I'm Back.... to the Future

Ahh, it feels so good to be back! I know it's only been a week, but I missed blogging. Heck, I missed writing. Between my job and all the extra Christmas chores and plans, I haven't had time to work on short stories or my novel. The only things I've written in the past week are emails and my daily journal. (I'd have to be working 20-hour days before I'd give up journal writing.)

However, my absence from this blog did not mean that the blog was absent from my thoughts. I have been thinking about the future and what direction I want to take with it. Now that I have a solid four months and nearly 40 posts under my belt, I've discovered a few things. One thing I've learned is that people most enjoy reading posts about broad topics, such as how to choose books, or opinions about a well-known author. The individual book reviews are helpful, but if you haven't read or plan to read the book, they may not be as interesting. I plan to continue the book reviews, but intersperse them with more frequent posts about general reading topics, such as the impact of technology on writing, and whether movie adaptations are always bad news. I also plan to debut a new type of post: the reading menu. Sound intriguing? You'll have to stay tuned!

So you'll hopefully be seeing a few changes to this blog over the coming weeks and months. Change will be gradual. I'll be trying out new things and seeing what works and what doesn't. I'll be using my Blogger statistics to monitor which posts are popular, how many page views I'm getting, and the growing list of countries from which the blog is viewed. But I also want as much reader feedback as possible. There has been some commenting on posts in the past, but I'd love to have more. Part of my vision for this blog was to create a forum for dedicated readers and writers to express their feelings and opinions about literature. Perhaps I haven't done enough to encourage that, and if so, I'll try to think of more ways to invite you all into this space. In the meantime, I encourage you to comment, anonymously if desired, on any post that piques your interest, and to feel free to share your opinions about the blog as a whole and what you'd like to see more or less of.

I'll leave you tonight with some of my favorite quotes about reading.

"A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it." -Samuel Johnson
"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." -Groucho Marx
"Reading takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere." -Hazel Rochman
"Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting." -Edmund Burke
"To read is to fly; it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries." -A.C. Grayling
"The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read." -Abraham Lincoln
"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." -Frederick Douglass
"We read to know we are not alone." - C.S. Lewis