The Bright Side of Book Blogging: a YA Community Thanksgiving

A bunch of bloggers, organized by Sarah from Sarah's Random Musings, are participating in a meme. You can find out about it here. Adele also started a YA Community Thanksgiving, which is an awesome idea except there's no pumpkin pie. All the same, please, participate. Sarah and Adele are rockin' ladies and reasons themselves of why this community is so awesome. The basic idea is to explain why we love book blogging, so I'll apologize to you upfront on how long this post is going to be. Blame Sarah and Adele.

Originally posted at The Page Flipper. I borrowed this first paragraph because I'm super lazy, and because Chelsea wrote the perfect introduction to this post.

It's been a whole year since I started blogging, and I've loved every day of it. The things I've learned are things I'll always remember. The friends I made will always be with me, even if it is through the Internet.

I started book blogging after I started following a book blog: The Book Resort. Diane reviewed books I'd never heard of, and reading those reviews got me to thinking: why doesn't Latin America have a YA community like the one in the States? This still puzzles me, since there are more latin readers than you know just aching to read the books that take months, maybe years to get published here.
It was through her that I started learning more about YA books and authors. I'd later start following Shesten from I Heart Monster, with whom I started exchanging comments that later turned into emails. These two women were and still are my blogging goddesses. I love you both.

Adele asked us to list things about the YA community that inspires us and that we love, I'm going to do just that.

• Authors. Very predictable but completely necessary. Before I started blogging, I saw them as untouchable creatures, people on a higher level. But I learned that these are people who laugh and cry and scream just like the rest of us, and I'm happy for that. I'm happy because we, as bloggers, get to laugh and cry and scream alongside them because they care enough to let us in. I'm just sad I live so far away, and am unable to meet them personally.
  
• Bloggers. Even if they started years ago or are just getting off, you are all important people. Because you share your passion with tons of other people with the same intense feeling as you, and are not afraid to speak up.
  
• Discussions. I just love reading a book, loving it, and finding people who loved it too, and just starting a discussion about it! For instance, who didn't read a discussion about being Team Peeta or Team Gale, or Team Edward v Team Jacob? Who didn't spend hours searching in Google Images for the right person to be that character that we love? Tell me if I'm wrong, but didn't you squee of happiness when they said there'd be a HP/Twilight/Vampire Diaries/The Hunger Games/I-could-go-on-and-on movie or TV show? I did. :D
• Finding new things and people. This community is ever growing. There's always a new blog to discover, new friends to make, new books to read. Every little thing about this community is what motivates me to keep going.
• Improving my writing. For those of you who don't know, I'm a wannabe writer. (I wanna be a lot of things, but that's off the point.) I'm currently writing a YA Paranormal novel, tentatively called Darkest Nights, and I'm amazed by how many links and posts about improving your writing skills you can find. Authors, busy authors, take the time to wirte them! That is barfing awesome! And not just that, but the fact that there are other teens out there that are going through what I'm going through... that is just huge.
  I just want to give a quick shout out to my Beta, Tanya, without whom I'd be so lost.
  
• Social Networks. Whether it's Twitter, Facebook or Ning these networking sites are a huge part of the community. You can tweet to an author and be sure to get a reply! That is beyond cool, for the technology and the author to do.
• I could list many more things but these felt like the most important right now.
• To my amazing followers: THANK YOU! I don't always reply to comments, although I do try, but know that every little comment, even if it is just a "Nice review!" brightens my day :D And sometimes my days are very clouded.
  

This is going to be kinda Oscar-y, but thanks to:
-Nadine, you are an awesome human being and I love you so much!
-GMR, thanks for always having something nice to say. I wish I knew your name!
-Jordyn, Jez and Steph, I love you guys! Thanks for always being up for a chat on Twitter, and for helping me get past my Writer's Block! We could still form that Club we talked about, remember? lol
-Georgia, thanks for guiding me and encouraging me through the YALitChat Ning.
-Shweeta, Juju, Nina, thanks for always leaving a sweet comment.

There are more people that I like to think of as friends but they are way too many to start naming them, so I'm just going to say THANK YOU. I truly respect you all.

YOU ARE AWESOME.