One of the best things about being a blogger is the fact that I have opportunities to make so many new friends.
It might sound a bit cheesy, but as an adult, making new friends can often be difficult. But being part of the YA book community for the past few years has meant that I’ve met so many people and made some very close friends, and I’m so grateful.
This weekend just gone, I spend 3 days with a whole load of other UK YA book bloggers in a massive house in the Yorkshire Dales, and I had such a lovely time there! Ages ago, we all decided that it’d be really cool to go on a ‘reading retreat’: we’d book a big house, take loads of books, and read all weekend. So we planned it, and that’s exactly what we did!
We stayed in Woodlands House in Settle, and my god, it was stunning. With amazing views over the hills and enough rooms that you could easily get lost, it was definitely an adventure. The weather wasn’t great (we can’t expect much when we decide to go in November) so we didn’t go outside and explore very much, but when our sole intention was to read books all weekend, that didn’t matter!
We spent pretty much all of the weekend reading (and getting distracted from reading and then setting timers to make ourselves read), playing games, eating food, attempting to light the fire and not doing very well, and having a jolly time. For me, I especially enjoyed it because it was the first weekend in ages where I didn’t make myself busy with a million and one things. I just got to sit in a cosy living room with some lovely people and do nothing except read and have fun!
I travelled to Yorkshire with Beth (you might know her as BooksNest) and the journey was SO LONG (from the time we both left our houses to the time we arrived, we’d been on the move for nearly 10 hours) but it was so great to have a proper bonding session. When you’re in the car there’s not a lot you can do except talk, and we talked non-stop the entire time. We’ve only briefly met each other once at YALC earlier this year, so it was lovely to get to know her properly. Hooray for new friends!
(Beth didn’t even judge me when I decided to buy a new plant when we stopped at the services.* I’ve put a picture of it below. It’s been named Raisins… it’s a long story, but it’s a name that will always remind me of the retreat and it makes me laugh.)
(*However, I think she did judge me a bit when I threw my drink all over her car by accident… sorry, Beth.)
One thing I especially loved about being around so many other bloggers is how inspired and motivated I found myself becoming. We talked a lot about social media and I decided I’d like to try and up my game a bit, so I’ve come back with a ton of ideas and advice from others who have grown their platforms from scratch. I feel like I’m buzzing with so many different ideas, strategies I want to try, and a huge burst of motivation to try and grow my own platforms. I haven’t felt so inspired for ages!
(I’ve just noticed that almost every paragraph I’ve written above ends with an exclamation mark, which I think is a good sign that I’m excited.)
If you’re a blogger and you’re looking to make new friends, here’s my advice: put yourself out there and talk to people. If people are making a group chat or a blog pod or anything similar, jump in there and get involved. That’s how we all started speaking to each other, and it’s turned into us all spending 3 days together in the middle of Yorkshire.
We seemed to blow up Twitter with this retreat and people seemed to be amazed by it! If you’re reading this and still wondering how we did it, we literally just planned it together, booked a place, and took some books. If you have a group of friends, I’d definitely recommend doing it because it was SO MUCH FUN.
Thanks again to Beth for driving us all the way there and back, Imi for organising everything and being a spreadsheet wizard, and for all the other bloggers who went and were so lovely: Connie, Jenn, Ben, Lauren, Bec, Beth, Nikki, Faye, Donna, Kirsty, and Luchia.
If you want to see some of the things we got up to and some of the silly pictures that were taken throughout the weekend, we were all posting on Instagram and Twitter using the hashtag #ukyareadingretreat19 – so go and have a look if you want to see some funny photos!
