Once Upon A Bookish…

I’m a blog virgin.

Well – apart from tumblr, which doesn’t really count for much since all I ever did was reblog. But, here goes.

This is not so much another book blog or another writing blog, as it is my dumping ground for book spams, book rants, writer hype and writer’s block woes. I feel it is best to relieve family and friends of such ramblings, at least a small chunk of it, and so here I begin.

First, how about I introduce myself. I am 19 turning 20 years old at the time this is written and I have been in a romantic affair with books for nearly all of those years. Here’s my story.

When I was little, only starting to read, I loved to impress my parents and my grandparents with how well I could read and I would read anything and everything that I saw. Shopping lists, newspapers, shop signs, car plate numbers, even the ingredients listed on the back of canned goods.I was so enthusiastic and so excited to have books in my hands and words on a page that I would bring as many textbooks home, lock myself in a room and read those books from the cover and back and I would not come out until I finished – or shouted at from outside the room because I was going to miss dinner.

These textbooks were not interesting, apart from the pictures, I guess, but from what I can remember, I didn’t get to read many story books. There were the odd children’s nursery rhymes and books that my parents would bring back from abroad, the library at school were mostly non-fiction and my small, provincial village was a few, long hours away from the big cities. So textbooks about vegetables all I had and when I’d gotten my hands on a book about fruits, well – I had to be spoonfed dinner because I refused not ro finish reading.

Then, when I was 10, my family moved to live abroad and my bumpkin eyes almost popped out after seeing the large collection of books in the public library – and not just non-fiction textbooks, oh joyous of joys. I knew of them, of course, but my ten year old self just could not even begin to imagine how many there really were and I could take them home with me and read them all! I had two months to wait before I started my new school so I drowned myself in books. 

The limit of books you can borrow on your card back then was 20 books per two weeks and I read probably a book and a half a day (oh, those were the days… Nowadays, I’d be proud to read one book in a week). I caught up with all of the fiction books that I had missed during my earlier childhood, most notably; I was hooked from then on. And thus, the bookish life hath chosen.

All these worlds opened up to me, land of dragons and witches and elves and just about anything that I could never have imagined myself and yet, there they were; the characters coming to life in front of me, as real as they’ll ever be. The countless fantasies I stepped into planted a seed in my heart, something that would grow larger than life and take me to places I wished to always be. I wanted to have those characters with me too, those people – I wanted them as my friends and my family and out of nowhere, I did just that. I penned my first ‘drabble’ in the winter of that year, from a daydream that had plagued me for days. My first born.

Much like me, it is a disappointment… But the cringeworthy writing phase must be experienced in order to grow and grow stronger, wiser and hopefully my writing has grown with me!
I have yet to finish a full story, however. But at the nudge of my wise, wise friend, I started this blog as she did hers, so that we could encourage ourselves to write and finish a story no matter how cringe-worthy my future self may find it. I need to know that I am able to do it.

Writing is one of the things that makes me happy, that makes me “me”, in a sense. I’ve always feared that my imagination will leave me when I become an adult and soon I will be turning 20, just barely hanging onto my teen years. But I refuse to let go of that dream, of someday having a published story book, a book that I’m proud of. A book that will bring the same excitement to someone as the books that made me want to read and write.

As for that fear; this blog is a way of keeping it on the reins.

This first blog post is somewhat of a word vomit and I’m sorry and thank you to those of you who have read as far as this. As I’ve said before, the number of books that I read are considerably lower than what it usually was. I have no solid plot or story that is currently motivating me, and I haven’t found my preferred style of writing quite yet. But… I take an oath, on this day, that I will be more. For this blog that will become a dumping ground for my thoughts, my drabbles, my brainstorm ideas and anything else that can propel me towards my writer goals and my bookish goals. This blog is for me to encourage myself to read more, write more, do more with that dream. Hopefully, I can meet people who feel the same and enter the community of book lover blogs.

I’m quite excited to be starting this up and I have many ideas of what I wanna do, what I want to write about. Mainly, I’ll stick to book reviews and other related extras as I have too many awesome books in my shelf and not enough character limit on my friends’ DMs to even begin to describe how awesome a book is. But as the name suggests, I will also be posting drabbles and longer pieces (hopefully… if I can manage them). I want to improve my writing skills and I would love for people to give me their thoughts and advice.

Like I said, though, I’m a blog virgin and any layout or site issues I encounter, I’m probably screwed. But, hey! Not to brag but: eheh,I take good pictures. So I hope in this media, I won’t disappoint.

  
01.09.2016 – Oath Taken. 

With love, JY