New Blog Name, New Year!
12:41 AM
Hello and Happy New Year!
2015 is officially over, which means it's time to look back on the year, as well as look forward to what I hope 2016 will bring. And what better way to ring in the new year than a complete blog makeover? Yes, I recently gave this blog a whole new look, which I am absolutely in love with and is closer to the vision that I've always pictured for my blog. Along with this, I've created a new blog banner and... yes, renamed my blog entirely.
For anyone who is unaware, my blog address used to be everyillumination.blogspot.com. For a while, though, I'd been feeling less and less content with this name/address. I mean, to start off with, it was okay. I didn't really put that much consideration into it. everyillumination was basically my default username for all of my internet accounts. (In fact, I think there may still be a couple of my accounts on the internet that still have this name, such as my Goodreads). And I couldn't even really tell you how that name came about. I think I might've just come up with it one day and I thought it sounded nice... and the rest is history. But in terms of my blog, I never truly felt that it sufficed. It didn't reveal anything about what my blog was about or what it represented or even anything about me. It was just a very vague blog name that I just randomly decided to tack onto this blog because I couldn't think of anything else.
But the longer I went on, the more I wanted for my blog to have a name that would better represent what this blog is about. And thus, Dearlyintrovert was born. Because I am and forever will be an introvert who finds comfort being online and being able to express myself quietly from my own little corner of the internet. And just because I'm an introvert, in no way does that make my life any less valuable or my words any less valid. I'm very proud of Dearlyintrovert and I can see it taking off into new places. So with that said, for anyone who wants to follow me, there's a link below for my new Bloglovin'.
Aside from this new blog makeover, I've also been growing my passion in blogging even more through joining the book blogging community on Tumblr. This is something I decided the summer after I graduated college. I started seeing a trend with this blog that I particularly veered towards book reviews. I'd also been reading blogging tips saying it's a good idea for your blog to have a main focus, such as beauty, home decor, life advice, etc. With this blog, it's sort of a hodge podge of different topics, and I want to keep it that way. But still, I liked the idea of having a blog specifically for books, and I followed enough book blogs on Tumblr anyway, so I might as well just become one myself, right? With that, Belle's Book Nook was born and I haven't regretted it since. I absolutely love the book blogging community on Tumblr. It's so warm and positive and inviting and full of so many important discussions, from the value of YA lit to topics about gender and race and these other various types of representation in literature that are gradually making their way through and why these things matter, too. I love every second of being a part of this community, and it's also just great to be a part of a place on the internet where you can actually engage with people and where you gain feedback on your content, whereas on Blogger it can often feel as if you're by yourself in the middle of nowhere - no offense!
Although, recently I've made the next step in Belle's Book Nook and created a separate Belle's Book Nook on Blogger. You know, more professional and without the countless reblogs of pretty book pictures. It's been my own little project for a good couple of weeks and I'm really proud of it. At the same time, it does have that same quality of Blogger where it feels like I'm out in the middle of nowhere and there's a lack of the community that I treasure oh so much on Tumblr. I don't know how successful this separate book blog will be, but I still think it's a nice idea to have a main, professional book blog and I consider this separate book blog a sort of portfolio of all of my book-related blog posts. But seriously, I love that I've been able to combine my love of books with my love of blogging, and I'm only that much more excited to see where these new blogs takes me as well.
Needless to say, this year has definitely been the year of blogging, where I've recognized blogging as something that I'm truly interested in, an extension of who I am, and that I've only grown continually more passionate about and made a part of my life regardless of if anyone reads. Towards the end of the year, I've even found a sense of community and belonging. Yay! This year has also brought a major change. For much of this year, I've spent it finishing my last year in college... that is until I graduated in June, A.K.A. the beginning of the rest of my life. Seriously, as soon as you graduate college, you just look ahead at this big empty space in front of you and you're just thrown completely off-balance as you try to figure out what to do with it. I consider myself to be in a quarter-life crisis, a phase I'm figuring out is more of a thing than I realized. It is actually terrifying. It's one of the most challenging things I've had to go through. I anticipate myself experiencing a lot of growth as I enter this new chapter in my life, but at quite a cost as I also grapple with feeling lost and having no direction, facing much rejection, and learning to keep pushing forward every day. But hey, there's some good that can come out of a quarter-life crisis: my book blog, for example!
I genuinely have no idea what this year will bring. Maybe this is the year where nothing happens. Maybe this is the year where some good things happen. Maybe this is the year full of changes. All I hope is that this year treats me gently, and I anxiously anticipate all that it will bring.
I hope you enjoyed this reflective blog post, and I hope 2016 treats you all well, too.
Until next time,
x Danielle
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