Rethinking the blog

I have been blogging actively for more than three years now and I love it, as it's a great outlet for my love of reading and has helped me to connect with readers and writers and to discover some wonderful books.
However I have had a bit of slump in my enthusiasm recently for a variety of reasons. I have moved from working one day a week to working twenty to thirty hours a week; last week for example I worked thirty two hours. I'm not complaining of course I enjoy my job especially as it revolves around books but of course that means less time free to blog and to read.
This means that I need to make changes in how and when I blog and what I choose to blog about. Blogging for me began with two objectives; to have a place online where I could shout about the books and authors that I love and to talk about writing; share tips, links and competitions. 

As I have been working so much my spare time has shrunk and become even more precious. I want to spend as much time as I can writing and reading but I want to write about the things that matter to me and read the books I want to read. 

I am not for one minute saying that I hate receiving books from publishers, I love it and long may it continue. However I have so may books that I am waiting to read and haven't had a chance to, because I have so many reviews to get through.  In choosing to start my Friday feature interviews I hope I have started to move towards my original goal of making this a blog about writing as much as reading and because I am focusing on authors of historical fiction I am going to focus my reviews on historical fiction also. This means that anything that doesn't fit into my original blog description (which I have reinstated above) "historical, gothic and fantasy fiction" will have to take a back seat or won't feature at all, because I feel that my blog lost focus and so did I. 

I apologise to authors and publishers who are waiting for reviews from me, but I have to review at my own pace if it's not fun then what's the point? I will pass on books that aren't for me to friends and family who will be delighted to read them. 

I will still be reviewing some contemporary authors; my definition of gothic as interpreted through the Oxford Dictionary of Literary terms includes stories with an atmosphere of gloom, suspense or claustrophobia, so I will certainly be reading more from authors like Louise Welsh, Joanna Briscoe, Nuala Ni Chonchuir and Tom Vowler. I will also be widening my definition of Historical Fiction to include time-slip and dual time stories. I will also be including when I can reviews of exceptional historical fiction and fantasy for children and teenagers, as I hope to involve my children especially my ten year old daughter who wants to read more and start blogging with me. 

My blog may be less frequent as a result but it will I hope be more focused.