First Resolution of the Year: Not Blogging!

Well firstly, I’d like to wish everyone a massive Happy New Year!

I personally am very excited about 2013. As with every year, I expect that there will be ups and downs, but I am hopeful that it will be a good one. There will be wedding bells for my fiance and I, and a place of our own! I am also keeping my fingers and toes crossed that there are good times in store for some of my nearest and dearest who have had a tough couple of years.

So, on to the main topic of this post. A farewell to blogging.

Geek alert! I take my New Year’s resolutions seriously. I know that I can set a goal at any time of the year, however I also find that as the year draws to a close, and the holiday provides a bit of extra time for thought and reflection, it is helpful for me to consider what I want to keep and to change in my life.

Over the past few months, I’ve had a recurring hunch that it might be time to give up blogging, so finally last night I sat down and penned the following pros / cons list:

Novel Insights has evolved quite a bit since the early, earnest days. I’ve been blogging for four years now. I’ve loved the opportunity to express myself and to learn, and enjoyed developing my thoughts about books that I have read as well as spamming the interweb with various bits of personal waffle – knitting, running, baking – yes blogging has revealed my (not so) secret granny side!

But the past year, Novel Insights has been on a visible wind-down (hence the recent blogging break), partly because I’ve been busy, but perhaps more because if I’m being honest, then I’m just not as motivated as I once was.

I won’t rule out taking up blogging again sometime in the future, but the conclusion that I’ve come to is that it is just not right for me now.

So, I’m drawing a line under it.

I’ll leave you with some of my favourite personal literary moments:

1. Being introduced to some of the more obscure / forgotten authors by Simon of Stuck In a Book. My favourite: The Vet’s Daughter, by Barbara Comyns
2. Being entirely baffled and frustrated by Kafka, and Calvino which made me feel like something of a philistine! Challenging: The Trial, and If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller
3. Some fabulous book group reads. I loved: Middlesex, Never Let me Go, and How To Be a Woman 
4. Being seduced by Sensation Novels courtesy of Savidge Reads (who introduced me to blogging in the first place!). The best female villain award goes to: Lydia Gwilt, in Armadale by Wilkie Collins

Thank you to everyone who has read and shared their thoughts on Novel Insights, and warmest wishes for a fantastic 2013.

Over and out…

xxx

Novel Insights.