Busting the Big Blogger Blues

Busting the Big Blogger Blues (hosted by Ruby's Reads) is a sister event to Busting the Newbie Blues (hosted by Small Review), but this time targeted to readers who have been around the block for a while.

Ruby posted a few questions in her blog and now I'm going to attempt to answer them:

1.- How in the heck do people find time to comment? Commenting is a constant struggle for me. Does anyone have any techniques to share? 

Finding time to comment is probably one of the hardest things to do when it comes to blogging, it's not only about leaving meaningful, relevant comments but also about just finding the time to do it. What I've found works for me it's having the blogroll or feed of the blogs I follow in my homepage, that way I can easily see when they update - I also have them on google-reader but I never really check that. 

I also check it twice a day, in the morning during the lulls in the office and at night before I go to bed, I take about an hour in the morning and half an hour at night to go through my blogroll and read the reviews and the memes and everything. I do it all at once, if I can, so I can sort of check that off my daily list of things to do. 

Another thing is honestly following the blogs you love. It helps nobody if you fill your feed-reader with stuff you never check out, it will be a lot easier to comment if you check out sites that you like for their content and where you can share your thoughts. 

What are the best ways of networking with other bloggers, authors and publishers? Twitter? Facebook? Please don't tell me it's Facebook.

Aside from commenting on their blogs when possible, I have to say that Twitter is my own personal favorite. I like how fast it is and how direct the interaction is, plus it kind of forces you to go to the point, but you can also be a bit random at the same time (I hope that made sense). 

The few times I have mailed other bloggers or authors, I've been lucky enough to get response but I have to admit I have felt very awkward doing it, so I mostly stick to twitter. 

How do you snap out of "reading feels like work" ennui?

This one is tough, and I think it's always going to be tough. I've done a lot of things but these are the ones that usually work:

a) Do something else you enjoy and takes your mind off reading. For me that generally means movies or knitting but whatever rocks your world. Sometimes you just need to walk away.

b) Pick up a comfort read, something you already love. The tried and true - for me this includes Harry Potter (any book, but if it's really bad I re-read the whole series), Lisa Kleypas' Dreaming of You and the Hathaway and Wallflower books, Meg Cabot's Mediator and 1-800 series ( usually I just read the last books of the series, Twilight and Missing You respectively but if it's bad, I'll read the whole thing)  and so on. I find it incredibly relaxing an it usually reminds me of why I love reading.

c) Try something different: it might be something out of your comfort zone or reading an historical after reading a bunch of contemporaries, it doesn't matter, sometimes all you need is a change of pace. 

d) Take time off - I've only done this once or twice but if I'm really behind and really busy,  I rather just say "I'll be back next week" and take time to re-group rather than letting reading become just One More Thing I got to do. 

Tell me more about this thing you call "scheduling."

I'm only so-so with scheduling, I kind of like it and I kind of love having stuff ready but at the same time I can't schedule weeks ahead because, I just can't. I'm trying to keep a better track of guest posts and committed reviews and all of that, just so I can have a better balance of things in my blog, but it's not easy.

I do keep track of some of the stuff in my scheduler and icalendar, but it's very hard.

Well, that's me! How about you?

In any case, be sure to check out Ruby's Blog for more info about this event.