Taking a break in my Lorelei James extravaganza to introduce my latest endeavor in Blogland. A while back I blogged about my lack of time and necessary changes that I was making to balance my off- and online life and to bring the joy of reading back. Since then I've made quite some progress and things have really quieted down in my head...actually they did right after I wrote the posts. Writing stuff down (whether on paper or on a screen) always works for me in terms of getting them straightened out and off my chest.

This is not to say that things all went smoothly and easily. There has been some frustration and some slipping back into the obsessive, controling, wanting-to-have-a-grip-on-everything behavior that was causing the mess in my head and the lack of fun in my reading. The latest fall-back lead up to a huge fight with hubby over reading, twitter and blogging. But we talked it out and came to a compromise, to which I am really trying to hold myself: During the week I can read, twitter and blog all I want but in the weekends I make exclusive time for him and our social life. Sounds good to me! Past weekend was the first weekend after the compromise and though the time spent wasn't completely away from computer and books but for a first time going cold turkey wasn't going to work anyway...and...I was working on the reason for this post (as always I am digressing majorly again): My new blog!

As stated in the posts of last year (see the links above)  I was having a hard time divinding my time between reading and reviewing because I have this urge to review ALL the books I read. And making full reviews of all these books will cut down a lot of reading time. So I had this idea in my head that I'd do mini-reviews of them, just quick, to-the-point, non-elaborate reviews to give others a feel of my thoughts on the books that I didn't have the time for to give a full review. And also the books that just don't have enough "body" to fill a full review. There are books about which there's just not that much to say and making a full review of them would always cost me blood, sweat and tears, trying to wring out a decent and lengthy review. Trying to do this anyway would kind of surpass the goal of more reading less "other stuff".

So there it was: the idea of mini-reviews....and now what? I knew what I wanted but just didn't know what structure to give them and how to set them up and start writing them. Below are some of the steps I took and thoughts I had on how to go about with the mini-reviews:

• I started by googling "mini-reviews" to see what was already out there in Blogland/on Internet, to avoid doing something already done and/or to find some ideas.
• Should I incorporate the mini-reviews on my existing blog (this one) or do something separate altogether?
• What information should be given in the mini-reviews?
• Which of the books I'd already read would qualify for a mini-review
• I decided I wanted a separate blog for the mini-reviews
• Now that I decided on separate blog, what about the header, button, etc. What colors, what template? The name for the blog? Oh, the decisions...
• After long thought and many, many, discarded names, the name for my new blog came to me in an epiphany...probably during TV-watching because that's when I get the best ideas and thoughts
• Named the blog: Quick 'n Dirty Romance Reviews, short: QnD-reviews (Quick and Dirty because the reviews were going to be just that and of course it always about the Romance)
• Had hubby (who is very creative but our thoughts on what we like are soooo different) create a header and button for me and lo and behold...We got it right (and both liked what he made) in one go!
• Still dabbling with the structure and content of the mini-reviews
• Created several testposts and showed them to hubby who gave me tips and ideas
• Finally satisfied with how it all looked and worked and posted the first (teaser)QnD-review: Heather Long's REMEMBERING ASHBY, which was the first book I had lined up for a mini-review while still reading it.

So without any further ado I present to you:




Click on either the link or the image and explore my new blog. There are QnD-reviews and of course a giveaway! What would a Grand Opening be without presents ;)