Drowning in a pile of books!!!!!

Okay. I've been busy. Really busy. Part of the world opened to me through connecting with authors and publishers includes reading and reviewing ARC's (Advanced Reader Copies). How awesome is that? And, how flattering that a fellow author and/or publisher would think enough of me to reach out and request I review material that is going to be published, or recently published.

With all that said, I have now found myself drowning in a sea of books. As a member of NetGalley, I've found some amazing authors that perhaps I would've never landed upon. As a reviewer for BTS eMagazine, I can say the same.

But, it does take some serious time to read and give a fair review just for one book. Now multiply that by 30. A few books turn into 5 that need read and reviewed, and then that turns into, "Oh, shoot. This cover and blurb is so dazzlingly pretty, I just can't say no!" And then that turns into 10 books, and then to 15, and then you wade through a few and get your TBR pile down to around 11-12 books, but then the above happens and then you take on an additional 2, and you can see where this can quickly get out of hand.

I think at this point my TBR pile is down to 12 titles through NetGalley, 2 through authors who've reached out to me, 6 titles for BTS e Magazine, and 1 through a publisher. Whew! *Wipes sweat from forehead*

Oh, and I actually just purchased 2 titles from Evernight Teen strictly for my reading pleasure.

The downside to reading and reviewing and letting yourself get swamped: you take shortcuts, like not blogging for days on end, or updating your website, or your twitter account, all social media plummets, because in the grand scheme of things, I'm an author too. Oh, and I work a full time job as a Registered Nurse, and have a family. It's a struggle to juggle it all.

I'm trying to make a New Year's resolution early. I'm going to try to take on only what I think I can reasonably handle. I love to read. It's been a part of my life since I acquired the ability to read as a child. I could never give it up, but too much of any good thing can easily turn into a bad thing.

I've been staying up way too late and struggling to get up in the morning. And then taking the time to write reviews and post them to review sites...it just adds up and then you start to look like this:

I can't resist a good book, I just need to pace myself, because at this point the above picture is truly a good snapshot of how many books I need to get through before I can begin to breathe again.

In the future, I hope to be blogging more frequently. Wish me luck as I sign off here and fire up the Kindle....