the guilt I see when reading bloggers I like post about something other than books, like every subscriber they have is going to drop them for daring to talk about how they spent their Saturday. Damn! It’s their blog—why are they apologizing for posting about their personal life? Where is that feeling coming from, that makes them suffer for daring to speak about themselves or their blog? It’s frustrating and aggravating that sawing our personalities in bits and pieces is encouraged, and since I’ve done it here, I’m going to stop.

I think book bloggers put a lot of pressure on themselves, and each other, even if they don’t mean to. Many have chosen to market themselves to publishers and people looking for book information using blogs that are just about books and authors and reviews and nothing else, because personal material isn’t what readers/publishers want. If it works for them, awesome. I admire those people, largely women. Let’s not leave that out: I know that not many book bloggers are into feminism, but that’s why I stuck here so long. It has become a female driven culture. It’s women who are doing this and running households with partners and kids and bills. They’re rockstars and could change a diaper, pay the electric bill, make a pie and kick your ass at the same time. Never doubt it. But it’s not what I want although I think it’s fan-fucking-tastic, and I’m going to stop pretending it is. I just want to be a fan of books on the internet and debate and chat about them with my friends and subscribers. I don’t care if publishers know my name, or if my review gets quoted on a paperback release, or if I never get to take part in Mailbox Monday, or if the various YA BNFs like me, or I get to go to a convention, or if I read the most books, or if I have the most popular reading challenge, or if I never touch another ARC in my life, or if I get five hits or 5,000. Those are all fine goals, but they’re not for me anymore.

As I said in a recent post I made elsewhere: Journal where you want, fan where you want, and do it for yourself first and foremost and people will come to you! Follow the leader is only exciting at, like, four years old, or if it honestly excites you to go on adventures.

I don’t want to grow to resent book blogging, nor the community, because although I’ve been quiet I do still follow at least 300 blogs, and in my stress about where I should blog (and if I stopped was I even a book blogger anymore?) I’ve been failing to interact and communicate with a lot of people. Therefore, I am going back to journaling where I want and doing it a way that makes me happy—and hopefully reconnecting with a lot of folks. Follow me if you want, that’s great, I will look forward to seeing you there. If OpenID is not intuitive or the different platform to read/comment on is too hard to learn, don’t. Pretty simple, and I’m not going to be offended one way or another. The whole idea of “I’ll read you if you’ll read me” is a little weird, too. I’ll read you when I find you interesting and comment in the same way, and invite everyone else to treat me as such. Less stress and expectations from everyone. :)

I am, and will continue to blog about everything that catches my fancy, including books, fanfiction, university, cats, and life at http://renay.dreamwidth.org (my RSS feed is here).

Comments are closed on this entry, but you can feel free to drop me a line at ya.fabulous@gmail.com—and don’t be fooled! Just because this blog is closing doesn’t mean I won’t be being fabulous, YA included, over at my other journal. ;)

It’s been a slice! *salutes*