Tag Archives: Goodreads

Book Reading Challenges

Hello Everyone! I hope somebody is still out there.

How are you doing? What’s up in your life and how are you staying sane, happy, and busy? It’s certainly been a challenging year (plus) with COVID and isolation and everything that comes with that – and it continues. I hope you’re all keeping safe and well.

I am still involved in caring for a family member, ten complete years now back and forth weekly. During that time, life has brought many changes, sorrows, and stresses, but blessings as well. We have a new grandbaby boy, as of October, and he is a blessing no one believed would happen. His mum and dad are so in love with this little guy, born a year and a half after they were married. At least once a week I babysit him so his mom can work at the office instead of trying to do it all from home.

Do you have any surprises and blessings to tell about?

Just to update you a little …

As I shared with you in a much earlier post, I have moved from writing into painting – which is on hold for the second time because of the pandemic. And as you likely know, I am a book lover so I’ve gone deeper into reading reading reading. At the beginning of the year I took on reading challenges so that I can work my way through the large number of yet unread books I have purchased over the years – mostly discounted and at book sales. I am compulsively lovingly adding to my accumulation, hoping to eventually set up my own personal library in one of the former bedrooms in our house.

In this post I am going to tell you about the reading challenges and perhaps I can share about my painting in a later post.

On Goodreads I accepted an invitation to join the 52BookClub – the challenge to read 52 books in 52 weeks, by following prompts for each week. They don’t have to be done in order, so I chose not to read them in order of prompts which are listed at the beginning.

From Indigo I accepted the challenge of reading 21 books in this year, also following prompts. A few of them line up with 52BookClub prompts, so I can use one book for both.

On Goodreads I also accepted the challenge to read Agatha Christie books with no set deadline. I have a few of hers that I haven’t read yet, and got a few more at a book sale a few weeks ago. I’ve yet to start that one.

Our local library issues a summer reading challenge too, which I tried last year and will likely do again. I’m continually keeping my library ladies busy.

I almost forgot … Goodreads challenges readers to set a personal goal, and mine has been high the past few years, but this year I lowered it. 700 is my goal, which includes all genres and mostly picture books – whatever I can read. Although I am not writing picture books now I am still reading them and sharing them. Always learning.

Because I’m slowly trying to figure out how to maneuver the changes made to WordPress, I haven’t been able to update my homepage much, but I plan to do that. I’ll show there the books I’ve read for the challenges – once I figure it out!

Perhaps you will find that you’ve read some of the titles I have selected for prompts, or maybe you will be encouraged to read some on my list. Either way, I hope you enjoy reading and travelling to different places through books.

Shown above are some of the many books I have on hand to read. This is before I purchased many more at the book sale in April. The ones stacked in front are chosen for prompts, and in my journal on the desk I’m keeping track.

I’m currently reading How NOT to Die by Michael Greger. (such a good book!) And I’m reading The Pursuit of Happyness by Chris Gardner, having loved the movie starring Will Smith.

What are you reading these days?

Thanks for reading this post, and … Blessings on your day! Let’s be in touch – social distancing, of course.

Advertisement

A champagne rejection

Hello my dear readers and friends!

Lately, I’ve been more absorbed in my own writing so haven’t been posting here on a regular basis. Gosh, it’s hard to do it all! I have an update for you today.

I’m still keeping up in the 12×12 challenge, having drafted a new story each month – January through October – a few of those drafts being very skimpy. A few months I’ve come up with more than one, and I have yet to write a new one for November.

Another part of 12×12 is revision. Each month we are to try to revise a manuscript as well, and they don’t have to be ones we’ve written during 12×12. As long as we are revising one of our stories it’s acceptable. I’ve not kept up in that department, although I have tackled a few.

An added bonus is that we receive badges when we write or revise, so I’ve kept up the monthly drafts for the fun of getting those.

Let me see … my count to date is 20 new drafts and 4 revisions! That’s better than what I did when I participated in 2012 and in 2016. When we reach the end of December we get a place on the winners’ wall if we’ve written 12 or more drafts over the twelve months, no matter in what month they were written. I’m so happy to know I’ll be on that wall this year. My thought right now is that I’ll join 12×12 in 2018 and spend much more time on the drafts I already have, working them into polished manuscripts ready for submitting.

 

 

Now, here’s the really exciting part. This week I sent my very first query to an agent I admire. Within two hours I heard back. You may be thinking I’m excited because the agent answered positively wanting to represent me, but no. The reply was full of good advice and suggestions for the story I’d included. That, my friends, is called a “champagne rejection” – and I’d received one on my first agent query ever! I am not discouraged. I’ll try again later after applying myself to the rewrite and looking over my other manuscripts, too. And, a writer friend suggested to keep an open mind because there may be other agents with whom I could have a good working relationship. Oh alright.  😉

I’m also keeping up on reading books when I can. To see my total thus far you can check my “Books I read in 2017.” After adding a book to my list I write a brief review of it in Goodreads where I have surpassed my reading challenge goal of 200 long ago, doubling it, with mostly picture books. Yep! I love to read.

Are you taking writing challenges? Or reading challenges?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂 

 

 

 

My personal reading challenges

I have an account on Goodreads. If you love books then Goodreads.com is a great place to be. Each year they set up a challenge for us to challenge ourselves to read more, to set goals to read however many books we think we can or that we want to read. I enjoy challenges like that since I’m just a little competitive. And I love books.

In 2013 my goal was 25 books. I made it to 44%, having read only 11 books. Actually, if you look at my list here on my blog for what books I read that year, my total was 34. The difference is because I apparently didn’t report them all on Goodreads. Oops!

I don’t remember what my goal for 2014 was, but I reported 38 books. In actuality, I read 46.

In 2015 I met my goal of 50 books. Yay! (Plus one I didn’t report.)

This year I set a goal of 25, then decided to up it to 50 again. Once I joined the ReFoReMo challenge in March, I said – what the hey! – and reset my goal to 150 books this year. Yipes!  Not to panic, yet.  I am already 64 ahead of schedule at 71%, having read 107 as of this writing. I still have a few more titles on hold at the library for the lingering on of ReFoReMo in my life, and we have about eight months left in 2016. I can do it! (yes I can)  Gosh, I love books!

It may not seem like such a big accomplishment where most of my reading so far this year is picture books. I could never manage to read that many novels in twelve months. BUT … reading is reading. I’m learning about writing while I’m enjoying all those expertly told stories, too, as they serve as mentor texts.

Someday I’ll try to count how many books I have here in my growing TBR stashes♥  Novels, that is. Novels beckoning to me, novels tempting me, calling me.  *sigh*  I want to read them, get lost in them, devour them all!

pile of books

BOOKS.  

Another feature on Goodreads is that other members I’ve connected with as “friends” can recommend books they’ve read. Oh me. Some have.  🙂 

Oh, and while I’m on the topic — thank you to author Darlene Foster who follows my blog and recommended Pompeii by Robert Harris. I bought it through Audible.com and very much enjoyed it. Of course, I could have borrowed it from the library but I didn’t even think of doing that at the time. I really like Audible, anyway.  🙂  I can multi-task that way — listen to the book being performed for me (not just read), which is so great, and work around doing something else at the same time. But not writing. Not while “reading.”  😉

Have you set a goal this year for how many books you want to read? Or is there some other goal-setting you’ve established?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂