Greetings!
I know for the past year my book reviews have been slower. Part of that reason is that I have gotten more author requests and I have been reading more fan-fiction. Having more authors requesting a review is a great opportunity! However, at the same time, I felt like my review posts became more job-like and less reading things that I wanted to read.
I first want to say that I love getting those books. But my free time started becoming more dictated. I wanted to write more reviews on the fan-fiction I was reading, but there never seemed to be enough time because of the requests.
But, over-riding both of these influences, is my mind-frame. For the past 6 months I have been struggling with depression. I usually do have seasonal issues, but this time it has struck during the summer. The thought of doing anything other than work, cook dinner (not doing that with my normal passion), and then into the bed was just overwhelming. And the weekends I had to go to enforced family outings, which I did not want to do made me want to hide back into my room when I got home.
So, that means that all of these wonderful authors who have given me book reviews are like planes in the air waiting for the all clear to land. But the pressure becomes so much to get them down that nothing does get done!
In August I was able to get a bit back into the flow, but I have 4 more in the landing pattern.
And then something happened at home a couple of weeks ago. We have been fostering a third cat at the house, and there has been some turf war, so tons of cat peeing everywhere, cats fighting, stealing food, means my original cat has been depressed and grumpy. Well, we were able to find a new home for the new cat and suddenly Jiji started to feel better. And when Jiji felt better, I started to move around as well. For the past two weeks I have been eating better, exercising, and this weekend I have actually been cleaning the house and rearranging furniture!
So, this is just an apology to all of those authors out there who are waiting for reviews. I am getting back into the swing of things now and next weekend I will review Leta Blake’s Training Complex. I have not forgotten you guys and I appreciate all of the opportunities to give you guys my interpretations!
Bea
Bea's Hive 