This is a sort of pre-round up post. Life has been very crazy-busy for me lately but that should be abating now... and morphing into usual end-of-year craziness. Sigh. But at least that's less stressful and leaves more time for books.
Anyway, I have been, in what few spare moments I've had, thinking about my approach to books. The past couple of years I've been trying to not buy too many books (because I have too many) and instead rationing along the lines of "read three, buy one". This year, I added the caveat that they should be three non-review books, that is only purchased or gifted books counted. That resulted in my not actually buying very many books.
It's not that I dislike review copies or that I have any intention of ceasing to review in the near future, but I don't like that I've ended up putting off buying books that I want read. There is an element of not having enough time to read all the books I want, but it's also hard to prioritise reading a book I haven't bought yet when there are so many already waiting. (So the more I buy books I want to read, the more likely I am to get around to reading them...) And, more importantly, I like the idea of supporting authors and publishers that I think are doing good things. (Reviewing review copies is also supporting them, of course.)
So my first resolution for 2014 is to not avoid buying books. (But not necessarily to buy them rashly and willy-nilly.)
The other thing I've been doing since I started reviewing is only reviewing books that I finish. Using not having to review as a "reward" for giving up on books I'm not enjoying. And in 2013 I did not give up on any books (and in 2012 it was only a couple). Why? Because if I'm not enjoying a book it's usually for several very specific reasons that I want to complain about on my blog. And that's kind of depressing. So I've thought about it and I've decided that allowing myself to drop books I'm not enjoying will make me happier, and so will blogging about why I didn't want to keep reading them. Not forcing myself to finish every book I start is my second resolution.
In terms of blogging about the reasons, I've thought about it and I've decided that I'll start writing monthly status posts. These will include (and replace) New Booksies, books I've reviewed in the past month, and books I'm currently reading. The latter part would also include mini-reviews (or maybe not so mini, we'll see) of books I don't think I'll finish and books I've put down but do intend to return to, although whether or not I do is another matter. Oh, and I should also include challenge progress in those monthly posts.
Regarding challenges, I see no reason not to keep on with the three I've done this year (Australian Women Writers — for which I'm also a blog contributor — and the two I instigated myself: the Aussie SF Reading Challenge and the Aussie Horror Reading Challenge. Round-up posts to come). I think I'll revert to just keeping a list of books read for them, plus a list of all Aussie fantasy books, since there were some authors that were being left out. I'm a bit sick of having to remember to update the progress bars, so I think I'll drop them for now.
My final resolution is an ongoing one and relates to the previous one; to not commit myself to reading books I don't like. This mainly applies to over enthusiastic NetGalley-ing, which I have already gotten better at but I don't think I should be letting my guard down just yet. If I'm not sure and it's not Australian, then I will not click on it.
So those are my bookish plans for the upcoming year. What are yours?
Showing posts with label resolutions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label resolutions. Show all posts
Saturday, 14 December 2013
Friday, 4 January 2013
Reflections and Resolutions 2012/2013
I generally like to do a reflection post with resolutions for the coming year. Since this is my main blog at the moment, I figured I might as well do it here.
First up, I had three short stories come out in minor markets. Which is a record for me within one year.
Next up, reading progress. I like pie charts and statistics. I've been keeping track of all the books I've read, made easier by having reviewed all of them here. In 2012 I read a nice round 120 books, not counting 4 which I didn't finish. One of those was a collection from which I read the one story I bought it for then moved on and forgot about it. I might get back to it later. The other three were novels I got about half way through before putting them down in frustration. I want to get back to one of them (...eventually), but I can't see myself bothering with the other two.
For my statistical calculations, I included the books I didn't finish, since I did spend a significant amount of time reading them.
What countries were the authors I read from? Overwhelmingly from the US and Australia, with a few British, New Zealish and misc (Canadian, South African, Norwegian) authors thrown in. I'm glad I managed to read so many Australian authors, and I don't have plans to read fewer Aussies, but I'd like to read more widely outside of the US. I think I'm starting to run up against my limit of slightly generic US YA (not that all US YA is generic, but I've definitely read some that is), so that might be a place to start.
What format (dead-tree, ebook, audiobook) were most of my books read in? Almost two thirds of the books I read were ebooks, which isn't entirely surprising given my current geographical location (much cheaper to buy Aussie ebooks than to pay postage), impending lack of space and aquisition of eARCs. Comparing this with my 2011 formats, the second biggest change is the dearth of audiobooks. This is primarily thanks to my finally unsubscribing from Audible (it was an ordeal, let me tell you), and a little bit due to getting sick of Ben Bova who makes up the majority of my backlog.
What ratings did I assign the books I read in 2012? I'm fairly good at choosing books to read that I know I'll enjoy, so I'm not surprised that 4.5 and 4 star ratings are the most common.
What were the genres of the books I read? I surprisingly, mostly fantasy and almost a third science fiction. Not a bad ratio. In future I'd like more of those science fiction books to be, well, not YA dystopias. Variety is good.
Finally, the gender breakdown. 83% of the books I read were by women, with 40% overall being by Australian women. Not an entirely surprising result. The genre distribution of Aussie woman-authored books followed the overall genre distribution fairly closely.
One of my standard New Year's resolutions is to write more and finish whatever novel I'm currently working on. However, right now I am not in the right mental place to do that, and I'm OK with that. Writing (especially novels) requires obsession, which means a lot of brain time spent thinking about it, even while doing other things. The other things I'm doing right now include a PhD in astrophysics, which itself requires periods of obsession. And it has to come first. It's the think with progress deadlines that will lead to bad things if I ignore them. Writing isn't.
2012 ended with a very busy period for me, work-wise, which isn't over. I'm not sure when it will be over, maybe mid-year, maybe when I hand in my thesis (though hopefully there'll be a break sooner than that). In the mean time, I'm travelling a lot and having all sorts of experiences which will prove to be good story fodder later on.
I would like to write/finish/submit more short stories, though. I started a few in 2012 that I didn't finish for various reasons and there are some I'm part way through editing or rewriting. I would definitely like to do more of that. And obviously, more acceptances would be nice (can I top 3 stories out in 2012? Can I place one in my mental list of goal markets?), but that's not the kind of thing one can plan for.
I'm still going to try to work on the current novel, I just don't anticipate finishing the draft I'm currently on. But maybe? The main thing is, I'm going to try to feel less guilty about not writing when I can't.
Reading resolutions are a bit easier, since I've already set myself some challenges. To summarise: read more Australian science fiction and read more Australian horror. Continue reading books by Australian women (more a default than a challenge).
And I'd like to read more of my existent paper books because that shelf isn't getting any larger to accommodate them. I have a tendency to prefer ebooks because they're easier (less RSI*) and more suited to more situations. I should also make at least a bit of an effort to get through my backlog of audiobooks, though I admit I'm not giving that a very high priority; it's good to have a few up my sleeve for sudden long drives or perhaps glasses fails.
*Yes, I get RSI from reading. Not from typing like a normal person.
Book-buying resolutions
This year, I stuck fairly well to a read-three-buy-one scheme (inspired by Tansy). It backfired a bit, though, with all the eARCs I read, which I counted as books read but which didn't count as books bought. My TBR shelf is more overflowing now than it was at the start of the year. Whoops. So in 2013, I'm going to not count eARCs as books read towards unlocking purchases. It's going to be read-three-paper-or-purchased-ebooks-buy-one. But I'm going to allow myself to buy books when they're on sale (which I already did, but felt guilty over), within reason. That last point might need a bit of fine tuning; I can see it backfiring. I'm also going to try to save up achievement unlocked books and spend them only when I'm intending to read the bought book immediately, so as to reduce TBR clutter.
On a non-bookish note, I'd like to do something interesting with some of the copious amounts of photos I've been taking. I'm not sure what, though (other than making banners and other decorations for the blog, which I've already been doing and doesn't really count anyway).
On an academic note, my goal is to have two papers written by mid-year. Hopefully nothing goes terribly wrong and upsets that.
What resolutions have you made? Have you perhaps also conducted an analysis of your reading habits? Let me know in the comments.
Reflections
First up, I had three short stories come out in minor markets. Which is a record for me within one year.
- “Chosen”, The Lorelai Signal, July-Sept 2012 Issue
- “Addiction”, Comets and Criminals, Issue #3, June 2012
- “Red Rover”, Infinitas Newsletter, January 2012 edition
~
Next up, reading progress. I like pie charts and statistics. I've been keeping track of all the books I've read, made easier by having reviewed all of them here. In 2012 I read a nice round 120 books, not counting 4 which I didn't finish. One of those was a collection from which I read the one story I bought it for then moved on and forgot about it. I might get back to it later. The other three were novels I got about half way through before putting them down in frustration. I want to get back to one of them (...eventually), but I can't see myself bothering with the other two.
For my statistical calculations, I included the books I didn't finish, since I did spend a significant amount of time reading them.
What countries were the authors I read from? Overwhelmingly from the US and Australia, with a few British, New Zealish and misc (Canadian, South African, Norwegian) authors thrown in. I'm glad I managed to read so many Australian authors, and I don't have plans to read fewer Aussies, but I'd like to read more widely outside of the US. I think I'm starting to run up against my limit of slightly generic US YA (not that all US YA is generic, but I've definitely read some that is), so that might be a place to start.
What ratings did I assign the books I read in 2012? I'm fairly good at choosing books to read that I know I'll enjoy, so I'm not surprised that 4.5 and 4 star ratings are the most common.
What were the genres of the books I read? I surprisingly, mostly fantasy and almost a third science fiction. Not a bad ratio. In future I'd like more of those science fiction books to be, well, not YA dystopias. Variety is good.
Finally, the gender breakdown. 83% of the books I read were by women, with 40% overall being by Australian women. Not an entirely surprising result. The genre distribution of Aussie woman-authored books followed the overall genre distribution fairly closely.
Resolutions
One of my standard New Year's resolutions is to write more and finish whatever novel I'm currently working on. However, right now I am not in the right mental place to do that, and I'm OK with that. Writing (especially novels) requires obsession, which means a lot of brain time spent thinking about it, even while doing other things. The other things I'm doing right now include a PhD in astrophysics, which itself requires periods of obsession. And it has to come first. It's the think with progress deadlines that will lead to bad things if I ignore them. Writing isn't.
2012 ended with a very busy period for me, work-wise, which isn't over. I'm not sure when it will be over, maybe mid-year, maybe when I hand in my thesis (though hopefully there'll be a break sooner than that). In the mean time, I'm travelling a lot and having all sorts of experiences which will prove to be good story fodder later on.
I would like to write/finish/submit more short stories, though. I started a few in 2012 that I didn't finish for various reasons and there are some I'm part way through editing or rewriting. I would definitely like to do more of that. And obviously, more acceptances would be nice (can I top 3 stories out in 2012? Can I place one in my mental list of goal markets?), but that's not the kind of thing one can plan for.
I'm still going to try to work on the current novel, I just don't anticipate finishing the draft I'm currently on. But maybe? The main thing is, I'm going to try to feel less guilty about not writing when I can't.
~
Reading resolutions are a bit easier, since I've already set myself some challenges. To summarise: read more Australian science fiction and read more Australian horror. Continue reading books by Australian women (more a default than a challenge).
And I'd like to read more of my existent paper books because that shelf isn't getting any larger to accommodate them. I have a tendency to prefer ebooks because they're easier (less RSI*) and more suited to more situations. I should also make at least a bit of an effort to get through my backlog of audiobooks, though I admit I'm not giving that a very high priority; it's good to have a few up my sleeve for sudden long drives or perhaps glasses fails.
*Yes, I get RSI from reading. Not from typing like a normal person.
Book-buying resolutions
This year, I stuck fairly well to a read-three-buy-one scheme (inspired by Tansy). It backfired a bit, though, with all the eARCs I read, which I counted as books read but which didn't count as books bought. My TBR shelf is more overflowing now than it was at the start of the year. Whoops. So in 2013, I'm going to not count eARCs as books read towards unlocking purchases. It's going to be read-three-paper-or-purchased-ebooks-buy-one. But I'm going to allow myself to buy books when they're on sale (which I already did, but felt guilty over), within reason. That last point might need a bit of fine tuning; I can see it backfiring. I'm also going to try to save up achievement unlocked books and spend them only when I'm intending to read the bought book immediately, so as to reduce TBR clutter.
~
On a non-bookish note, I'd like to do something interesting with some of the copious amounts of photos I've been taking. I'm not sure what, though (other than making banners and other decorations for the blog, which I've already been doing and doesn't really count anyway).
On an academic note, my goal is to have two papers written by mid-year. Hopefully nothing goes terribly wrong and upsets that.
~
What resolutions have you made? Have you perhaps also conducted an analysis of your reading habits? Let me know in the comments.
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