Top Ten Reasons I Love Being A Blogger and a Reader

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

I've been a reader my whole life (well, for as long as I've been able to read, anyway--which is a long time if you believe my parents) and a blogger for about a year and a half. They're two of the things I love best about my life, after my dog and really good chocolate cake. And that's saying something.

The Perks of Being a Readerflower:

I get to experience things, do things, and be things I never would get to in books. Flying on the back of a dragon? Done that. Defeated the Dark Lord? When I was sixteen, bitch. Kissed on top of Notre Dame? BEEN THERE. Speaking of...

What can I say? I love romance. I love getting to live vicariously through all the ships in fiction. I love loving them, obsessing over them, and drawing them. Seriously, drawing still lifes and all that junk is so boring. I'd rather draw fictional characters kissing.

Back to that whole "Readers live a thousand lives" thing. When you read, you can be anyone and go anywhere. Not only do you get to visit historical France or China or wherever, but you can step into the shoes of someone with a totally different life experience than you have. I'm pretty sure reading is the thing that keeps us from being totally ignorant.

It's fun. I am never ever ever bored. What do people who don't read DO with all the excess brain space?! And all that free time? Like, say you're killing time in the waiting room of a doctor's office, or a friend is late for lunch, or you're standing in line for something, and you don't have a book. What do you do? What do you even talk about?

I'm definitely the obsessive type. I don't like things; I love them passionately and wholly. I dream about them, I draw them, I write about them, and I talk about them. Reading about fictional characters and visiting fictional worlds gives me both a focus and an outlet for all that nerdery. it's like my brain is Tumblr and I need something to reblog. FEED ME FANDOMS.

The Perks of Being a Bloggerflower:

When you're a blogger, you get exposed to a ton of books you otherwise wouldn't see because of other bloggers buzzing, and publicists, and all that jazz. I have big pretty shiny book piles full of awesomeness. My TBR mountain is absolutely gigantic now, and that's all because of blogging.

It's a little sad how little I knew about the industry I hoped to become a part of pre-blogging. Book blogging is an excellent education in publishing and the internet world of books in general. Plus, whern you're a blogger, you totally get to be a reading hipster, reading and loving books before they're cool. Before they're even out. Plus there are awesome perks, like meeting and lunching with bestselling authors.

I get to write about something I really love all day long. Books are something I've never really been able to talk about to the extent I love. But now, not only do I have a space in which to blather, but I actually have people listen. It's the coolest thing in the world! Plus I get to have a hobby that doesn't require horribe things like pants or leaving the house or people.

I had NO IDEA such an amazing blogging community was out there. We are a powerful bunch of badass bitches, if you ask me. We know the pain of a cover redesign mid-series, when a highly anticipated release gets pushed back, and when a favorite character dies. And that leads me too...

WHAT WOULD I DO WITHOUT THE FRIENDS I'VE MADE THROUGH BLOGGING? You guys get my references. You've been to the worlds in my head. You know what I mean when I randomly scream "HECTORRR!!!1!!" or "STURMHOND <333". You know why I have nightmares about the dreaded not-yet-released third book in the series. If I start a Disney singalong on Twitter, dozens of you crazy people will join in.

Because of blogging, there are awesome people willing to do things like, oh, help me put this thing together (holla at Christina Franke My Dear, Ell Oh Ellis, and Megasus). I've met a ton of people I otherwise wouldn't meet, and I've made super awesome friends who are always willing to talk nerdy to me at odd hours of the day.