Catching up and ALA 2013

There! with my post last weekend about Caddy’s World, I finally finished posting reviews of books I read in 2012!

Here’s what happened. First, let me say that when I started writing Sonderbooks in 2001, I worked part-time. I reviewed everything I read. Sometime a year or two ago, when I was behind on writing reviews, I started writing the reviews on my blog as drafts, to post later. Posting later takes some time. Even though I use the blog for content, I like posting the reviews back on my main site, Sonderbooks.com, because it’s a much more browsable site of all my reviews, organized by category, and with links to reviews by the same author and books in the same category. Setting up those links takes some time, but so far I haven’t been willing to give that up, because I like the way the site is a resource for all my reviews.

But now that I have the blog as well, I write the reviews as drafts first, and insert the text into html code and add links when I actually post them.

And I’m a little behind.

Here’s how it stands now, for example. I currently have three books sitting in a pile to write reviews for. (This is good, and greatly reduced from a month ago.) But I currently have 52 reviews written as drafts on my blog. I need to catch up! As noted, I just finished posting the last review from 2012, so I am a good six months behind.

I try to alternate between the oldest reviews I have waiting to be posted and one of the newest, especially books just published that I’m especially excited about, though some slip through. I also try not to post books from the same category twice in a row. That’s actually part of what took me so long with the 2012 books — at the end of the year, I was a Cybils judge, so I mostly read children’s fiction at that time, and alternated posting them with other books. (That’s also why I haven’t yet posted reviews of books I loved, Doll Bones, by Holly Black, and P.S. Be Eleven, by Rita Williams-Garcia, and Wednesdays in the Tower, by Jessica Day George. Soon. Very soon.)

Anyway, I’m trying to post two reviews per day until I catch up — but it’s not always happening. I did mention that I work full-time now? I also force myself not to review every book I read. I also recently moved, and still don’t have my boxes unpacked, and still haven’t sent out address change cards.

And I’m going to ALA in Chicago day after tomorrow!

I will probably bring my laptop to ALA but leave it in the hotel room. It’s maybe time I should get an ipad with a keyboard, but I’ve been resisting. I’m going to some sort of event every night I’ll be gone, so I have my doubts that I’ll get in much computer time at all.

But, doggone it, this is my own website, right? There are no deadlines. I am never late! And the books are still good reading, even if they have been published for a year or more. (Which is precisely why I like Sonderbooks to be browsable.)

But that’s what’s going on with me this week. And now that I’ve used a good chunk of time writing this post, let’s see if I can get a review or two posted as well.

I hope I’ll see some friends in Chicago! When I first planned to go, I was hoping I’d be getting ready to serve on next year’s Newbery committee, but I didn’t quite get elected. However, ALA Annual Conference is always a great time for being around my kind of people — book people, and learning a lot, and meeting authors, and celebrating books, and getting excited about upcoming titles. Oh, and having a lovely little block of time to read on the plane!

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