What my book-themed Substack taught me about blogging

It has been one year since I started my Substack The Slow Readress, where I share book reviews and opinion pieces on the reading experience itself.

I am a seasoned blogger here on Vocal and a chronic yapper, so at first I thought that it would not have been hard to craft a well-thought, well-structured review. That was a huge mistake.

There were moments where I would finish a book, thinking I knew exactly how to shape the review, only to open a new draft on Substack and stare at a blank page for minutes on end.

While on the outside the reviews might not look bad per se (maybe - let's be kind to ourselves), the writing process felt atrocious: I felt like I had nothing to say, so instead of intentionally writing a sensible review, I felt like I was rushing to meet a word count that would make the article "decent". I know, I know, quality over quantity, but when you feel like you forgot everything you ever read this principle is easy to forget.

At the beginning of 2026, I set some new writing goals for my blogs (including this one on Vocal), and one of the things I committed to was having some written reference for my book reviews. Sometimes I would take notes on my physical notebook or on Evernote, sometimes I would just keep the book by my side to check the pages I had marked. The core idea was that I could not rely only on my memory to write my reviews.

Part of me also thought that it did not require this much effort, because blog posts are supposed to be more informal than the essays I used to do in high school. However, informal does not mean superficial, we have to try even with the most laid-back text types.

Sure, we might not have to point out every single rhetorical figure out there, but we still have to put out content that is relevant, interesting and related to the story, and how can we do that if we do not recall the parts that we deem the most significant?

From then on, as I mentioned earlier, I committed to having something to mark those parts - notes, a dog-eared page, you name it.

While it is still early to see relevant shifts in my readership, I think something changed within me: now I am actually more proud of my new articles, and I'm more motivated to post regularly, because I treat it as an act of care and not as an obligation. Yes, you can enjoy something and still find it overwhelming and forced at times, it can happen, especially if it is something that requires patience and does not provide immediate results, like a blog.

So, if you want to start curating a review-centered blog, the key to having fun and enjoying the process is taking care of the subject of your review. Take notes on it, do some research on its author, do some other research to connected topics or other mediums related to it. In no time, you'll see your reviews blooming before you and you will keep your spark alive.

With that said, I hope you enjoyed this shorter post and, if you're curious about my Substack, you can check it out below: