Unexpected Hiatus: An Explanation

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to YA, By the Way! 

Wow. It's...been a while. Hasn't it? I haven't posted a review since the end of September, and I haven't posted ANYTHING since October. I am SO sorry.

Really. I have no real excuse for how I've neglected things. And it wasn't just this blog. I have posted maybe five pics on Instagram in four months. I haven't been on Twitter at all in almost three months. And I haven't posted a video to my booktube channel in five months. Again: 

And like I said, I really have no excuse. It's not like my work life was super busy; on the contrary, I didn't work very much at all in the fall. Nothing super drastic happened in my personal life. It was more just a series of small distractions and moments that added up to several months of inactivity on social media. I was sick for a couple weeks in November, and in the middle of that, my friend came to stay with me for a week. Then there was Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's. So there was shopping and spending time with family and playing around with Christmas gifts. 

So basically, I just got lazy. I got so far behind on my reviews that I just go so overwhelmed. So every time I came to my dashboard, thinking about writing a post,  I got so anxious about all the things I was supposed to be writing that I ended up writing nothing at all. When I got an idea for a post that wasn't a review or a feature, I talked myself out of it because I needed to catch up on my "required" posts first, and I just never felt like doing that. 

So. Where does that leave me now? It's a new year. It's 2016! So once again, I'm striving for a fresh start. I'm not going to abandon my online life. And that means that I'm going to be blogging again, and producing videos, and generally regaining my online presence. That starts now. 

Starting today, you can expect a new post every day this week. I know that it's already the middle of January, but I'll be using this week to get some closure on the past year and discuss the plan for the new year. Today, I'll be posting my 2015: Year in Review. Then tomorrow, I'll be posting my Favorite 15 Books of 2015. Starting on Wednesday, I'll be looking forward with my Bookish Goals, my Most Anticipated, and the books I HAVE to read in 2016! 

So if you've stuck around through my radio silence, thank you so much. I'm sorry I disappeared for a while, but I'm back and hopefully better than ever.