It is sadly time for the last post for Rachel's Blogging Extravaganza - pop over to see her thoughts @ Beauty and the Bookshelf. The main point of the event was to remind us all of how important creativity and our own enjoyment are for blogging, so today's prompt included the following questions:

Why are you still here? What makes blogging worth it? Why is it so fun and fantastic and you don't want to let it go? Why do you love it?

So I'll give it a go, shall I? Even though I'm new at blogging, I appreciate that it's not always easy to keep going. For me, the reasons why blogging is worth it can be summed up in one word: community. Yes, I'm embarrassingly aware of how cheesy that sounds, but let me do what I do best and make a list (that today includes references to musicals because I like being random and making people uncomfortable) for you, okay?

Reasons Why Book Bloggers are the Best People in the World

WE'RE NOT ALONE. Having a blog means you have your own little corner of the world [/internet] where you can talk about the things that matter to you. You control it. It's a good feeling. But you also have people to share that space with you - they'll come and visit, you'll visit back. It's awfully nice. I like the social aspect of Goodreads, but it's still something quite different to blog and to share opinions that way. (If we're not friends on GR yet, go ahead and add me! I promise I'll be nice. Just be prepared to tell me what your favourite book is - sorry, I know that's a mean question.)

I HAVE CONFIDENCE. Or not. I'm not the most confident person in the world. Blogging and comments from other bloggers help me feel better about my writing skills though - and that gives me confidence in many other ways as well. I suppose you could call it agency? Blogging gives me a choice, and lets me make decisions for me, and that's something I find really important.

GOTTA GET MYSELF TO HOGWARTS, WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS I'M COOL. Shared fandoms are the best. Something that comes with the territory of blogging is sharing your favourites with others, and I know if I go on twitter or blog about a book I love, someone will immediately go "YES I LOVE IT TOO" and the rest of the conversation will mostly consist of GIFs, capslock, and exclamation marks. I'm pretty okay with that.


SOMEBODY KILL ME. When a book makes you feel a bit like this, you have a support network of people who've read the same thing, experienced the same despair. You may feel like this either because a) a book is pretty perfect and just kills your soul [All the Bright Places, I'm looking at you and already crying again!] or b) a book actually just sucks and you can't take it [giving examples would be too mean]. (Sometimes the effect of either a) or b) can be something along the lines of feeling like you'll never be Satisfied.) All of this also applies if it's not a book making you feel this way. The emotional support of this community is just everything.
WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. All the book recommendations you get from others are wonderful and horrible. My Goodreads TBR has about 600 books on it now, I think? I keep adding to it on a daily basis, and that's actually not even an exaggeration. The good thing is everyone is dealing with the same problems (obviously real problems as well as the TBR one) so you know there's someone you can talk to. I should probably stop before I make myself cry over how lovely everyone in the community is ;) But really, everyone who ends up reading this: thank you for being there.