Did you know you could get book blogger’s block?

When I first started blogging about books, I wasn’t familiar with the term ‘book blogger.’ But that was in 2011 or so. Fast forward a decade (wow! All that time has passed!) and I’m a book blogger with an oversized and highly-unlikely-to-finish reading list.

But come 2021 and something rather odd happened to me.

I enjoyed reading books but I just couldn’t sit down and write the reviews. I know my book reviews are detailed. I like to cover many aspects of a book to give it a fair rating and to tell readers what I liked and disliked about a book.

Read: 8 Ways to Write Powerful Book Reviews

I also know that it takes me a while to sift through my notes and write the review. Recently, I’ve added a small task of creating a couple of images on Canva to go with the review.

I’ve gotten faster at this. But still the whole process of writing the review, adding images, uploading both, and ensuring the fonts are the same throughout… all of this takes at least 2 hours. Sometimes longer with non-fiction books.

But…

But last year, I just couldn’t sit down and write. As a poet and writer, I know what writer’s block is. But book blogger’s block? What was that? Did you know you could get book blogger’s block? Did I know that?!

What is book blogger’s block?

Put simply, book blogger’s block is when you are unable to get your words and thoughts about a book on to a page. It’s a lot like writer’s block, but unlike it, book blogger’s block doesn’t need a ton of inspiration.

You write your notes about a certain book – whether as sticky notes or e-notes if you’re using a e-reader like a Kindle or Nook, and then you compile them into something intelligible.

But even with writing a review that involves some copying here and there, it turns out you can get put off or blocked too.

Image via Pexels

There’s another case of book blogger’s block where you’re not in the mood to read books – especially those that land in your inbox as review requests.

Sometimes you want to get back to your own books, the ones collecting dust on the shelves. And sometimes you’re in the mood for binge-watching Netflix or any other streamer’s series. And sometimes life just gets too much and you can’t do anything.

That’s what book blogger’s block is. At least, that’s my personal definition of it. I’d like to hear what other book bloggers have to say.

My book blogger’s block in 2021  

So for the most part, I barely published any reviews – or writing for that matter – in 2021. I didn’t publish a single post between June and December 2021. 

I only started posting reviews again in 2022. Though I was shocked that all that time had passed and I was unaware of my delayed posting.

I do know that one of the reasons I haven’t been able to write reviews as before is that I’d been too focused on my freelance writing business. Which is a good thing because now I have name – more-or-less – in the B2B copywriting sphere.

But at the same time, all my work is about researching and writing. So with book reviews, there’s even more writing. And my reviews are long. I’ve tried to trim them but I’ve not gotten there just yet.

 

Have you experience book bloggers’ block before? Do you have a different definition you’d like to share (and I’d love to add it).