Book Blogger Confessions is a meme run by Midnyte Reader and For What It’s Worth. Every first and third Monday participants post and discuss common frustrations to book bloggers. Link up your post on either blog and hop around to listen to and learn from your fellow bloggers!
This week’s question is:
How does blogging affect your *real* life? Are friends and family supportive? Do you find that blogging cuts into family time? How do you strike a balance between the two?
I generally don’t talk about my blog with people in my life. My family and husband and a few friends know it exists, and some of them follow my posts and even comment from time to time (mostly my fellow voracious readers: Mom and my sister). But generally, its content doesn’t apply to or interest most of my regular peeps.
That said, they’re very supportive, and my husband usually just lets me go about my business. He did object to the alarming increase of books that started to pile up, but I’m doing better about that these days. And while in the beginning (and during design changes) I was devoting hours every day to blog setup and upkeep, I’ve gotten better at managing my time and not doing blog stuff when we’re supposed to be doing things together.
Logan E. Turner 
Ooh, good question! I don’t talk about my blog much, even among family. I don’t even think my mom has ever visited my blog (which I’m totally fine with!), but I know that my grandmother, one of my roommates and my older brother have all visited it.
And, since time management isn’t exactly my strong suit, I can safely say that I often struggle to manage both family time and blogging. It’s probably a good thing that I’m not in a relationship. Or married. I’m sure that, if I was, there’d be exclamations of “You spent HOW MUCH on books, now?!”
With us it’s not so much the money but the space issue. He gets tired of walking around my book piles. 🙂
I’m not unlike you, Logan. My husband knows about my blog. He’s impressed by it. His interests lie far away from books, so he’s never really spent any time looking at it. The few friends who know about it are supportive. They found out because of my Goodreads links, no because I told them. I’m kind of a private blogger. I don’t got around talking it up to others. I don’t let the blog ever cut into family time. I write on my days off when my husband is at work or in the evenings when he’s engrossed in TV shows I have little to no interest in. The best way to strike a balance between family and blogging is to write fast and furious when you have the time, then use the scheduling feature to auto post to the blog throughout the week.
Amen to that. I’m always squeezing in posts when I can!
Aren’t hubbies great? From what I’ve read so far, it sounds like most of us book bloggers are blessed with understanding ones ;).
I think everything in life goes through stages…it’s not like one loses interest in something, but it becomes less of a priority – or less consuming. And one learns to strike a balance with other aspects of life. As for blogging though, there’s the fact that you not only review books and do your things – you visit other blogs, read, comment (or comment back). So you may find yourself writing for a whole afternoon just to keep up with all that. That’s why I only participate in this one meme ;).
Your page looks great BTW. I will explore :).
I agree! In fact, I think the least time consuming aspect of my blogging is creating my posts. I spend way more time reading others’ blogs!
My husband is fine with my blogging. I feel more of a self induced pressure to balance it all. I’ve been avoiding other things that used to make me happy and I need to strike a better balance so that blogging isn’t so all consuming anymore.
I tend to have an all or nothing attitude with hobbies, so I struggle with balance all the time.
My dh knows and supports me but he rolls his eyes with the books..my family knows about my blog but I also moved family over to its own place.
Mine too! He always gives me a hard time about heading to the teen section of bookstores. 🙂
Haha… my BF was also very alarmed at the piles of books that have grown around the apartment. His favorite saying is, “You are NEVER going to read these ones… you read the ones at the top” but he is also very supportive 😛
Yep, and he’s right! I do only read the ones I can see. I unearthed some this weekend and rearranged them to be more accessible. Maybe now I’ll read them!
Usually when I’m blogging my husband is watching car videos on Youtube so we both have our computer time. I generally don’t talk about my blog either, but I do always ask people what they’re reading.
I’m really lucky that my husband doesn’t care that the guest room is now the crashing book pile room!
My husband does a lot of work from home on his computer, so I use that as my computer time too. It works out nicely!
It’s great your family support your blogging. What a blessing. It’s also wonderful you’ve managed to strike a balance between computer time and time with your husband. Well done!
It wasn’t always that way, but I’m glad we’ve hit our stride. 🙂
My family loves it but I come from a huge family of readers. If I ran a blog on origami they might question my sanity but they can only blame themselves for my love of reading LOL
That’s the only reason my mom and sister read it; they’re big readers too! I think it must be genetic!
I’m very similar. People in my every day life don’t really know about my blog except my husband and mom. A few other family members know but I never really talk about it. I’ve put myself on a blog schedule to better balance my blogging life and other life. The hubby never complains about my time spent on the blog but then again, he plays video games.
Yeah, it helps when our spouses have something to keep them occupied as well. 🙂
My mom and best friend regularly read my blog but my most of the people in my life don’t even know about it and wouldn’t read it even if they did because they’re not readers (if they were, I probably wouldn’t have started blogging). It’s still a challenge for me to balance reading, blogging, and life but I’m working on it!
Me too. As new things come up in life, I have to reevaluate and prioritize. It’s hard work, for sure!