Top Ten Blogging Confessions

Hosted by the Broke and Bookish the topic for July 8: Top Ten Blogging Confessions

Oh man, I am going to stink at this one, but I haven't played in so long I still want to come up with a list of some sort - though my list probably isn't going to look much like anyone else's. I have only been blogging for 6 months. I am not even sure what counts as a blogging confession (my html is spaced poorly? Dear Apache forgive me for I have sinned. I dropped three closing tags and borked my css ?)

1. I stink at comments. I visit other peoples blogs and read but usually I can't think of anything to say other than - cool! or sorry, not for me. Then I made the mistake of reading another bloggers multiple posts about 'annoying' comments. I know that she was mostly talking about comments from people who clearly haven't really read the post and are only commenting in order to drop a link, but that made me even shyer about leaving comments.

I am even lame at commenting on my own blog. I read all the comments (even the weird spam - what the heck are those? They are so insane!) but usually from my phone or tablet and I have yet to figure out how to comment properly from those - they always end up mangled. I love visitors and comments - I just need to up my game and show it more on the blog.

2. This isn't going to seem like much of a confession, but for context I took graduate courses in English literature for fun while I was getting my Masters degree (in Earth and Environmental Science - long story short my advisory took off to Europe for a year and left me high and dry so I was allowed to 'audit' courses in other departments where I could make a contribution) ... Anyhow - I have not read more than a few paragraphs of Chaucer. Shakespeare - no problem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - fine, Piers Plowman - okay I read it and remember nothing at this point. But Chaucer, no dice. I have a Riverside Chaucer but I have never had the time or energy to tackle it. 

3. I loved reading the Vulgate Cycle, also known as the the Prose Lancelot, (the Norris J. Lacy translations) but I never finished the fifth book - which is technically the Post-Vulgate stuff. I guess this isn't much of a confession but I was the only one of the students in the class (a graduate class on Arthurian literature) that really got into the Vulgate in the first place. I was sorta the class 'expert' and I didn't want to confess that I lost steam. 

It was such a completely weird read that I was entranced. For example, I found parts of Lancelot's quest hysterical because he would stop for the night, find a hermit, have this long conversation/confession thing followed by warnings, signs and portents - then in the morning Lancelot would ride on through the forest only to find another hermit the next night who already knew everything and then would basically continue the discussion. I called it Herm-net - because they were better connected then the internet. There were lots of things like this - literary mechanics that would be totally unacceptable today (at least when they are being employed this obviously).

4. I will confess that I haven't read any Twilight, Shades of Gray, etc. etc. I have read all of Harry Potter (I started when the second one came out and read all of them right after release.) As for the rest of them - I am not interested. In fact, as far as I can tell I am not interested in lots of the popular stuff - thus I often have no idea what some people are talking about. So far I haven't had much luck finding many other people who read the same sorts of things that I do - I am still looking for my blog niche.

5. This is sounding way too pretentious! So I will also confess that I read lots of children's books. Lots and lots and lots! And not the just Newbery contenders either. Fluffy silly stuff too. It started when I was an undergraduate - right after finals I would go check out a big pile of kids books to read. It was my way of relaxing. I still do it now, though I have to wait until after I finish grading the finals now. I also fall back on children's books when I am writing a paper work - that kills too many brain cells for me to want to read anything deep. I want fun, adventure and humor.

6. I confess that I do not have a deeply thought out philosophical position about did not finish books or the theoretical ethics of reviewing a book you did not finish. Until recently, I never even thought of books as 'DNFs' - i.e. some sort of discrete category - there were just books that I put down and never picked back up for whatever reason. Sometimes I would find them and start again, sometimes I would find them and just put them aside because I was reading something else more interesting by then. Unless I am reading something for work (or class or as some kind of challenge), I won't force myself to finish a book. I simply have too many books that I want to read to turn my fun reading time into torture. Long experience has shown me that if I have some kind of fundamental issue with a book, chances are that reading it to the end usually will not resolve my problem - much more often I have gotten increasingly upset/irritated. And if I put a book down and start something else (I usually read 2-4 things at once) I might not even notice that a book turned into a DNF by default.

I will also confess that as long as a reviewer says that they did not finish a book, I have no problem with them reviewing the book. I have found that the reason they didn't finish might tell me whether or not I am interested in reading a book. A DNF because someone doesn't like info dumps ?  Well, I actually tend to like info dumps so I actually get more interested. A DNF because of graphic violence of certain types - thank you! - because I don't want to read that either so now I know not to pick that book up.

7. I always have a book or two or three with me. Now that I have an e-reader this is much easier on my back !  In high school I would carry around a stack of paperbacks that I was reading - 3 or more at a time, so that I would have something to fit my mood (more or less) and so that I always had something to read when I finished a book. For this reason, I tend to prefer paperback - hardbacks are too heavy and awkward. Now that my wrists have been damaged I can't even comfortably read a hardback in bed.

8. I read while walking places. This used to make me stand out on campus but since everyone else is looking at their phones now, I look normal.  In my defense I have very good peripheral vision so I don't walk into things and I have never run into anyone. Ages ago one of my professors tried messing with me by moving back in forth in my path was was impressed that not only could I dodge him without looking up - I knew who he was as well.

9. I am not even remotely organized about blogging. I have no master plan at all. When I have a spare few minutes and access to a computer (i.e. there isn't a Minecraft quest going on in my house) I try to type something up. If I am bummed at work or waiting on some equipment - I can squeeze in some time there too. I do want to start taking better notes on the books I am reading, but organizationally I doubt much will change anytime in the near future. I am impressed by those of you out there are have spreadsheets and do formal ARC reviews but I am not going to get into that. This is just for fun. 

10. Saying I spend way too much money on books probably doesn't count as much of a confession. The really dumb thing is that for some books I have both electronic and paper copies! Favorite books, books that I reference for work, books that were on sale that seemed like a good idea at the time ... A copy for when you have that sudden need for a comfort read or to look up some quote that is making you nuts.