The Blogger Recognition Award

Another tag post for Book Tag Thursday!

Thursday means that we are ALMOST there to the weekend. It’s so close, I could touch it…!

Today’s tag post is for The Blogger Recognition Award! I was thrilled to wake up to a notification that I had been nominated by the lovely Kerri, over at Kerri McBooknerd! Kerri, thank you so much (and lots of love to you and your blog too!) Go over and give her amazing page a visit and follow!

I’m not particularly sure who started and hosted this tag, but if you do know, please let me know so that I can give credit where credit is due ❤

The Rules:

• Thank the blogger/s who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
• Write a post to show your award.
• Give a brief story of how your blog started.
• Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
• Select up to 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
• Comment (or pingback) on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.

How My Blog Started:

I was bored.

It was lock-down.

And everyone else was starting their own little passion projects.

I had friends with their business pages, others learning languages, some getting into or back into music…and I was doing nothing but wake up, work, and log off to do nothing. I missed reading the way I did as a kid and while it started to pick back up after I finally found the time to leisurely read again, I wanted to write. Goodreads felt stale and I so…one evening after work, I planted myself in front of the bathroom (the laptop was being charged and the other outlets were occupied) and tapped away until I had what resembled a half-way decent looking website off of WordPress and ta-dah! Cozy with Books was born!

– The Old/Original Logo –
I stayed up late one night to draw up a logo (the creative juices only ever flow after midnight) and after nearly 30 trashed doodles, I finally settled on this one.

It’s been over a year now and I’ve definitely slowed down in reading…but despite a ton of “maybe blogging is just too much for me” moments, I somehow always find my way back here. I guess I just really needed a platform, an outlet of any kind, to let loose and just scream my feels out loud to an audience, even if my audience is small. There’s just something ultra satisfying about being part of the reading and writing community, writing the reviews, and just typing. Maybe I missed high school English class assignments. Who knows. Whatever the case, I’m still here and I don’t plan on leaving any time soon.

My Advice To New Bloggers:

• Starting to feel overwhelmed like how I do sometimes? Take a hiatus! I wanted to slowly leave the blogging world when the lock-down lifted where I expected to be more busy with less reading time. No reading means no content for the blog since I mainly do reviews. It’s OK to take breaks. It doesn’t matter if you have to excuse yourself for a single weekend, a few days or a week, or even an entire month (or more!). It’s okay to only post once every few weeks. It’s okay if you can only make weekly bookish meme posts or only do review for the time being. Do what feels cozy to you and then come back. I sure do! Sometimes I just go poof! And that’s aaaalllright 👍
• A little planning goes a long way! Occasionally, if I have a bunch of time-sensitive tasks, I start planning. (Say) If I have three books for tours that’s due a certain date, scattered throughout the month, I’ll start early and plan to read a set amount of pages a day. The same can go for blogging. A simple calendar is a great tool to keep track of when was your last posting date, when you want to sit down for the initial blog draft, when you want to sit for the editing, and heck, you can even schedule when you want to sit down to plan. I usually start scheduling at the head of the month on what posts I’m planning to put up for the month and it’s really helpful!

My Nominations!

• The Bookwyrm’s Den
• Gina Rae Mitchell
• JenJen Reviews
• Fi’s Bibliofiles
• The Euphoric Zat
• My Bookish Bliss
• Her Bookish Obsession
• Elspells
• Hannah’s Book Club
• Lou’s Book Stuff
• Shelves of Starlight
• Ellie Mai Blogs
• All Things Gee
• The Picky Bookworm
• Books Are 42