It’s been almost exactly four years since I posted any writing on this blog. As you can see below, I was in the middle of a 31 day writing challenge where I posted a book review a day and then I…stopped. There was no single catalyst, I just stopped. Back then I was working part-time at the library, figuring out life with chronic kidney disease while in pretty life-altering treatment, and overall adjusting after living in Mexico for Spanish school. Five months after this I started working full-time in the children’s department of my library, then in fall 2016 I started graduate school, and in fall 2017 I was promoted to Youth Librarian at a different library branch (still in school), and in the midst of all of that, blogging went dormant, for the internet and for me.
I inhabit so many different corridors of the world and I wanted to write about so much but knew that no matter what I wrote about I would make someone I cared about deeply unhappy or upset. So, I stopped. I wrote for myself in journals or Google Docs here and there, ranted to the people closest to me, or kept it all inside. But publishing publicly, especially now in the year 2018 where the slightest thing could make you “viral?” No thank you. Then as I added responsibilities to my life, I had no bandwidth for writing like this.
I don’t have more time now: I’m still busy working in a very demanding job, studying and writing for my MLIS (Master’s in Library and Information Studies), and trying to read and write just for my own enjoyment in the corners of time that I can carve out. But the time for being quiet feels over. Too much is at stake to keep to myself.
If you’d like to see a little of what I’ve been working on writing-wise over the last year and a half, I post once a month-ish on a blog for library school students called Hack Library School. Mostly I write book reviews connecting what I’m reading to the world of library science, but I also share a few things from my classes. If that interests you, check out my latest post for HLS about the book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
I don’t know how I’ll continue to use this space, but I hope to not stay silent again until October 2022.
Lakesidegirl 