Top Ten Tuesday: Sam's Top Ten Blogging Confessions

It's that magic time again -- Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! Readers, let's dig right away into my gory, shocking, lengthy, MUST-READ blogging confessions! (Confession number one: HYPERBOLE!)

Confession #2: I still eat at McDonald's. I know! In 2014!

As always, thanks to the fine folks at THE BROKE AND BOOKISH for devising this delightful feature and allowing us to participate in it!

Brought to you by The Broke and Bookish!

10. Privilege.

Let's put it out there right away -- the Mad Ones are undeniably privileged. We do our best to showcase a variety of voices and perspectives in both the YA books we choose and the topics we cover, but we all know that in the YA fiction world, privilege is problematic.
 

Kate mentioned one of the problems -- whitewashing -- in a #TTT about two weeks ago

Privilege has led us over the years to think that whitewashed covers are OK (they're not!) and stereotypes of minorities are standard (they shouldn't be!). We do our best to point these issues out where we see them, but we're coming from a place of privilege in doing that, and as allies, we want to do less talking and more listening.  Any ideas, readers? Oh, and that brings me to #9 and #8!

9. Inadequate social media presence

Although I am the self-proclaimed queen of social media addiction (recovering Facebook addict since 2013! Six months without a personal Facebook page -- MY BLOG PAGE DOESN'T COUNT, GUYS!) I freely admit that Mad But Magic could be doing a lot more to reach out to new readers and audiences on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus (well, maybe). 

Portrait of a Google Plus user.

We want to put ourselves out there more, and learn more too (see #1)! Any advice, readers? How do you usually find and follow your favorite blogs?


8. Lack of reader engagement
Do bloggers normally ask you this many questions, reader? No? Well, we'd like to start! We have a lot of fabulous, regular readers here at Mad But Magic -- we're at over 10,000 pageviews since we started last summer! -- but we'd like to hear more from you! 

Portrait of a Mad But Magic reader

What do you like? What do you want to see more of? Less of? We love your comments - and we want to encourage them! (And we want to listen more -- see #1!)

7. Ignoring new releases/#TBT

My Instagram addiction has seeped through to my blog posts -- I am addicted to the throwback reviews! I am always sorely tempted to review old YA books that I feel have been unfairly passed up by critics and popular audiences (C'mon guys! Cinderella 2000, I'm TELLING you!) But sometimes this means I don't give my readers timely reviews -- great example, I've had Seraphina sitting on my self for awhile now (do you remember last YEAR'S Summer #TBR top ten list?) Well, I finally read it -- and I'd love to review it -- but is it too late!? Sometimes I feel like it is. And sometimes I don't care, because dragons.

DRAGONSSS!

6. Engaging more with the characters than the author

Is this really a bad thing? No -- but not all confessions are bad! (Confession: I have watched LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring more times than I have gone to the gym in my entire life! WAIT THAT WAS BAD TOO) But seriously -- often I ignore anything to do with the author -- his or her other works, social media presence, background, anything really -- because it's the characters who are real people to me. People keep telling me that J.K. Rowling started from the bottom, now she's here (maybe that's Drake?) 

Thanks, Internet!

. . . and all these amazing stories about her overcoming adversity, etc. etc., and I'm just like "But guys . . . Harry is an orphan. And he lived in a cupboard." And then people try to tell me Harry isn't real and I try not to run into those people at parties.

5. Blog jealousy

We've all felt it! Yes, that's me -- I'm the girl creeping on your awesome blog posts, feeling like "Man, how did they did they get a GIF in there? Should I capitalize 'GIF'?" But then I read an amazing #FridayFeels or Monday review by one of my fellow Mad Ones and I remember that we've got our own groovy thing going! 

Seriously, get yourself some #FridayFeels.

4. Not posting!

Whoops! Did you know that 2014 has been maybe the busiest year to date for all three of us? We know you've noticed - we haven't been posting as much! (Except for the ever-industrious Kate, who singlehandedly kept the blog alive -- bless you, Kate) But that will change in a few short weeks -- Sam will have taken the bar exam, Kate will keep being awesome, and Meg will be out on parole. Wait, what?

This.

3. Copyright laws

Speaking of rulebreakers (just kidding, Meg!) all this bar studying is making me wonder whether I am violating any copyright laws when I post images! 

I usually wear a ski mask while I loot Google images for my blog

This is something I'm going to research a bit more and look into. Any fellow bloggers with thoughts on the matter?

2. Fear of giving a negative review

This is my secret shame! Kate gave a very honest review of a book the other day -- actually, Kate always gives very honest reviews of books -- and I realized that I have yet to give a book below three stars, except some in my Top Tens that I think were actually movies. It's so scary for me to say I don't like a book! As someone with a burning desire to write her own novel but lacking the time, energy, and gumption to do it, it is difficult -- really difficult -- for me to criticize anyone who has made that effort, put themselves out there, bared their soul, and . . . wrote something terrible. 

I know! That face!

Because it does happen, people. All the time! I read a free book available for download the other day and it was so bad. So, so bad. And I can't bring myself to give a negative review! The book literally ended with a "So it was all a dream!" sequence, and it was like a small child had come up to me and kicked me in the shins. Was the author for real? And yet . . . there was her book, out there for the masses. She got her novel written . . . now, why can't I?


1. Not enough collaboration with my co-bloggers

Do you know just how fantastic Kate and Meg are? I doubt you do, because you probably don't know them personally, and you can only see their silhouettes, but Kate and Meg are actually Kate Middleton and Megan Fox. 

In a twist, I'm actually Beyoncé.

No, no, I jest, I jest. But seriously, I've got two absolutely amazing co-bloggers here, and we have yet to write a post together! Well, guess what - we're going to fix that! I'm secretly planning for us all to read a book this summer and then, BOOM! We're going to a co-write a review, and they're never going to see it coming.

As long as they don't read this post.

xo

Sam