Monthly Book Club Buddy Reads Announcement

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Hi everyone! I recently opened the monthly membership option on my Ko-Fi. This is like Patreon but you can pay anything you want to support me and you get exclusive rewards. One of these is a monthly book club buddy read.

Why I opened Ko-Fi membership:

• I wanted to create a community where we can chat & have somewhere to go
• I wanted to have a place to talk about books as much as we like
• I currently can't do things I used to do & things are uncertain so this would give me something concrete

The rewards

• A shout-out at the end of every blog post, including your name and website or author page link (you can opt out, this excludes book spotlight posts)
• Access to an exclusive Discord server to chat about books, health, games, writing/content creation etc.
• Regular reading sprints by message on a dedicated Discord channel
• Vote/contribute to upcoming content e.g. helping me decide my next read, blog post or topic to write a poem on
• Sneak peaks into any upcoming plans
• Monthly book club: help choose our book and chat about it on Discord 
• An individual shout-out on Twitter once a week 
• A shout-out in a monthly supporters blog post which can include your links and work and this will be shared on social media
• Regular updates from me about books, life, health etc. 
• Direct message me to request blog posts and tweets and if possible, I will try to create them

About the book club:

We will vote on a book to read every month, this could be a middlegrade fantasy, YA fantasy, manga, graphic novel, non-fiction book or something else. If we choose a short book we can choose a secondary read too. 

There will be a channel on the Discord server where we can discuss the book as we read it!

Some of the books may come from my TBR but members can suggest books to read too!

Hopes:

I would love to have Ko-Fi members as a space where we can chat and hang out and just have our own fun and supportive community. 

If you're interested in joining, please check out my membership page.

Thank you:

I just want to take this moment to say thank you so much to everyone for all of your support this year, everything is appreciated and valued so thank you.

The Realities of Pre-Diagnosis Chronic Symptoms

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Hi everyone. So I have felt reluctant to write a post going into too much detail about my symptoms and my life right now but I feel like chronic symptoms are something that a lot of people don't really know much about and I want to bring more visibility to this and help those who may be in a similar boat to me, feel less alone. 

For a long time I have been dealing with fatigue and dizziness. I would wake up still tired, not feeling refreshed or rested at all. I would struggle with work and when I came home I would just be too tired to do anything. I've also been dealing with costochondritis for years which is inflammation that causes pain in the ribs and chest area.

This year, I began having pain in different areas of my body that would be intense and last a long time and then re-occur. It got to a point where my body just couldn't function anymore. 

For months, I have been dealing with pain, aches and stiffness all over my body, fatigue, migraines, headaches and dizziness that has been so debilitating that I am unable to do things that I used to do. 

My symptoms fluctuate within the day and from day to day so I will have periods where the fatigue is more prevalent or a migraine or body pain. 

I'm on medication to help with the symptoms but it doesn't take them away or make them a lot better. It just means that I have less times of being in agonising pain where I want to cry but can't because I'm in so much pain.

I'm waiting to see a specialist so that I can get a diagnosis and effective treatment.

The future feels so unknown to me right now because I don't know how much better I will get and what I will or won't be able to manage, which isn't great when you already have anxiety. But each day I am trying not to let my anxiety take over my day and to try to have a positive mindset. To focus on what I can do and not what I can't. To celebrate allowing myself to rest without feeling bad about it. Because I literally can't do things like I used to do. There are limitations. Depending on how I feel, I can do small tasks but the more I do, the worse I seem to feel later on. 

I'm getting better at pacing, a technique that some people with chronic illness use where you rest between activities and don't give yourself too much to do. It's hard because I want to be able to do a lot of things but I just can't. Activities I can do can make my symptoms worse, especially when it involves something physical. Similarly, I have a lot of times where I feel like I can't think. 

Living with chronic symptoms isn't easy. Especially when society conditions you to be a working, productive person and doesn't include those who simply cannot. I pushed my body for so long that it just couldn't anymore. 

If you deal with chronic symptoms, please feel free to DM me on Twitter. If you would be interested in writing a guest post for my blog please email me at lucyisreading@gmail.com.

I hope this post helps.

Lucy~

Support me via Ko-Fi- here you can join my Ko-Fi exclusive book club, request content, join our Discord server and more!

My 2022 Goals

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Hi everyone! I love setting goals and planning things. Here are most of my goals for the following year. In 2022 I am going to put my physical and mental health first, look after myself and do more of what makes me happy.

• Read lots of middle grade & children's fantasy
• Listen to non-fiction audiobooks (particularly biology)
• Do mindfulness colouring books
• Complete at least one jigsaw puzzle (bookish themed)
• Learn and revise all of French on Duolingo
• Play games more 
• Get a diagnosis for my chronic symptoms (this is more of a strong hope)

Wish me luck with these! Do you have any goals for 2022?

Support me via Ko-Fi- here you can join my Ko-Fi exclusive book club, request content, join our Discord server and more!

Join my little community on Ko-Fi!

Hi everyone, this is just a quick post to say that I have set up a monthly membership option on my Ko-Fi page. You can choose to support me from £2 a month up. You will get:

-A shout-out at the end of every blog post, including your name and website or author page link (you can opt out, this excludes book spotlight posts)

-Access to an exclusive Discord server to chat about books, health, games, writing/content creation etc.

-Regular reading sprints by message on a dedicated Discord channel

-Vote/contribute to upcoming content e.g. helping me decide my next read, blog post or topic to write a poem on

-Sneak peaks into any upcoming plans

-Monthly book club: help choose our book and chat about it on Discord

-An individual shout-out on Twitter once a week

-A shout-out in a monthly supporters blog post which can include your links and work and this will be shared on social media

-Regular updates from me about books, life, health etc.

-Direct message me to request blog posts and tweets and if possible, I will try to create them

If you'd like to support me in this way, thank you so so much, I have no words but it is really appreciated and it will really help me. I hope that anyone who joins this little community will have a lot of fun and feel like it is a safe space to chat and hang out. If you'd like to join, check out my membership page here. Thank you for all of your support in any way- comments, sharing posts, retweets, kind words. Everything means so much to me.