Merry Christmas + Happy Holidays 2015!

important updates and news regarding the runaway reader.

Hey guys,

Just wanted to pop in really quickly to wish you a merry Christmas or if you don't celebrate, a happy December the 25th and a great holiday season overall! Can you believe that 2015's already coming to a close? It feels like just yesterday I was watching the New Year's Eve broadcast in New York on my television for 2015 so to think we're six days away from 2016 is crazy. Hopefully everyone's enjoying the downtime and spending some quality time with friends and family! There won't be any more scheduled posts for 2015 on this blog but I've been coming up with some cool ideas for posts in 2016 and am hoping to start actively blogging again (ie. not taking a two week hiatus in between each post I publish) so look out for that!

Before I leave you though, my guest post for Veronika & Ruzaika over at The Regal Critiques went up today so click this link to see what 5 sweet treats I look forward to indulging in this holiday season!

merry christmas + happy holidays everyone! see you all in the new year xoxo

Blog Announcement: Stepping Away Indefinitely

important updates and news regarding the runaway reader.

Hi guys, Annie here. I'm not quite sure what to say in this post besides the point of it which is that I'm taking a break from this blog indefinitely. And 'indefinitely', to me at least, always sounds a bit foreboding, like that something you think is going to happen but REALLY hope won't, will, in fact, occur. But in this context, I really do mean 'indefinitely' as in I will be making a return to this blog sometime in the future, I just don't know when yet.

Since returning from vacation in July, I haven't been active on this blog very much and recently I've tried to fix that but to be honest with you, I just haven't been in a great place physically or mentally lately. I feel like I just need a break from everything and take some time off for me to focus on feeling less stressed and less exhausted and less... everything. So needless to say, blogging is a part of that.

I wasn't initially planning on writing any sort of blog post to "announce" my break as I've practically been on a break since August but I guess it feels more comforting to me to make it official like this.

This is not the end. Just a break.

I'll be back. Love you guys and see you soon,

Annie xo

Blog Announcement: Leaving for Vacation! (A Month Long Sort-of Hiatus)

Hi guys, just a quick little post today to notify you of what’s going to be happening with my blog for the next month or so.

If you’ve read my June Reflect & Renew post, you might already be aware that I am going on vacation starting the tenth of July (so tomorrow) for approximately a month. I’ll be visiting Asia, mostly staying in Shanghai to see my relatives and then maybe visiting Tokyo as well, though nothing has been set in stone yet. I’m super excited but also slightly disappointed because going on vacation means no time to blog.

Good news is that I have scheduled some posts to go up while I’m away so there will be at least one post per week for every week that I am away, though I have been a little extra productive these past few weeks so there will be a few more schmooshed in between.

But as for everything else (Twitter, other forms of social media, email, comment responding, etc), there will be a month-long lapse in activity. Part of it is because I will be doing a lot of travelling and most likely won’t have a lot of access to the internet or even a computer but part of it is also because I will be in China where, as you probably know, blocks basically all the major English speaking websites. Which means, to my devastating sadness, no social media of any sort for a month. But hey, maybe this will be good for me! Maybe this will help ease my dependency on social media. But yes also if you need to contact me for anything, just know that you’ll probably have to wait until mid-August / some time during the second week of August before you get a reply.

And I’m pretty sure that covers everything I need to say for now… so I’ll see you all in a month. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the posts I have scheduled and yeah, that’s it! Don’t miss me too much (although I’m sure you’re all going to hold a celebration that I’m gone as soon as I leave).

LOVE YOU ALL. BYE.

PS. I actually don’t even know what I’m going to do this month without any contact with any of you for a month so here I am, asking for help to keep my sanity. If you are willing to help keep me sane by way of email (I’m pretty sure Hotmail / Windows email isn’t blocked in China), I’ll send you my email address to set up an email correspondence so you can entertain me with things and keep me updated with what’s going on in the blogging community / the rest of the world and in exchange I’ll entertain you with descriptions of my travels and all the food I’m eating (and maybe even a postcard to your door!)

There, now I’m really done.

Peace!

Annie xx

2 Years of Blogging!

As of today, Thursday August the 28th, I have been blogging for two years.

YES, TWO YEARS.

I feel like I'm dreaming. I feel like this is all a dream and someone needs to pinch me right now. My brain hasn't even begun to process this fact because it all feels at once like a really long time but also a really short time. And usually I'm pretty good at being sappy and talking about how much blogging means to me and how much I love you guys but now that the moment has called for it, I just can't seem to muster up words that adequately describe how wonderful it is to reach such a big milestone.

If you told me back on that fateful day in 2012 when I first started blogging that I would manage to continue doing so for two years, I would have said you were out of your freaking mind. I NEVER stick with things for any more than five months at the most (and you will hear ALL about this from my mum, except that she prefers to refer to all my endeavors as "projects") so if you told me I would stick with something for two years, I probably would have laughed in your face. But it seems, accidentally, I've stumbled upon this great love of mine: blogging about books (and occasionally other random things).

There is this one quote that I like from E.M. Forster about passion. It goes "One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested." And so I am very, very fortunate to have found my passion after years of just being mildly interested in things. I have to admit, however, that none of this would have been as fun and as interesting if you guys weren't with me all along the way. And I mean, ALL OF YOU. Everyone who has commented on my blog, who has taken the time to talk to me, who has taken the time to read my posts and et al. THANK YOU. It is you who keeps me going, who gives me the motivation to continue to blog and even if I have no idea who you are, just the knowledge that some of you are out there and maybe somewhat appreciate what I do here makes me so happy beyond words.

But first, there are some people that I would just like to really, really quickly thank for being my...friends? I feel like I can say that now, right? Or just people I've only talked to once or twice but I still really, really appreciate. God, there are so many people I want to just SPILL MY LOVE OUT FOR YOU and tell you how much I appreciate your existence but we'd be here all day so just very quickly, these are the people I'd especially like to thank and give a quick shout out to!

Lesley, Chloe, Shannelle, Josephine, Liz, Mitchii, Shelly, Emily, Meg,  Rachel, Chiara, Emily, P.E. & Mari, Charlotte, Jen, Aimee, Emily, and Zoe: THANK YOU!

I think I might be missing a few people but anyway, that's what I came up with on the spot but again, I really do appreciate each and everyone one of you!

It's been a crazy ride, these two years. But I can honestly look back and be proud of everything that I've accomplished and thankful of all the wonderful things I've been able to experience and learn because of blogging and thankful of all the brilliant people I've met (or stalked) through blogging.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU AND A MILLION TIMES MORE. I LOVE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU. GOODBYE. MWAH.

xoxo

Celebrating Six Months Of The Runaway Reader!

Six months ago, I made the rather sudden decision to pack my bags up at Random Reads and start all over with a new book blog, The Runaway Reader. I was really nervous at first because honestly, I made the entire move in less than five hours. Made a header, drafted a color scheme, uploaded some background, wrote my first post and done! There wasn't much thinking behind it except for the fact that I had been feeling more and more upset about what Random Reads was like and thinking that I would give anything to be able to wipe my slate clean and do it all over again. So when I revealed the news, I didn't know what would happen and how people would react.

Flash forward six months later and I can tell you that starting The Runaway Reader was the best decision in my book blogging career thus far. Never has a day gone by where I have regretted my decision to leave Random Reads. It feels to me like I've been blogging here since the very beginning and it's just some place I'm very comfortable. I felt like with Random Reads, I didn't really have any idea of what I was doing and when I wanted to be serious about book blogging, I wasn't quite sure how to transition. But now, I DO have experience and blogging comes much more easier to me. I have things worked out, I know what I'm doing and I know what I want in my blog. And I think that's the most important thing of all.

So here's to six amazing months of blogging and many more!!

The Discontinuation of Weekly Recap (Among Other Things)

Since I've been really focused on my blog for the past few days, I've been thinking a lot about tweaks I want to make to ensure The Runaway Reader runs smoother so I wanted to make another blog announcement so that you're all updated with what's going on here! 

I've been thinking a lot about Weekly Recap lately and have finally come to a conclusion I'm happy with. After much thought, I have decided to discontinue Weekly Recap. I love the idea of the recaps but honestly, they're not worth it. They take up a lot of time and I feel like there's no point in posting weekly. It feels more like filler than a post that actually has substance.

With the discontinuation of Weekly Recap, I've decided to reinstall Reflect & Renew from my old blog, Random Reads, which is a recap that goes up monthly instead of weekly. It's basically going to cover the exact same things as Weekly Recap did, except everything will be nice and organized into more categories.

And as of now, the Novel Report will no longer be its own feature. I have the same feelings about Novel Report posts as I do about Weekly Recap: too time consuming and mostly filler. And upon second thought, I realize it's not necessary to create an entire post for books I'm reading when I can easily integrate it into my recap posts. So from now on, you'll be able to find details on my reading life in the Reflect & Renew recap posts. 

The Novel Report also shared my DNFs which will not be going into my recap posts but will be given their own feature, Novel Roundup which is again, reinstated from Random Reads. It's basically an overview of all the books I didn't finish or didn't review and I think it'll be helpful for me to keep track of the books I read that don't appear on this blog!

And now back to Weekly Recap, do you guys remember how I had a section dedicated to blog posts around the blogosphere? Well, I've decided to create a separate feature for that too! I love sharing posts but I want it to extend further than the book blogosphere. There are so many great posts around the web PERIOD and I want to share that with you guys so I've decided to introduce Around the Web (I know, such a creative name) which will also be a monthly post and feature all of my great Internet findings for that month. 

So those are all my blog announcements this time! Thank you all for being so great while I'm trying to figure things out, I appreciate it a lot! Love you all loads! xx

Some Blog Announcements

For the past few weeks, I've been really struggling with blogging which is probably really clear from the lack of posts and the messages and apologies. And I've been trying to sort out my feelings on blogging and where I want to go.

I've concluded that I don't want to leave blogging. I love it too much and there are just so many things I haven't done yet that I want to do. So I'm going to continue. But because the state in which my blog is in right now is pretty bare-bones, I need some time to get things back into shape.

For the next four or five days, I'm going to take a break from actively blogging and really work on scheduling for December and planning and drafting up posts (unfortunately, this means no Weekly Recap this week either). After a lot of thought, I think it's best for me to go back to planning what I want to do because winging it seems to be making blogging even harder.

But I have some really great posts planned for you in December and I can't wait for those to go up! I really hope that this new blogging system I'm implementing now will help me manage The Runaway Reader better.

See you in December! And for those celebrating Thanksgiving and/or Hanukkah this weekend, I wish you happy festivities!