Words of April || Some New Beginnings

I generally try not to comment on the passage of time but WHERE DID APRIL GO?! I genuinely have no idea how we are already in May. Looking at the calendar and realizing that I should post a wrap-up today instead of something else was a surprise.

Do I have enough to write a wrap-up post? We'll find out together.

words on books

April has been a dismal reading month for me. Not in the number of books read but the quality of the books. I read 15 books and only 4 were good.

Gouda Friends by Cathy Yardley is an endearing rom-com featuring a woman who has realized that her life is not what she wants it to be. With the help of an old best friend, she starts anew with her life and career. I really liked the vibes and the message of the book. It is definitely a comfort book.

The Bachelor's Valet by Arden Powell is a SUPER CUTE historical gay romance that is only focused on giving the chaotic queers a happy ending. There is no politics or fighting against society to be together. The book is pure gay fluff and I couldn't be happier about it. It is a comfort read that I'll definitely be rereading.

Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score is a book about starting over. There is something special about books where the main character's life is completely messed up and they have to build their life again. This book gave me that and more. I loved the grumpy x sunshine romance and the man is whipped for her from their first meeting. I'd pitch it as a better Aurora Rose Reynolds-ish story because the book has many elements (story structure, danger aspect, setting) similar to what ARR has in her books but this does it better.

Scarred by Emily McIntire is a fantasy romance book inspired by the story of Lion King. Although I read the synopsis before starting it, I wasn't ready for what the story actually is. It is not a retelling but a new telling with the same cast as Lion King. This book features Scar as the main character who leads a rebellion against the corrupt king Mufasa. When a woman comes to dethrone Mufasa for her own reasons by posing as his betrothed, Scar falls in love with her.

The book was really interesting. It was quite predictable in some parts but the author has nailed the raw romance and feelings, especially towards the end.

There were quotes and scenes that made me absolutely feral and I want more fantasy books that make me so! While contemporary romance is great, I see how fantasy romance is on a completely different level with the plot and romance. I should actively read more fantasy romance books.

words on the blog

April was a GOOD month for this blog in terms of viewership statistics. Although follows and engagement was a little low and I skipped posting for a week, SEO kept my blog thriving. For the first 10 days, I was a little awestruck at the traffic, honestly.

In April, this blog:

• Received 1k+ views a day. Last month was the first time I got 1k views in a day and then the universe decided to make it normal. Like, what?!
• Hit 100k total views in 2022. In 2021, the blog barely managed to hit 100k by the year end. This year, it crossed that number in less than four months. Again, I'm shocked.

Since March was dismal in stats, I'm even more surprised with April's numbers. While there are some things that went down, I'm not bothered. At this point, as long as something grows every month, I take it as a win.

In April, I spent two weeks and finally posted a discussion on quality vs quantity in blogging. The points I mentioned in it have been in my mind for a while and I finally sat down to write it. I even discussed the topic with a few bloggers before starting the post because I wanted to see what people generally think and if I'm missing anything. I'm super proud of how the post turned out.

Another post that was on my bucket list for months was a list of best adult romance books. Since I have many romance recommendation lists based on specific tropes and themes, I figured an overall list is almost a must-have. While it may not rank in search engines (because the keyword is highly competitive), I'm glad to finally have a list to share for people asking for recommendations in general.

I'll be honest, I haven't been that in-tune with my content on the blog lately. I've been posting good content and trying my best but my mind has been more on things happening in real life. It's a little disconcerting to not be giving the blog much attention or thought but it happens, right? Now that life is going back to normal*, my days are surprisingly full.

It's good in a way because I'm not holding myself back from new experiences—especially since I should have gone through them a couple of years back—and it's giving me new opportunities and things to think about.

I have been focusing on my newsletter content, though. I decided to shift to sending newsletters twice a month instead of once a month. And I've been slowly broadening my boundaries of "newsletter appropriate content". My last newsletter edition was something new and something exciting. It was so different from my earlier emails.

While my newsletter editions have always contained exclusive content and opinions that I don't post on the blog, the kind of content was restricted to a boundary. I thought newsletters by bloggers HAD to be a certain way. Deciding to try new things and talk about what I'm passionate about without restrictions has broken the dam of ideas. Now, I have a Notion page FILLED with topics I want to talk about in my newsletter editions.

Most of those ideas are things that I wouldn't share on the blog for different reasons. Since I have a newsletter, it's the perfect channel to discuss them and share my opinions. So I'm doing it.

If you haven't subscribed yet, make sure to do it below! There are some exciting topics coming every two weeks ?

*although who knows if 4th wave will send us back a few steps again.

words by other bloggers

April was a GOOD month for other bloggers as well! They shared a ton of great content and I'm totally here for it.

• Kal shared a guide on using blog post tags correctly.
• Nicole discussed hobby hustling and monetization in capitalist culture.
• Amanda spoke about why literature is important.
• Fanna featured books by Muslim authors in honour of Ramadan.

words on life & other fun stuff

Lila, Rae, and I started a book club called Pages in Colour! I've never organized a book club before but when Lila reached out asking if I want to join, I had to say yes. It's a quarterly book club where we pick a diverse fantasy book to read together every quarter. A month is sometimes too short to actually read a book—especially for mood readers—so quarterly seemed perfect.

For more details and a link to the Discord server, check out Lila's announcement post!

While I'm generally very cautious about purchasing items and spending money, I made an impulse purchase in April. I bought a wireless typewriter-inspired pink keyboard and mouse. It was cute and I figured it would enhance my blogger vibe and could motivate me more.

Funnily, I hated it almost immediately after receiving it. I thought I was ready for the noise (I generally hate the noise of typing) but I wasn't. Since I'm used to typing on laptop keyboards which make very less noise, the clicky noise was something I had to get used to. The amount of effort required to type is more and the position is also different than my usual.

I almost wrote it off completely but decided to give it a try for a while. And surprisingly, I'm warming up to it! I just have to get used to it. The noise isn't much of an issue if I listen to music as the noise gets muted a bit. That much amount of sound is actually nice.

But anyway, I'm never making impulse purchases again. I will go back to overthinking for weeks or months before deciding to buy things haha.

I didn't do much else in April. The month flew by in no time and I'm having to play catch up with my own schedule. Surprisingly, I had something going on every weekend. My days are a little messy, honestly. I seem to not have enough hours or energy to do everything that I want. I need to get a routine and get better at planning, stat. My main problem is saying yes to plans every weekend. That's the problem with having multiple groups to hang out with and the lure of fun experiences, I guess. Let's hope the routine works out in May.

be wordy with me!

How was your April? What books did you love? Did you do anything fun? Are you looking forward to anything in May? Tell me in the comments!