How Do You Knock One Out?!?

Happy Sunday my fellow bookish people I hope that you are all well and enjoying some most excellent books and reading?!? 🙂

Today I wanted to write about how you knock one out! Do you go up into your bedroom, lock the door, put on some mood music, light some candles and pretend like you’re actually getting some? Do you use an apple pie? C’mon, I’m sure most of you have seen American Pie!

Do you sit on your hand until you get pins and needles so it feels like someone else is doing the ‘knocking‘ for you? Or maybe, you just quietly knock one out whilst you are taking a long shower and let the water wash the evidence away?

Oh my! Aren’t I stupid! By using a fun title for the post I completely forgot what I was actually going to write about, silly me! I didn’t really mean knocking one out as in ‘hello Mr/Miss hand‘ this isn’t that type of blog! No, what I meant was knocking one out in reference to writing a review and how you go about the process of writing one.

Before we start, let’s have a dirty nursery rhyme!

Little Miss Strumpet sat on a tuffet,
Watching some explicit porn,
It wasn’t the spider,
That fingered inside her,
But Little Boy Blue and his cream horn!

This isn’t a post about what we include in the reviews we write as well, we all review differently. Some use gifs, some are shorter, some longer, some use bullet points, some are split into subcategories, some are elaborate and detailed, some contain spoilers, some don’t contain spoilers, some focus on the book, some more on the reviewer’s thoughts and feelings and some are foul mouthed and sarcastic.

Apart from reviews that consist solely of ‘dis book waz da bomb, loved it, innit‘ or ‘I disliked this book immensely, it is an abject travesty to literature‘. Everyone has their own way of reviewing, after all, it’s your blog, your rules and that is completely fine. Whichever style and way you choose is entirely up to you!

Remember, there is no right or wrong way to review, only the right way for you!

But, I was wondering, when you have finished reading a book how do you actually write your review?!

Before anyone tries to be funny! Remember, I’m the sarcastic one here thank you! Obviously, you sit in front of your tablet/laptop or computer and type up the review!

Do you take notes as you go along reading be they in a notepad or on your phone? Do you mark/tab the pages/type the page numbers down when something important/funny/sad happens that you want to remember for reference when writing the review? Do you use quotes? Do you jot down the page number for quotes or write out the complete quote? Do you write the complete review as you read the book? Do you post your written reviews straight away? Do you leave your written reviews in your draft folder for a while and keep editing them? Do you write the review straight away? Do you let the book settle and think on your thoughts and feelings before writing the review? Do you write your review in one go? Do you write bits and pieces here and there as you think of them? Or, do you just wing it and try to remember things you liked about the book after you’ve finished and write the review from memory?!? 

Remember, there’s no right or wrong way, I’m just curious and thought it might be a cool discussion! 🙂

For me, I often (not always) or perhaps ‘occasionally‘ is a more apt word write some notes whilst reading for my review. A lot of the time they may well be nonsensical babble and I need to rewrite them when I come to writing the actual review out. But the sentiments and meanings of the notes will stay the same, just hopefully more eloquent and coherent than the nonsense notes were! If using quotes I jot down the page number perhaps with a snippet of the quote so that I remember what I wanted to use!

I generally leave my reviews after I’ve written them and whilst I may not edit them, I make sure that I reread and check one final time (and yes, even with checking I still make spelling and grammatical errors, suck it) before scheduling and posting. 

At times, I have to be in the right mood to write a review otherwise I look at the screen blankly staring with vacant eyes and drool coming out my mouth – slight exaggeration but you get the point! If I’m not in the mood for reviewing then I can’t force the words. 

I have been known to write reviews straight after finishing the book but normally I like to think on my thoughts before writing them down. And, being honest after I’ve finished reading a book I think either ‘write the review‘ or ‘start a new book‘ and most of the time the review writing gets a ‘eurgh’ and the starting a new book gets a hell yeah!

Whispers quietly.…….I have also been known to leave my reviews and write them a while after finishing the book and to live dangerously and wing it! Trying to write the review from memory with no notes!

What about you all?!? How do you knock one out and write your reviews?!?

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