Blogging with Integrity

I have always described myself as a reader, before most anything else. At different times I’ve been a martial arts student, a horseback rider, a roller skater, a crafter. I have been a mother (of now-adult offspring), and a food service worker, but I have always been a genre reader, even when I have struggled to read.

(I like to say that Paul Féval’s Le Bossu made me a reader before I knew how to read (footnote ¹), that Agatha Christie made me a mystery reader by the time I turned nine, and that finding a copy of E.M. Hull’s The Sheik–just shy of turning eleven–made me a genre romance reader)

I also tend to think things to death. And lately, I have been thinking a lot about how I blog and review (again). And you, lucky people, get to learn what I’ve been thinking.

Making lists, checking them twice.

This post has existed in draft form for…well, yikes, almost two full years. Something came to light yesterday, that made me come back to it. And you, lucky readers, get to read my thoughts.

As I’ve mentioned before here and elsewhere, I do have a list of authors who, in my opinion, behave badly.¹  And, since my time, emotional labor, energy, and money, are limited, I quite simply refuse to even try their work. It’s still, at least in this small area, a free country.

By the same token, I have a much, much, much longer list of incredible people who are authors who will always get my support.

Well, then, that’s a hell of a note.

Yet another rant, yet another what the fuck moment chez aztec.

On Sunday, Wendy posted her feelings about the current state of the romance blogging community.

On Monday, Sunita posted her reaction to that post.

Below are my responses to both blog posts, in the order I posted them.

Thinking time – why I blog, why I review

Today is the third anniversary of Her Hands, My Hands.

(Lest some readers be confused, all posts predating January 3rd, 2012 come from elsewhere.¹)

At different times since 2008, when I first started reviewing, I have written my thoughts on what reviews mean and who they are written for. Like many other bloggers, I’ve struggled with whether or not to accept ARCs and commit to post reviews on specific dates.²

2014 was a very challenging year for book bloggers, and many of them have either closed their doors or quietly gone private. Their voices will be missed, but honestly, who can blame them?