Life/Blog Update June 2019
Hi everyone! I have some important things to get out and I wanted to update you all on what is going to be happening.
Mental Health
Firstly, an update on my mental health. As some of you may know I have been slowly coming off of my medication for depression and anxiety after having made a lot of progress. At first I didn't really notice a difference but as time went on, I started to feel some dips in my mood and some returning symptoms. I am working hard to battle these with the tools that I have learnt from therapy.
Blog
This leads me into an update on my blog. So recently my blog and social media has been creating negative feelings in some aspects for me. Some aspects have disappointed me and because of how invested I am in all of this, it has made me feel bad. So I am taking a bit of a step back from parts of blogging. I am going to be posting book reviews because I intend to read a lot more and I want to share these books with you all. I will be sharing other posts too. I am still going to be fairly active on Twitter and I am going to be posting on Instagram and just see how it goes. I have got to a time where I need to do things more for myself, for my own fulfilment, happiness and relaxation. If something is making me feel negatively then I need to tackle that.
Reading
I love reading. It is just an amazing experience. It is relaxing and fun and gives my mind something different to think about. I am aiming to read a lot more often, every day if I can. I want to read more YA contemporaries, YA mysteries and fantasies so if you have any recommendations please let me know!
Mental Health
Firstly, an update on my mental health. As some of you may know I have been slowly coming off of my medication for depression and anxiety after having made a lot of progress. At first I didn't really notice a difference but as time went on, I started to feel some dips in my mood and some returning symptoms. I am working hard to battle these with the tools that I have learnt from therapy.
Blog
This leads me into an update on my blog. So recently my blog and social media has been creating negative feelings in some aspects for me. Some aspects have disappointed me and because of how invested I am in all of this, it has made me feel bad. So I am taking a bit of a step back from parts of blogging. I am going to be posting book reviews because I intend to read a lot more and I want to share these books with you all. I will be sharing other posts too. I am still going to be fairly active on Twitter and I am going to be posting on Instagram and just see how it goes. I have got to a time where I need to do things more for myself, for my own fulfilment, happiness and relaxation. If something is making me feel negatively then I need to tackle that.
Reading
I love reading. It is just an amazing experience. It is relaxing and fun and gives my mind something different to think about. I am aiming to read a lot more often, every day if I can. I want to read more YA contemporaries, YA mysteries and fantasies so if you have any recommendations please let me know!
Why I Am Changing My Book-Buying Habits
I love having a physical book to read. I find books to be beautiful and it is a great feeling to pop one into my bag, knowing that a story is waiting there for me. I recently had a big sort out of the books on my shelves. I tried a chapter of some, read and DNFed others and checked reviews when I wasn't sure whether to continue a book. I found some books I enjoyed but I found that a lot of them I just was not interested in anymore. 
Putting my Mental Health First (Even with Reading)
I have come so far in regards to my mental health and my general wellbeing. However, I still get times when my mental health dips. Whether that be my anxiety, depression or OCD. At times like these, I can easily become trapped in my whirlwind of over-thinking. There is always so much that I feel like I should be doing and things that I worry about that probably do not even need to be worried about. Through therapy, I have learnt that my brain can tell me irrational things and I have to not let my thoughts spiral. When I start to feel bad, the best thing for me to do is fight my instinct of either laying under my duvet, or obsessively thinking and to stop. Just pick up something and distract myself, whether that be with music, an audiobook, a physical book or a game.
All of my unread books!
I asked on Twitter whether anyone would like to read an updated TBR shelf post and people said yes! I wanted to do an updated post because I have become much pickier with my reading- I have been DNFing books I don't enjoy and unhauling books that I don't like. This makes me feel so much better rather than trudging through a book that I am not enjoying. Here is a list of all the books I currently own that I have yet to read:
Below is a list version and underneath that is a graphic version :)
The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe, Lilit Zekulin Thwaites (Translator)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons
Below is a list version and underneath that is a graphic version :)
Historical Fiction:
The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe, Lilit Zekulin Thwaites (Translator)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons
Mysteries:
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
My Top 5 Goals Right Now
I love goal setting. I have so much that I want to do but I have to be careful not to overwhelm myself with too many! I wanted to create a post about my goals right now. Some are ongoing, others to focus on now and others to work on a bit later on.
I said in an earlier post about wanting to get into teaching. I am currently working in education and I find it so fulfilling. My dream is to teach English as a foreign language (EFL). To do so, I need to study a variety of things. One very important thing is grammar. Typically in English schools we learn a lot less about grammar terminology. I remember learning very little about grammar when I was at school. So the first part of my first goal is to study grammatical techniques and learn the vocabulary. Secondly, I am going to be doing a relevant qualification to gain more knowledge, experience and to boost my CV. I am planning on doing a series of posts about my journey!
1. Study for my dream job
I said in an earlier post about wanting to get into teaching. I am currently working in education and I find it so fulfilling. My dream is to teach English as a foreign language (EFL). To do so, I need to study a variety of things. One very important thing is grammar. Typically in English schools we learn a lot less about grammar terminology. I remember learning very little about grammar when I was at school. So the first part of my first goal is to study grammatical techniques and learn the vocabulary. Secondly, I am going to be doing a relevant qualification to gain more knowledge, experience and to boost my CV. I am planning on doing a series of posts about my journey!
The 3 Biggest Challenges Of Novel-Writing
Anyone who has ever written a novel will tell you that it is hard work, but not nearly so difficult as it seems before you have ever done it. When you are just starting out to write a novel, you might find yourself feeling as though you are about to embark on the impossible. It is helpful to remember that a first draft is just that - a draft - and to bear in mind Hemingway’s assertion that the first draft of anything is meant to be terrible. Giving yourself that space and freedom to just write, as bad as whatever comes out might be, is a hugely valuable thing to do, and ultimately the only way that anyone ever manages to get a first draft down in the first place. You can edit later, and make it as good as it needs to be at that point. For now, it is worth paying attention to a few key challenges which you are going to have to overcome. The better you understand how to approach the following, the better your results will be.
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