Today I did something I’ve been considering for a long time: I closed my book blog. It was a hard thing to do, but I didn’t feel any guilt when I posted the announcement, and I’ve felt amazingly lighter today for having that… project… off my shoulders.

I discussed my reasons at the blog that will soon be no more, but I wanted to go into a bit more depth here. When I do something, and by do, I mean REALLY do, I obsess over it. And with book blogging, I was constantly reading, thinking about what I was going to read next, figuring out if I had enough variety to please my readers, making sure the length and time commitment for each book would keep the review schedule running smoothly rather than bogging it down. Any time I wasn’t reading, or writing a review, or planning the blog, I felt like I should be, even when I was at my job that pays me the “big bucks” to afford those books!

Closing it, after 7.5 years of straight reviewing, is something of a huge relief. I can skip a few days without reading and not feel bad or stressed about it. I can read 10 Star Wars books in a row and not worry about losing readers because they aren’t interested in those reviews. I can sit down and read all of my brick-sized books all at once, and not worry about not having enough reviews for the week.

In short, I think this will be liberating.

When I was still posting at my book blog, I tried really hard to keep any book-related topics out of Calico in Transition. Now that I’ve consolidated everything HERE, you’ll see me talk about books far more often. Hell, it may be a bit lopsided, because when it comes to blogging, that’s what I’m used to talking about, you know? But what I foresee is the following: if I read a book that I really want to let people know about, I’ll talk about it. It won’t be a review: it’ll just be a “HEY!!! Here’s this BOOK!!! YOU SHOULD READ IT FOR REALZ, YO!” And that’ll be that. I also plan on posting a monthly list of what I’ve read, that way if you’re not following me on Goodreads (or even if you are) and you want to pick my brain on a title, you can.

So that’s that. It’ll take a few days to clean things up, but it’s official: I’m not consolidated to ONE BLOG. God helps us all….