Category: Blogging

“Why Haven’t You Finished Your Novel?” & Other Exasperating Productivity Suggestions During Shelter-In-Place

In the early days of shelter-in-place mandates, a message sputtered up through the waves of social media: “Now that we’re all at home, we can Do That Thing!” For some people, “that thing” was learning a new instrument. Really digging into learning Portuguese. For many, it was perfecting sourdough bread (which I tease about, but I love sourdough bread… please keep baking!). In writerly circles, the pressure seemed to be on writing: you don’t have social engagements, so now you can finish that book. Doesn’t matter if the person was an aspiring novelist or a seasoned author – the vision […]

Posted April 13, 2020 in Blogging, Bookish Things, Reading, Writing // 8 Comments //

Paying My Blog Fees in ARCs – Did It Work?

At the beginning of 2019, I decided I wanted to experiment with an idea bouncing around in my head. I’m a self-hosted blog, and not a big one, but I made this choice because I liked the freedom it allows in customization and plugins. The Ultimate Book Blogger Plugin (and, subsequently, its sister plugin Book Database) have made that decision really worth it for me… but I am a hobbyist blogger. What does that mean? It means everything I pay in hosting and design comes out of my pocket. In my case, it means I have no affiliations, I’m not […]

Posted February 7, 2020 in Blogging // 6 Comments //

A New Decade, A New Design (& Mad Props to Kat @ Novels and Waffles!)

I don’t know how many of you knew this, but my oldest post on The Literary Phoenix is from 2009. Yes, lovelies, that’s from 11 years ago! This blog has been around a long time, but my commitment to it has been flighty at best. Flighty, until the second half of 2017, when I dove myself into this old hobby blog and decided this was going to be My Thing. In the last decade, a lot of things have changed about this blog: It went from a writing blog (with some reading) to a reading blog (with some writing). The […]

Posted January 26, 2020 in Blogging // 16 Comments //

Another Five of My Favorite Book Bloggers

Last August, I highlighted five of my favorite book bloggers. At the time, I picked five because I wanted to keep the post at a reasonable length. But honestly? There’s no WAY I could only pick five! I’ve had this follow up post sitting in the trenches for a while, and I think it’s time to pull it out. Here’s another five of my favorite book bloggers who, yes, you absolutely must follow. Dani Perspective of a Writer Dani is one of those people I follow on multiple platforms, and she absolutely does NOT disappoint. First of all, aesthetically this […]

Posted March 22, 2019 in Blogging // 11 Comments //

2019 Blogging Goals

Every year around this time, I like to think about my previous year on the blog and what I’d like to do in the future. 2019 is going to be another year of change and busyness for me – we’re moving again so a good deal of the spring is going to be tied up in packing boxes and unpacking boxes. Add to that certain career expectations I have been expertly avoiding, and there’s a few different aspects of my life that I just don’t know right now. And that is TERRIFYING for me. I’m the type of person who likes to […]

Posted January 3, 2019 in Blogging // 8 Comments //

The Stats Problem

I am one of those bloggers that can’t stop looking at her stats. Really. When I click to get to my dashboard, I go though the main site and click the bar graph for stats on my WordPress top bar to get to the backend stuff. Every single time I visit my blog, whether to reply to comments, update something behind the scenes, or write a new post… I look at my stats. It’s a terrible habit, but one I’m not alone in doing. I think that our obsession with statistics directly correlates with our cultural need to define our success […]

Posted September 28, 2018 in Blogging, Memes // 8 Comments //