Weekly Geeks…and a little disclosure!!!

Personally, after such weeks, I feel almost burnt out and think, “Why am I doing this? I’m not getting paid for this.” Do you ever feel the same way after weeks like the ones mentioned above? If you do, what do you to counter it? How do you keep going? Do you take a break from posts after that, or do you just “soldier on”?

Or if you don’t feel burnt out after such weeks, why not? Also why are you a book blogger? From what I’ve seen and experienced, it’s certainly not the fame or the glory that you get. So what is it? Why? Why? Why?

Believe it or not but I’ve never thought “Why am I doing this? I’m not getting paid for this.” I used to itch to talk about books I have tried to talk to people around me and if you don’t like books as much, there is only a little you can listen to. Even now, although my younger sister reads books, she will never listen to me rant about a particular book. ‘What if I want to read it in the future?’ is what she says even if I don’t give spoilers. So my blog is the only place where I get to talk about books. That’s more incentive than I need.

After weeks like BBAW I feel even more energized to keep doing what I do because then you also feel more like a part of a community larger than you ever expected. It’s fun.

I think this is the perfect opportunity to say what I wanted to say for some time.

None of my friends or family about this blog, only J (my would-be husband 🙂 ) and my younger sister. And although J thinks I’m doing a good job with the blog, he doesn’t read much, so reading this blog for him is like reading books on Finance is for me, lol.

Friends won’t understand my need to blog. For them reading 1 book a month would mean they are voracious readers. So they wouldn’t get it. My blog is almost a refuge for me, a place where I can be myself. When I tell people I read “only” 50 books last year, they would definitely understand the “only” part of it even if they don’t agree with it.

You might have noticed that my blog does not have my name on it anywhere. No, Violet is not my name. VioletCrush is a random name I picked when I shifted my blog from 20six platform to WordPress. There was no other name available that I could think of and I liked the sound of VioletCrush. For those whom I have had contact via email, no, my name is not Eliza either.
Let me explain.

It was 11th July 2006 and I was getting bored in the office with no work. I used to read a few non-book blogs for timepass and in the moment of extreme boredom I thought why not open my own blog. And I did. I didn’t want to continue with it but people started commenting and then I just kept blogging about everything under the sun. I blogged a lot about my personal life. So it didn’t make sense to reveal my identity considering how private and reserved I am. I worked in a call center once and our client was AT&T wireless which was a US based company. So we had to change our work names to American names. I picked Eliza and the email id that I currently have. I used the email id for the blog and I didn’t find any reason to disclose my identity.

A year into blogging and a couple of my friends discovered my blog. I really wasn’t comfortable blogging anymore. So I shifted to WordPress and changed the name of my blog. I kept the email id. Then I started book blogging. And I then started corresponding with authors, publicists and publishers. I never gave my real name and people assumed my name was Eliza. I did clarify it to people who asked…usually. But generally I just didn’t bother. It was too much of a hassle to explain.

I was really paranoid too. I guess mostly it was just due to habit. On certain occasions I commented with my real name by mistake. Once I made some lame excuse of commenting from the wrong Id (sorry don’t remember which blog) but usually I just let it go. But I don’t really think I need to keep my blog private anymore, I don’t blog about my personal life as much as I used to. But…I don’t want to. This is my private place, my refuge and I want to keep it that way.

For those who already know my real name, I’m glad and relieved. I would love it if you address me with my real name in mails or private messages. But on this blog I would prefer to be called Violet or VioletCrush 🙂 I hope you don’t mind 🙂

For that reason alone I am changing my email address, so that I don’t confuse people anymore. My new id is violetc dot books at gmail dot com. My old email address will still work; I will direct all my mails to the new one. So no worries there. I will use my real name to correspond via emails from now on.

Finally…I just can’t keep it short, can I?…Thank you from the bottom of my heart for tolerating my rant and accepting me regardless of my name 🙂

What about you? Is anyone else like me? Do your family and friends know about your blog?