Armchair BEA: Ask the Experts

Armchair BEA: Ask the Experts

The Final Day

Today is the last day of Armchair BEA 2012. I think it’s been a wonderful and extremely successful week. I had hoped to spend much more time online visiting the blogs of participating bloggers this week. I also wanted to attend a couple of the Twitter parties. But, as occasionally happens, my body/health had other ideas and kept me away from here a lot of the time. I’m planning and hoping to visit more bloggers and their blogs this weekend.

I want to thank the Armchair BEA Blog Team - Pam, Julie@My5Monkeys, The1stdaughter, Chrisbookarama, Emily, Tif Sweeney, Florinda Pendley Vasquez, Michelle Shannon and Amy@MyFriendAmy for the wonderful job they did planning and producing this terrific week.   THANK YOU!

And now, for the topic of the day: Ask the Experts.  You, my visitors, are the experts and I’m asking you to please advise me on my blog and blogging. I feel and know I have a lot of work still to do on my blog and with my blogging (such as...posting before the end of the day!). I would really appreciate any comments, critiques, helpful hints and advice you have including anything you‘ve learned or were told that you have, so far, found helpful during your blogging time...Please!!

Armchair BEA: Beyond Your Blog!

Beyond Your Blog!

I love the title for today...Beyond Your Blog makes me feel like I should be reporting from space! Lol
I know I'm late with my post and didn't make it here yesterday...the weather is beautiful here but it sets off my allergies and yesterday it was so bad it triggered the worst asthma attack I've had in a few years. ( blech! ) But I'm back! 

I haven’t had any opportunities, yet, to review or write for other publications outside of my own blog. The only special invitations I’ve received were for parties hosted by some book publishers to celebrate bloggers during BEA. I wasn’t able to attend and was very disappointed about it. I also wasn’t aware that these kinds of parties were given during BEA. Now that I know, I’m going to make sure my BEA week is free of doctor appointments, medical procedures and that kind of thing next year!

I would really like to write and review outside my blog in the future. I’m not quite ready to start putting myself out there, though. I want my health to be a little more stable because, right now, it interferes with my blogging some days. But it's one thing when it's my blog and a completely different issue when it's someone else's blog or publication. I’m hoping it will be soon now that I’ve started taking some good medication for the pulmonary hypertension. The other thing I've noticed is the older I get, the more I take my time deciding how I want to approach new ventures. I used to rush into things from new job opportunities to friendships and sometimes realized after a few months that it wasn’t working for me and I was unhappy.

I like to write and spend time every week writing although I'm not writing enough. I need to spend time writing every day. Part of the reason I started another blog was for the writing experience. I haven’t been very good about committing to that blog mostly because I’m still trying to figure out what I really want to do with it. And also because of one of the most fun aspects of my days:

My Furry Kids!

Bob

Lola

Huxley

Magoo

I have a few more cute cats roaming around but these four like to being in photos!

Hello!! Armchair BEA: Introductions!

The bloggers hosting Armchair BEA 2012 are encouraging keeping things simple and visiting as many other blogs as possible this week. I love this idea. I tried to keep my answers short and simple...I’m a bit of a talker so if my answers to the intro questions are kind of long sorry ‘bout that. If it‘s any consolation, my comments to bloggers posts are chatty too!!
Thank you for visiting !!

 1) My name is Amy. You can also call me Aimala, Aimster or some version of both. I’ve been blogging since July 2009 but have taken a few breaks so I've probably been blogging closer to 2 years than 3.  A photo of me will almost always include a cat!
I got into blogging because I had to ‘retire’ on disability from a job I loved and I wasn’t finding reading as enjoyable or helpful as I once did. When I discovered book blogs and this community where I could discuss books with other readers, share my views on books and learn about genres and authors I wasn’t familiar with, I was thrilled!
I have been an avid reader for as long as I can remember. My mom loved to read and tried to turn my sister and I onto the wonder and glory of books...it stuck with me, not with my sister. Reading quickly became my favorite thing to do because it took me away from ‘real life’. I had a good home life but I spent several months of every year from the age of 4 until 17, in the hospital and at home recovering from surgery. Books were a great way to get away from the boredom, pain, fear... My interest in reading anything and everything also helped me keep up with my classes, while at home recovering from surgery, in junior high and high school. I was fortunate to graduate with my class as a result.

2) My favorite book of 2012 is one I finished just last week, The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. It’s an amazing book. One of the books I’m reading now is A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash. I was leafing through this book up on Saturday morning, planning to put it on my nightstand, and the next thing I knew, I’d read 50 pages. Today, I’m 50 pages from the end of this book. It’s fantastic. A blurb on the front of Wiley Cash’s debut says it will “knock your socks off...” and that is so true!

4) My favorite feature on my blog is the pictures of my cats that I post periodically, primarily as part of Saturday Snapshot a meme hosted by Alyce on her blog At Home With Books. I also have some wonderful photos of my fuzzie-wuzzies on my sidebar!

7) There’s a long list of authors I’d love to meet for dinner. Jonathan Tropper because his books are well-written, hilarious, intelligent and he seems to be a nice , slightly wacky person! I would love to have dinner with Vanessa Diffenbaugh because of her work with the foster care system and her belief that things have to change for the better for children in foster care. One other author I’d love to meet is Susan Gregg Gilmore because I adored The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove, a book that made me laugh and cry!

9) My favorite part of the book blogging community is the other bloggers and the sense of community that exists.
There’s a very large number of book blogs and some, unfortunately, don’t understand or share this idea of community, of loving and supporting your fellow bloggers through whatever comes. That’s sad.
Fortunately, there’s a much greater number of book bloggers who understand what it is to be human and know that part of you isn’t left at the door when you create a book blog. The majority of book bloggers know that in sharing views and opinions on books, you’re also connecting with others and getting to know them as people. When I started blogging, I knew I would learn quite a bit about books and share my ideas/opinions with other bloggers. But I didn’t realize the extent of the friendships and connections I would make with bloggers who are real people with real lives. This sense of community is a glorious thing!