Honesty that sparks connection.
What's happening: I finally posted on my bookstagram, an account I created on Valentine's Day and then didn't touch until The Table asked me the question.
What you'll find here: What held me back, what finally moved me, and what happened when the inner critic showed up mid-recording.
The real talk: This isn't a content strategy. It's a permission practice. And it's already teaching me more than I expected.
On Valentine's Day, I made a bookstagram account.
I named it, set it up, felt a little flutter of something warm and excited — and then closed the app and didn't touch it for almost a month.
Getting on camera and just talking? Without a newsletter to hide behind, without the comfort of words I've already edited? It felt vulnerable in a way I hadn't fully prepared for. I know how to write my thoughts, but saying them out loud and posting them online? Uff!
So the account just sat there. Waiting.
What finally moved me was a commitment I made out loud to the women at The Table. I told them about the bookstagram and they did what that group does. They asked the question.
When are you going to post?
I said: this week.
And I meant it, because they were going to ask me about it.
That first reel was just me, introducing myself. No script, no fancy setup, no perfectly lit corner of my house. Just me, talking to a camera, saying hello. Y sabes lo que más me sorprendió? How much fun the editing was. Finding the music, figuring out the cuts (there weren't many!), watching it come together. It lit me up in a way I didn't expect. I hit publish before I could talk myself out of it, and it felt exciting. Quietly, privately exciting. Like something that was completely mine.
Then this past weekend, I sat down to record more. And not just for my bookstagram, but my personal IG, too!
And that's when I heard my least favorite voice, my inner critic.
Mid-recording, sharing my thoughts on a book, it said: What if no one cares what you have to say? Are you even providing real value? Is this even a worthy review? You're not talking about the characters or the structure or anything that actually matters.
I had to stop. Take a breath. And remind myself of the whole point.
This is not a content strategy. I am not building a review platform. I am sharing my chatty, enthusiastic, completely subjective thoughts about books I loved — or didn't — and that is enough. That has always been enough. The voice that says otherwise is the same one that turned my newsletter into a job description. I know that voice. I don't have to listen to it.
So I kept recording.
And something shifted después de that first reel went live. The women at The Table didn't just hold me accountable — they cheered for me. Something about being seen and celebrated made the camera feel less scary. Scary enough to just plop it in front of me and chat. For my bookstagram, there's no strategy. My thoughts on books and cozy things is enough, verdad? And for my personal account — I am the brand. It doesn't have to be polished or "perfect." It just needs to be me. And that is also enough.
I have two videos in my drafts right now that I still need to edit. They're not perfect. They're not particularly polished. Pero I'm genuinely excited to share them and to keep going. To figure out my camera presence. To talk about books with whoever wants to listen. To have a corner of the internet that's cozy and joyful and unserious in the best possible way.
If you want to follow along, come find me at @virysturningpages — it'll be cozy, bookish, and very much a work in progress. Which, ya sabes, feels exactly right 😉
Permission in practice doesn't always look like a beautiful breakthrough moment. Sometimes it looks like a video you recorded in your living room that you haven't edited yet. Sometimes it looks like two drafts in your camera roll and a plan to come back to them.
That's what it looks like for me right now. And I'm choosing to count it.