What Truly Makes A Blog Hiatus? // Let's Talk Bookish

Let's Talk Bookish

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books and Dani @ Literary Lion where we discuss certain topics based on prompts allocated for each Friday of the week. You basically share your opinions and get into the conversation by visiting each other’s posts. You can find the November schedule here or here.

Today’s Let’s Talk Bookish topic is What truly makes a blog hiatus?, which was suggested by Ruby @ Ruby Reads and Reviews.

Hello, fellow bloggers! It is almost poetic that I will be discussing this prompt right when I have gone on an unannounced blog hiatus for the past few days.

It also feels like I have some perspective on the topic too since I am truly beginning to see the practicalities of going on hiatus on this platform.

Have you taken a hiatus before? How long was it for, and did you plan/announce it beforehand?

I have taken two hiatuses since I started blogging in early 2020. My first one spanned about a month and was primarily because I was studying for an exam (which I did not sit LOL!) that took up an unholy amount of time during the day. Since I was just starting out, I had no plan as to how to juggle blogging with this life event and I basically disappeared off the digital platform with no whisper of going MIA.

My second hiatus was last week when I decided to travel to the city to visit friends and relatives, ended up going out regularly and ran out of scheduled content. Once again, I did not have the time or energy to announce my hiatus but I’m back, baby!

What do you think makes a hiatus? Is there a minimum time length that defines one? Do you think it should be announced beforehand?

I don’t think there is any official definition of what a hiatus, or a blogging hiatus, actually entails other than a break from the regular schedule of posts that the blogger usually dishes out. So, if I will be gone for a week but I schedule posts for that week, I do not think that can be called a hiatus.

From what I have seen on the blogosphere and from my own experience, a blogging hiatus can easily be a week and go up to a year or more. It is completely up to the blogger since a hiatus usually comes around due to something big in our personal lives that divert our time away from our blogs.

Since blogging hiatuses usually mean big things happening in our non-blogging lives, I do not think announcements are mandatory requirements for going on hiatus. I think it is a polite way of letting your followers know what is happening right now, but honestly, we hardly stick around waiting for one blogger to release their scheduled content because we would be following a whole bunch of them anyway. Personally, I feel more comfortable announcing hiatuses on my Instagram stories since I love seeing the curated content on my blog when visiting my homepage.