Month In Review(s) - December 2021

 

December had Christmas - and therefore was de facto awesome.

I don't make the rules (well, not all of them.)

(I love Christmas. So. Much.)

As I usually do in December, I scaled back on blogging a bit

 - although I decided to keep going with my Comics Wrap-Up posts this year so that I could ramble on about Hawkeye, because I am Marvel trash.

So that's the reason there's so few posts this month.

I usually try to use the time when I'm posting less to schedule and organise and all that jazz. Key word is 'try' - but there's points for trying, right? 😉

Nerd Church - I'm Resisting the Onslaught of January Hustle Culture

 

It's that time of year again - the time when everyone and their great-aunt Lucy is trying to get you to buy into the ideals of work and productivity.

January is a webscape of blogposts which promise to increase your productivity by 1000%! or earn 50 times more by adopting THIS winning attitude! 

Vlogs of new fitness regimes/money-making schemes, which seem more like shaming lectures than helpful tips.

Humble-brag tweets about how 'few' followers/views/monies someone got last year, and how they're gonna do so much better in 2022 - and you can too if you enrol in this course!

...And under-pinning it all this vibe of having to do more! more! MORE! or else you only have yourself to blame for your unenviable position in life/work/Western society/whatever.

Month In Review(s) - November 2021

 

OK, this post is a bit later than I intended, but December's hectic at the best of times, so... let's just do this -

November's over, and here I am standing in December wondering how we got to the end of 2021, when it feels like it never really got started in the first place.

This year's felt like the hangover after 2020, and never really moved past that. 

Or is that just me? How has your 2021 been, dearest nerdlets?

Nerd Church - I Want The Books To Be OK

 

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When I'm tired, my brain sometimes throws out  random phrases. 

Straight-forward things like, 'I'm so tired,' and 'I wanna be a kitty-cat' (because, well, why wouldn't you?)

Amongst these understandable statements, sometimes it throws out weird ones.

The other day it threw out a new one that I'm still trying to figure out.

Out of nowhere, the thought popped into my head: I want the books to be OK.

And I stopped short. 

And I thought... what the hell does that mean?

I want the books to be OK.

Nerd Church - No Time For A COP Out, There Is No Planet B

 

By now, you've probably heard of COP 26 - the global climate summit taking place in Glasgow.

(And if you haven't, it might be a good idea to ask yourself why your usual news source hasn't told you about it.)

COP26 started on 31st October, and will end on 12th November.

The general vibes (and I may be wrong about this, so please bare that in mind,) are that most of the headline agreements happened in the 1st week, with the world leaders present, with the details and logistics being hashed out by the civil servants, etc., in the 2nd.

Month in Review(s) - October 2021

(Warning: this post discusses grief, bereavement, Covid 19, mental health, and general existential crises.)

October was not the easiest month I've ever had - but then, it was far from the hardest, so that's a plus point.

We've been dealing with some of the last admin of my nan's estate, and every time I feel like I've come to terms with her being gone, it's like another gut-punch.

Because I hadn't seen her in-person for so long due to Covid, sometimes it kind of still feels like I'm just waiting for the pandemic to be over, to be able to visit her.

Accepting that I'll never be able to hug her again, after waiting over a year to be able to do so is... difficult.

Seven Years of Blogging! (aka My Blog Anniversary Post)

(Warning: this post references: the affects of Depression, grief and bereavement, 2020 in general, Nazis and internet trolls)

Seven years ago, in a decision I can’t remember making, using reasoning I don’t remember at all, I started this book blog.

(Yes, this is technically a book blog! I’m just very good at stirring the bookish content into the non-bookish content. 

Like sneaking veggies into your food or something... I don't know where that analogy is going, tbh 😅)

I named it Diary of a Reading Addict. I don’t remember why.

Later, I changed it to Dora Reads – which I felt was better for a bunch of reasons. (I never have just one reason for anything!)

Nerd Church - Embracing the Minimum And Learning To NOT Go The Extra Mile

I don’t half-a** things.

It’s not in my make-up. When I do something – work, writing, whatever – I put my everything into everything.

And that’s good. I like to think it shows in what I do.

But as part of my on-going attempts to learn that over-working is an unhealthy coping mechanism...

...and that I need to, y’know, not work myself to exhaustion, I’ve been trying to figure out what it means to put my all into things without all the negatives.

And I’ve realised something – I can do the minimum (or, at least, not the maximum,) without half-a**ing it.

Nerd Church - There's So Much Noise

The world is full of noise, right now.

We manage to make a lot of noise which is only partly literally audible.

But the world is full of noise, all the same.

I guess it always was.

It's just that we gave each other (metaphorical) megaphones and made it a shouting contest.

And then we beamed those megaphones into your homes, your businesses, the palms of your hands, 24 hours a day.

Month in Review(s) - September 2021

 

September was... like a see-saw.

...And yes, I partly mean that it had ups-and-downs.

Nerd Church - The Writer Diaries: No, I Don't Have A Writing Routine

 

There's a lot of writing advice out there. Like, a lot.

So much so in certain online spaces that sometimes you wonder if anyone's not writing about writing.

But then, I'm writing a blogpost for a sub-series called 'The Writer Diaries' so I'm clearly standing in a glass house and holding a rock, about to lob it over my head. 😅

A lot of the writing advice I've seen around on the *waves hands* general interwebs lately has been about writing routines.

Which wouldn't be a problem - writing routines help a lot of people. 

Except more than a few of them have given me the general impression of 'OMG if you don't have a writing routine then you're writer-ing wrong!'

And? Honestly? F**k that.

So weird.

Nerd Church - Bad Luck vs Catastrophizing

Warning: this post discusses: Anxiety, intrusive thoughts, cognitive distortions, catastrophizing, knives, spiders, video game deaths, and brief references to mouse killing and car crashes


Disclaimer time: I am not any type of mental health, psychological, scientific, or medical professional. 

I am someone with a blog and personal experience of mental health problems.

Month in Review(s) - August 2021

 

August was a month where I had multiple migraines, so that sucks.

But it also was NOT meltingly hot (unlike the first days of September...) so I'll take that! 😅

I know some people were complaining that the skies were dull and not as sunshiney as August normally is, but honestly, if the temperature stays down then I don't care!

(Me + Heat = Angry Bear! Lol.)

Nerd Church - Reasons I Didn't Review Your Book

 

Yes, I'm a book blogger. Yes, I write reviews.

And yes, somehow I lucked out and reviews are some of my highest-traffic content, despite the fact that I write way fewer of them than I intend to.

But I don't review everything I read. Far from it.

There are people who do that - and that's amazing, I admire you so much.

But I can't.

I just can't.

I don't have the energy or the time. And I'm trying not to do the work-myself-into-an-early-grave thing. With varied results.

And whether or not I'll be reviewing your book (metaphorical author who may or may not exist,) will be based on a bunch of factors - because you know that I don't have just one reason for absolutely anything.

(Warning: this post references the affects of Depression/Anxiety)

Nerd Church - Battling My Puritanical Work Ethic (and Society, I Guess)

 

(Warning: this post discusses chronic illness and ableism, as well as negative stereotyping. It also references grief, mental health problems, and Coronavirus/Covid 19)

Nerd Church - The World Is On Fire

 

So - the world is on fire.

Like, literally.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released this week, is bleak.

The outlook on climate change is bad. Humans are the cause.

We may already be too late to fix some of the affects, we're running out of time to stop others.

We need governments and industry to make massive changes. Fast.

Month in Review(s) - July 2021

(Warning: this post briefly discusses Coronavirus/Covid 19, and vaccinations/needles)

July was way too fricking hot.

Like, climate change is real - summers were never like this when I was a kid. And while I'm the wrong side of 25, under 30. So some time in the last 10-20 years, things altered majorly with our weather.

It's not normal. It's not pleasant. It's gotta be some sort of punishment from the world for our collective environmental sins.

Month in Review(s) - June 2021

 

June was awful.

I lost my grandmother, and everything is just that little bit harder, y'know?

I know a lot of people have been through some sh** in the last year and a half - but that doesn't make it any easier.

Month in Review(s) - May 2021

(Warning: this post discusses Coronavirus/Covid 19)

May was one of those in-betweeny months - as lots of months have seemed to be lately.

Here in Wales we had a Senedd/Parliament election, allowing Mark Drakeford (aka everyone's uncle,) to form another consecutive government, and giving him the mandate to continue with his cautious Covid approach.

It also means that while Labour's struggling nationally, Welsh Labour are the strongest they've ever been. 

Which means that while England is increasingly voting for the Conservative party (the party our current Prime Minister Boris Johnson leads,) which is the party on the right of UK politics, Wales are sat here being a Socialist democracy and happy with it!

(This is your regular reminder that Socialism =/= Communism, Communism is a form of Socialism.)

Nerd Church - The Writer Diaries: My Own Plot Twists Surprise Me

 

"Holy sh**!"

These are the words I've just written on paper. Hand-written, in ballpoint pen, in my multi-coloured Crayola notebook (all the cool kids have them! 😉😎)

They're words I've given to one of the characters from my Work in Progress (WIP), Dan, as he realises something ground-breaking that makes everyone look at the situation entirely differently.

...It's a sentiment I fully endorse, because I have no clue where this plot twist came from. 

And, with wide eyes, my only statement at this moment can only be an echoed, 'Holy sh**.'

(Only I can't swear because my mother, so it was more like 'Holy...' and then trailing off.)