Tag: 'Bout This Blogger

The 'Bout This Blogger tag was created by Cait from Paper Fury to celebrate her blog changeover!

As part of Cait's fabulous blog party celebrations, I'm taking part in the 'Bout This Blogger tag! Because I'm such an interesting person who has a sparkling personality and loves to talk about herself (lol really?).

1. Why did you start blogging?
When I first joined Goodreads back in 2010 (I think), I was in a group that a friend of mine created and a lot of the members had their own blogs. I was actually in desperate need of something to do instead of just blazing though all the books I was reading and not saying anything about them, so I just went for it in 2011! I still don't feel like a veteran or an experienced blogger after 3 years, and I'm still learning things as I go.

2. What’s the story behind your blog’s name?
My first blog name was Harker Morgan because that was my old pen name that I used online. Then I got bored of using that and changed it to Vandasamur (that's Icelandic for difficult), which I realised was way too hard to remember, so I then changed it again to Nerdette Reviews. I chose that because I was obsessed with Star Trek at the time (I still love it, just not as much), and considered myself to be a huge nerd. However, I've grown out of that and I'm about to change it yet again.

Next year, I'm going to be changing my blog name to Exploring by Starlight, which I like much more. I've chosen this one because one of my favourite songs ever is By Starlight by Smashing Pumpkins, and I like to go exploring in both the real world and in fictional worlds. Plus, I like astronomy and I prefer nighttime to daytime. It definitely sounds more like me!

3. How many designs have you been through since you started blogging? (Pictures! We demand pictures!)
When I was Harker Morgan, I changed my blog design pretty much every month (just the header and colours though). It's a habit I had leftover from when I was on Piczo and changed my website design every month, and I also had the time to do it (literally all I did was search through weheartit and then throw it together in Photoshop). It was pretty painful to go through my old Photobucket account to find these.

Started from the bottom:

this one is by far the worst thing i've ever made

Now we're here:

And then next year we'll be somewhere else.

4. Have you ever switched blog platforms? What made you move? If you haven’t ever changed…why?
Nope, I've been on Blogger the whole time! I'm not exactly ready to change over to Wordpress because I'm not that serious of a blogger yet and Blogger does work for me just fine. I haven 't had any of the problems that a lot of people have had.

5. How long does it take you to write a post? What’s your postly process like?
It really depends on what kind of post it is. If I'm just rambling about something or putting together a more coherent discussion post, that can take up to an hour. It takes me about a day to write a review if I have other stuff going on, but if it's one that I have a lot to say about, I can probably whip it out (ew) in about twenty five minutes. And then typing it up and formatting it takes about ten or fifteen minutes. For posts that I'm making gifs for, those can take up to a day or two, or maybe even a week depending on how much time I have on my hands, and also how long it'll take me to find the clips that I'm going to gif (if I don't have it on DVD that is).

6. Have you ever been super nervous about a post? Why?! What was it?
I'm only ever nervous if the post I've got is something new that I've come up with, and it's mainly because I'm paranoid that someone else might already do it. If I'm too nervous about it, I just won't post it.

At the minute, I've been hesitant to try out an idea for a meme that I have because I'm unsure if it's already been done. The idea is that once every month, you make a playlist for a book from the set genre for that month, and everybody's is different. So for example, if there was a dystopian theme, I could make a playlist for The Hunger Games, and another person could make one for Divergent. I may go for it when I change the blog name, but for now I'm going to do some serious researching.

7. Do you have a blogging schedule?
I do! My schedule is as follows:

Monday - Whatever I feel like
Tuesday - Book Review
Wednesday - Whatever I feel like
Thursday - Film Review
Friday - Life of a Blogger
Saturday - Book review
Sunday - No post! Unless it's the last Sunday of the month, then I post my book haul.

I'm also now doing recap posts at the beginning of the month, so those will probably be on my first freebie day on the month (bonus points if the month starts on a Monday).

8. Do you tell people In-Real-Life about your blog? Their reactions?
Sometimes I do tell people, but the vast majority of people that I tell just aren't all that interested. I either get "oh that's cool" and then the conversation moves on to something else, or I get asked the usual question of "what do you blog about" and once I answer it, the conversation moves on. I'm kind of used to people not really being all that bothered now.

9. Top ten blogs you read/comment on the most! Go! Go!
I have a pretty condensed blog reading list, but here are some of my favourites in no particular order:

1. The Daily Prophecy
2. Adrift on Vulcan
3. Books for a Delicate Eternity
4. Rinn Reads
5. Oh, the Books!
6. The Perpetual Page-Turner
7. Novel Heartbeat
8. Nose Graze
9. Paper Fury (of course)
10. Utterly Bookish

10. If you could change/improve things about your blog, what would they be?
I think I'd change my review style. Compared to a lot of other people's reviews, mine sometimes feel a bit too formal and stuffy. I do prefer to have a serious reviewing style, and I can be snarky when I feel like it, but I want to work on being more informal with my reviews. I also wish that I had the materials and the talent available to take actual photos for my blog. We've all pretty much seen my gifs by now, but I can only make so many gifs of Simpsons scenes. So many bloggers take photos of their books and what they get up to, and I'd like to do that too.

Also my motivation. Because sometimes I'll schedule out tons of posts (like I have this month) and then just disappear the next month because I've burnt myself out.

If you want to take part in this tag too, head on over to Paper Fury for the original post! (There's also a giveaway too!)