My New BRA

After 2 weeks of cadging tags from Nut Free Nerd, I’m actually doing something she nominated me for: The BRA (Blogger Recognition Award).

Here are the guidelines, from the original post on Edge of Night:

• Select 10-15 other blogs you want to give the award to. Do some digging if you must! This is the whole point! Find those blogs. You cannot nominate the person who has nominated you.

• Write a post to show off your award! Give a brief story of how your blog got started, and give a piece or two of advice to new bloggers. Thank whoever nominated you, and provide a link to their blog. List who you’ve nominated in the post.

• Make sure to also attach the award itself! (You can do this by right-clicking, saving, and uploading the image above, or by creating your own).

• Comment on each blog and let them know you’ve nominated them. Provide a link to the award post you created.

• (Optional) Provide a link to the original post on Edge of Night. A link back here will allow those who were tagged to find the original guidelines if needed. It also allows me to find the posts that linked here so I can check them out!

THANK YOU

Thank you Holly @ Nut Free Nerd! All of my readers should go check out Holly’s blog and then come back here to finish my post. I’ll wait.

MY STORY

I started my blog in December 2013, in order to more easily participate in Greater Than Rubies’ Winter Remix in January 2014. Yep, I started this blog as a fashion blog! This is slightly hilarious to me now, since it quickly became a book blog, with my first book related post on 1/11/14.  I find myself not caring about fashion much these days (I still want to feel like I look good, but I just don’t try so hard now, and I give zero euphemisms about what anyone else thinks – unless they think nice things, lol). I’m still glad I started as a fashion blog, because I’ve made some wonderful blogging friends. I have a much stronger passion for books than fashion, so the switch makes sense (and my blog name allowed for it!).

ADVICE

1. Blog for yourself – followers / comments / likes are fun, but what matters most is that you enjoy it! Blogs started as online diaries, and I think it’s important to remain true to that origin.
2. Reach out – there are some wonderful people in the blogosphere – if you love their post, or their comment on someone else’s blog, comment / respond.
3. Be kind – do NOT let the “anonymity” of the internet turn you into a hateful troll. If you wouldn’t say something to a person’s face, don’t leave it in the comments. I type up my negative comments in another space (like Word, or the notes app on my phone) and let them sit. Once I’m calm, I re-read them. Sometimes, I rewrite them to be constructive and post them. More often, I just delete them. (Man, that sounds like I want to write hateful comments a lot, but I promise I don’t).

NOMINEES

1. Alex @ The Cheerful Closet
2. Whitney @ Whitney à la Mode
3. Maricel @ My Closet Catalogue
4. Lark @ The Bookwyrm’s Hoard
5. Carrie @ Reading Is My Super Power
6. Kristi @ The Hidden Staircase
7. Dagny @ Vauquer Boarding House
8. Stefani @ Caught Read Handed
9. Alison @ Alison’s Wonderland Recipes
10. Stephanie @ Don’t Be Afraid of the Dork