What blogging means to me. #bookbloggers #bookblogger #blogger #bloggers #blog #blogs

I started The Tattooed Book Geek on March 5th, 2016. That’s over two years ago now! Am I shocked I’m still blogging? Honestly, I don’t know! Possibly, possibly, not but I will admit that up until a month previous to that having a blog hadn’t even crossed my mind.

As those of you who follow my blog will know I lost Sully, my dog three weeks before the inception of this blog, coincidence? No!

I had briefly and I mean very briefly considered the idea of starting a book blog near the beginning of 2016 but I wasn’t really serious about it and it was one of those procrastination “I guess I could have a blog to share my thoughts on books but can I be bothered” type of thoughts and not a go getter “I want a book blog and I want to rule the blogging world” train of thought and it was quickly consigned to the trash pile of hobby ideas that would take away from my gaming and reading time.

Fast forward a few weeks and a cruel twist of fate happened. Sully got ill. Now, Sully was old, she’d reached 15 back in December but she wasn’t old in herself, still acted like a puppy, still loved her toys (damn, that dog could squeak her toys for hours) and she had never been ill since I adopted her back in 2003. To say she took ill was a shock, sure, an old dog and yes, you expect similar issues to those that are found in older aged humans, aching joints, lethargy, arthritis but she took ill so quickly and in a matter of a fortnight she had gone from being the same dog that she had always been to being dead.

She had cancer and there was no hope. Age didn’t factor into it, the type of cancer meant that regardless of her age she had a death sentence. I remember that the tests showed nothing even as she was getting progressively worse there was nothing wrong with her blood, etc and according to the results, it was just a case of slight arthritis and plain and simple old age.

On her final day she started hacking up black bits, she wouldn’t eat, drink or move from on the sofa but it was those black bits that made the alarm bells ring and that dreaded word ‘cancer’ started repeating in my brain “black = poison, rot and disease” and sadly, I was right. What a time to be fucking right! I badgered (politely of course) the vets to do scans, etc and find out the truth and as I just wrote, I was right, it was cancer. With all of her tests coming back normal the vets hadn’t considered cancer as in some form or another it should have shown up in at least one of the tests but alas, it didn’t.

It didn’t because it was a rare type in dogs and as I previously mentioned a death sentence for her. The cancer had spread and there were tumours in her bladder and her stomach too. Unless a vet specifically checks for that type of cancer there is no way of knowing that it is there, there was nothing that anyone could have done but knowing that even now over 2 years later part of me still feels like I failed her.

Sorry, I apologise as I went off on a tangent! It does, however, tie into why I started my blog. I started my blog simply for something to do in the time that I would have been spending with Sully and at the time blogging meant to me solely an escape from the thoughts that plagued me.

I have scars from being unhappy, when I have been numb I have cut myself for no other reason than to feel and I have bled to bring me back from the edge but over Sully’s death, I didn’t. I wanted to, believe me, it was my go-to for when I needed to take the pain away but it would have degraded all the times that she was there for me, tarnished her memory, what she meant to me and it would have been wrong.

Ooohhhh! Can you feel the emotion! Take that all those who think that I am only ever sarcastic!

Don’t judge! Hands up every blogger who has had or still has issues!

The Tattooed Book Geek wasn’t my first blog, I had an ill-fated attempt at an unnamed blog on Blogger a few days before I started this one, suffice to say that went tits up, I hated it, quit and as eloquently as I can word it thought “fuck this shit”.

Then, one afternoon I came up with the name, The Tattooed Book Geek and decided on WordPress as my blogging platform and here we now are! 🙂

Back when I started blogging it meant an escape and it was a way to waste some free time. Now, while it still means those two things it doesn’t mean them as much or in the same way. Having a blog no longer wastes my free time, it consumes it! No, I jest (it sure does take time though) back at the start it was a way to waste my time and now it is something that I actually want to do with my time. It’s not something that I’m doing just to be doing ‘something’.

Saying that however I found myself (much to my shock) really liking blogging and it soon changed from something to waste time into something that I enjoyed and while I have my ups and downs with my blog (like I’m sure most of us do) after 2 years I still enjoy it.

Now, I’m saying that I enjoy it, which I do but whether or not I’m any good at it is another question and fuck knows the answer to that!

Blogging is still an escape, I can’t deny that and I am sure it is for many of you too for various reasons but it’s now not an escape from dark thoughts and loss. It’s now an escape from being surrounded by people who have absolutely no interest in reading to being part of a community that is full of readers.

Blogging to me is a way to share my thoughts. Yeah, no shit Sherlock on that one after I just told you how my dog died and that in the past I have played with knives! I mean, does it get any more personal than that?!

As I’m not much of a ‘talker‘ in real-life and often let things fester and build up inside blogging is a way for me to vent and to express my thoughts and feelings through the written word be those thoughts and feeling included in blog posts or written in the form of poetry.

That’s another thing blogging means to me, my blog is a place to share my poetry! Eurgh, my bad boy image and manliness rating just went down with that!

Blogging means that I get my own little piece of the Internet where I can come up with awesome phrases like ‘book hooker‘ which yes, on occasion gets me hassle but that’s also another thing that blogging means to me. It means that I get haters and trolls! How cool is that! These people have been offended enough to hate, thank you, it’s nice to know that you care. 😉

You know you love me really, I gave you the term ‘book hooker’ to use! 🙂

Blogging means that I can preach my rhetoric and spiel to the masses and maybe one day I’ll be able to turn my blog into an online cult. The Church of Drew, all worship at the altar of awesomeness! 🙂

Blogging is a way to share my thoughts on books, no-one I work with reads, that’s a lie actually as a couple of people read some rather unsavoury types of books that I have no interest in and they, no interest in what I read and trying to get a conversation with them about books of any sort is like getting blood from a stone!

When you don’t know many people, in general, and who actually read. Yes, I’m rather a loner though as I am currently suffering from the dreaded man flu whilst writing this I can tell you that I must have caught the germs from someone and ergo, people are disease carrying, often annoying idiots who quite frankly are over-rated!

If you don’t know many readers then you are left talking to the walls and yourself when trying to talk about books and that is where a book blog comes in. Wow, that is a groundbreaking revelation right there isn’t it! A book blog means a way to express and share your thoughts on books. Be they the books you read, favourite trilogies, series, authors, classics or upcoming releases.

Even though I’m very much on the outskirts of the community I’m still part of something and really that is what blogging is mainly about to me, being part of a collective of like-minded individuals who regardless of the country that they live in, whether they are male or female, their sexual orientation or even their age all have one thing in common, they all love books!

---

What does blogging mean to you???

---

Follow The Tattooed Book Geek on:

Twitter, Goodreads, Blog Facebook, Personal Facebook, Bloglovin