End Of Year Check In (2022)

Hi everyone! So this is it, we’re almost at the end of 2022. I swear every single year January seems to last about ten years and then the rest of the year goes by in a blur. All in all, this year’s actually been a pretty great one for me, and it definitely feels like it’s ended on a high what with getting a new job and having our first family Christmas with my sister since she moved out to Australia. Hopefully 2023 also has good things in store!

Anyway, since it’s the end of the year, I’m doing as I always do and looking back at the goals I made for myself at the beginning of the year and seeing how I did with them:

1. Complete Goodreads Challenge Goal-SUCCESS

Again, I haven’t technically completed this one yet as there’s still one more day of the year to go, but as I only have an hour and a bit left of my current audio and a VE Schwab comic to read to round out my year of reading, I’m pretty sure I will have finished both by the end of the day tomorrow. I would have liked to have reached my initial goal of 24 books, but since it’s been a pretty slow year for me reading wise, reaching my revised lower goal of 20 still seems pretty good.

2. Complete my #RockMyTBR Challenge-FAIL (intentionally)

As I said in my mid-year check in, this just wasn’t working for me this year, so I decided to voluntarily let it go. I’ve been doing quite well not reading to any particular sort of TBR and enjoying just going where the books take me so I think I’m going to stick with that for the foreseeable future.

3. Read more adult historical fiction-SUCCESS

Out of 20 books this year, 9 of them have been historical fiction of some sort (a couple came under the historical fantasy umbrella, but I’m still counting them), so that’s almost half of all the books I’ve read and I’ve loved almost all of them, so I’d say it’s been a big success. I wouldn’t be surprised if historical fiction continued to make up a large chunk of my reading next year too, I’ve been enjoying it a lot more than fantasy in recent years.

4. Catch up on 2021 releases-FAIL

Yeah this one just didn’t really ever gain much traction this year. I read two books that were published in 2021 this year, but that was it and neither were on my most anticipated releases of 2021 list. Those are all still sitting on my shelves judging me. Ah well, there’s always next year!

5. Continue to diversify my reading-Not complete success, not complete failure either

I have read some books by POC authors and LGBTQ+ authors this year, but it has been a largely white cis-het writers year, I’ve not read anywhere near as diversely as I would have liked to. Definitely need to try and stretch myself a bit more on this one next year.

6. Keep up with discussion posts at least once a month-Partial success

Okay, I don’t want to call this one a complete failure as I have done more discussion posts this year than I did last year, I managed seven posts on Jo Talks this year which is an improvement on last year’s three and they were semi-regular at the beginning of the year, things just got a little busy towards the end and I just didn’t have time to do them as often as I’d have liked. I’m thinking I might trial doing one every other month next year and see how that goes, if that’s a bit more manageable than the monthly posts I used to do.

7. Have a more regular review posting schedule-FAIL

Yeah, so this kind of fell by the wayside a little towards the end of this year. I was keeping up fairly well until we moved, then I got behind, caught up on those reviews and now I’m behind again with a backlog that I won’t even try to make up before the new year. I’m hoping next year I’ll be slightly more successful in getting my reviews posted in a timely manner after finishing the book.

8. Do a book unhaul before moving in the Spring-SUCCESS (sort of)

Okay so this was a definite partial success-I did decide which books to unhaul and put them all in a box. Unfortunately, said box is still taking up space in my bedroom. I have got rid of some from the original box, I sent some off to a blogger friend of mine who is a teacher for her classroom and I took some up to The Book Nook, the second hand bookshop/cafe in Stirling. So now I just need to get rid of the rest, I need to just take them to a charity shop or something like that but it’s never at the top of my priority list to do!

9. Get back to working on my novel-FAIL

I would have loved to get back to working on my novel this year, unfortunately I’ve just not had the time! Between working in the vaccine centre at the beginning of the year, moving, doing job applications for new jobs, starting a new job and spending Christmas in Australia with the family, this one just hasn’t gone anywhere this year. Maybe next year? We’ll see!

10. Finish the books I “paused” last year (or DNF if I decide they aren’t for me)-Partial success

I haven’t cleared the on-pause shelf completely as I would have liked to have done. However I don’t want to see this one as a total failure as I did go back to, and finish one of the books on that shelf, and I did move one to the DNF shelf, so there has been some movement, just not as much as I would have liked!

So there we go, that’s how my goals for 2022 went! Overall, a bit of a mixed year, 6 out of 10 were at least partially successful so that’s something but definitely not my best year ever for completing goals. How did you guys do on your 2022 goals if you had any? Do you have any plans for goals in 2023? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back tomorrow with my final post of 2022, the annual End of Year Survey I always do, so keep an eye out for that at some point tomorrow!

Mid Year Check In (2022)

Hi everyone! So we’re about halfway through 2022 (HOW?), and I have so many exciting things coming up this summer so I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of the year. Anyway, at around this time every year, I like to check in on how my goals I made at the beginning of the year are going, to keep myself accountable and just see where I’m at. So here we go, this is how I’ve been doing for the past six months:

1. Complete my Goodreads Challenge

I’m on track with this one, I set my goal for 24 books this year, the same as last year, and I’m exactly where I should be at this point in the year, I just finished my eleventh book, so almost halfway through the challenge. Obviously I would like to read more than 24 books but we’ll see how that goes! I’m four books ahead of where I was on my challenge this time last year though, so I’m feeling very optimistic about that.

2. Complete my #RockMyTBR Challenge

Yeah so I’ve voluntarily decided to abandon this one. Reading to a TBR just wasn’t working for me and I needed the freedom to read what I wanted, so I’m happily admitting defeat on this one at the halfway point of the year. There’s no point trying to force something if it’s not working for you!

3. Read more adult historical fiction

This is going pretty well! Of the 11 books I’ve read so far this year, 5 of them have been adult historical fiction (well, 2 were adult historical fantasy, but I’m still counting them as they both come under adult and historical!) so almost half and I’ve just started listening to another one. I’ve got more planned for the rest of the year, so I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of the year, adult historical fiction makes up the large majority of my reading challenge books.

4. Catch up on 2021 releases

Yeah I have to admit…..this one isn’t going so well so far. Of the books I’ve read so far this year, two have been 2021 releases I wanted to catch up on. There have been a lot of new releases I’ve wanted to read this year, and they seem to have made up a good portion of my reading, plus some pre-2021 releases that I’ve been wanting to read for a while, so the catching up on my 2021 releases, particularly the ones from my physical TBR, hasn’t really got moving yet. Hopefully I will read some more before the end of the year!

5. Continue to diversify my reading

So far this year, I’ve read 3 books by authors of colour, and 2 by LGBTQ+ authors, not a terrible start but obviously I would like to continue trying to diversify my reading throughout the year and beyond.

6. Keep up with discussion posts at least once a month

I’ve definitely been doing a lot better on discussion posts this year so far than I did last year. I’ve not done one every single month, I missed out on May because I was busy with work but 5 out of six months of the year is still very good! I’m hoping to stick to the monthly posting schedule throughout the rest of the year.

7. Have a more regular review posting schedule

So this was going well…..and now I’m behind again. The last review I posted was The Diamond Eye which was three books ago, but then I’m not going to review my most recent book as it was so short (I tend not to review audiobooks less than 7 or 8 hours) so I’m really only two reviews behind? Anyway, I’m hoping I will get back on track, and not end up with a massive backlog to do at the end of the year, two reviews behind is still fairly doable to catch up with.

8. Do a book unhaul before moving in the Spring

We’ve not actually moved yet, the whole moving thing has taken much longer than anticipated but we have the finalised moving date now for next week, and my books are all packed up and ready to go. I’ve managed to unhaul 36 books from my shelves which is a fairly small number out of the total number of books I have, but I was never expecting to slim down my shelves that much! They’re all ready to go, I just need to take them to a charity shop before we move next week.

9. Get back to working on my novel

Yeah….this one has gone precisely nowhere, I’ve been fairly busy with the vaccine centre since the beginning of the year and all my free time has gone into doing job applications and posts for this blog. I’m between jobs at the moment, so I’m hoping I will have some more time to devote to my novel now, but we’ll see how things go with the ridiculous number of job applications!

10. Finish the books I “paused” last year (or DNF them if I decide they aren’t for me)

I’ve finished This Poison Heart which was one of the books that I added to my “on-pause” shelf on Goodreads last year, but then I’ve also added three more books that I started reading this year and just wasn’t in the mood for. I swear this shelf is like the hydra, take one book off and three more grow in its place! Hopefully I will have made more progress on this by the end of the year and actually knocked some more books off this shelf, either by reading them or permanently DNFing.

So that’s how my year has been going so far, it’s definitely been quite the mixed bag, with one goal I’m already committed to not finishing and a couple that I’ve not made all that much progress on, but I’m pleased that a few of my goals, like my shelf unhaul, reading more adult historical fiction and keeping a more regular schedule with discussion posts and reviews have been going fairly well and there are definitely plenty of goals on here that I think I can make more forward momentum with before the end of the year. All is not lost, and we still have six months to go before the end of 2022!

How about you guys? Did you make any reading/blogging/writing goals for this year? How are they going so far? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back on Tuesday with my regular Top Ten Tuesday post, so keep your eyes out for that.

End of Year Check In (2021)

Hi everyone! We made it to the end of the year, who’s relieved? This year has actually been reasonably good for me, the lockdown of January-March honestly feels like it was a different year because the rest of the year was so much better in comparison! I don’t want to say I have high hopes for 2022 because that feels like jinxing it, so much as last year, I’m going in with a cautious sense of optimism that we won’t being going back to full 2020 levels of hell.

Anyway, as I always do at the end of the year, I’m going to look back at the goals I made at the beginning of the year and see how I did with them:

1. Complete Goodreads Challenge Goal-SUCCESS

Okay so I haven’t technically finished this one yet, I’ve got two more books to go, but I plan on finishing another VE Schwab comic and my final audiobook of the year, so I feel pretty confident that by tomorrow, I will have finished my challenge. I’m really proud that I’ve actually made it this year to be honest, because I’ve been in such a slump all year, so reaching 24 books, whilst only slightly more than half of what I read last year, feels like a big achievement given my reading mood this year. Hopefully I will get a lot more read in 2022!

2. Complete my #RockMyTBR Challenge-FAIL

Yeah I hold my hands up here, this one just didn’t happen this year and I wasn’t going to force myself into reading books I wasn’t in the mood for, so I guess in that respect it was kind of a success, because I judged my mood and didn’t force myself into reading books I didn’t feel like? But yeah I didn’t complete the challenge. Hopefully next year’s challenge will go better?

3. Finish current round of edits on This Is Not A Love Story-FAIL

I mean this one wasn’t a complete fail as I did do some edits on This Is Not A Love Story this year, but yeah I didn’t finish. I kind of stalled out after lockdown ended in March because I just had a lot more to do with starting my new job, job applications and having much more of a social life, so edits kind of fell by the wayside. I’m hoping to pick back up with this again in 2022.

4. Get Netgalley Ratio to 80%-FAIL

Okay this one was always going to be a long shot, and I just wasn’t really feeling any of my Netgalley books this year because of my reading slump, so I didn’t make it there, in fact I think it’s slightly lower than it was, at 68%. But I’m not going to feel guilty about not making it to an arbitrary number, I wasn’t feeling my Netgalley requests this year and that’s okay.

5. Catch up on 2020 releases-SUCCESS

Okay, so I only read 2 from my list of books, but I added another two books that weren’t on my official catch-up list and since I didn’t put a number on this goal, only that I wanted to catch up on some 2020 releases, I’m going to count it as a win, because I have read four more 2020 releases than I had last year.

6. Read more new to me authors-SUCCESS

Given that I’ve read far less books than I usually would this year, I’m very pleased with how many new authors that I read this year, I’ve read 13 new authors this year, which means just over half of my 2021 reads were from authors that I’d not read before. There are even a few that I’m definitely planning on reading more by, which is really how I measure the success of this goal!

7. Continue reading more by authors of colour-FAIL (read some, but could have done much better)

Yeah I didn’t do as well on this one as I’d have hoped, 6 out of the 24 books I read this year were by authors of colour, which is about half of what I managed last year, and is still only a quarter of my reading. Obviously numbers aren’t everything, and my reading overall was much lower than it has been in the past, but I would like to read much more by authors of colour next year.

8. Read more non-fiction-SUCCESS

I’m ending the year with 3 non-fiction books having been read, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but I only read one non-fiction last year, so it equals my previous best number of non-fiction read, which was in 2019. Maybe next year I can push the boat out and make it to four? Also all three of the non-fictions I read this year made it to my Top Nine of the year, so clearly I do like non-fiction and need to read more.

9. Try to have Writing Corner posts more regularly-FAIL

So yeah, this one didn’t work out at all as planned, I didn’t post any Writing Corner content at all this year, I’ve just struggled so much with finding guest posters for it and I never intended for it to be something that I was largely coming up with content for! Anyway, I’ve just not had the time this year, or many writing related topics I’ve wanted to talk about, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to get more of these done next year. If you’re a writer in any way and you’d like to contribute to this feature, please let me know!

10. Don’t buy any physical books from Amazon-SUCCESS

Okay so technically I did buy one physical book from Amazon, but I’m still counting this is as a success because by and large, I bought all my books this year from Waterstones or Bookshop.org and the one book I ended up buying from Amazon, I had tried through other outlets first, but my Blackwells order was cancelled due to some payment error and the book I wanted was out of stock and then I tried to get it from Forbidden Planet, but due to supply chain issues, they didn’t have it either. All that being said, the only time I used Amazon this year for a physical book was when I had no other option, so I’m not going to penalise myself for that, as I do feel I genuinely did my best to avoid using Amazon for my books as much as possible this year!

So there we go, that’s how my goals went for 2021, 5 out of 10 were successful, so yeah it’s not my best year ever in terms of completing my goals, but I don’t want to be hard on myself, I managed to complete some goals, and that’s better than nothing. How did you guys do on your 2021 goals if you made any? Do you have any plans for goals in 2022? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back tomorrow with my final post of 2021, the annual End of Year Survey that I do every year, so keep an eye out for that at some point tomorrow.

Mid Year Check In (2021)

Hi everyone! So we’re now halfway through 2021, apparently 2020 being so slow means that 2021 is going twice as fast. This year has already been ten times better than last year, and I have a lot of cool stuff coming up in the next couple of months, I’m definitely feeling a lot more optimistic than I was this time last year. Anyway, it’s that time of year where I like to check in on the goals that I made at the beginning of the year to help keep myself accountable and see where I’m at. So here we go, here’s how I’ve been doing over the past six months:

1. Complete Goodreads Challenge goal

Honestly I’m super behind on this one! I’ve been in a bit of a slump most of this year, and I’ve been reading very slowly so I haven’t read anywhere near as many books as I’d have liked to by this point in the year. I’m hoping that the second half of the year will be much better for me in terms on reading and I’ll still be able to make my goal of 24. I would have loved to get more done this year, but I think I just have to accept where I am at and realise that this year is not going to be a big reading year for me.

2. Complete my #RockMyTBR Challenge

I’m also super behind on this one, I’ve only read 2 of the 12 books on my list because I kind of stalled out on one of my challenge books and it took me several months to get through it. I’m hoping I will get through more of them before the year is out, but I’m not sure I’ll finish it this year.

3. Finish current round of edits on This Is Not A Love Story

I’ve kind of lost momentum on this one, I was doing well at the start of the year, and then I got caught up in job applications and started my new job and I just haven’t had much time for edits. I’m hoping I’ll be able to pick it back up again before the end of the year.

4. Get Netgalley Ratio to 80%

HA HA HA HA. I went on a bit of a requesting spree and have kind of stalled out on a lot of the books I’ve requested, I’ve not actually finished any of my Netgalley books this year. I’m hoping I will do better in the second half of the year but honestly I’d be happy if I’d just cleared my Netgalley shelf by the end of the year.

5. Catch up on 2020 releases

I’ve read a few 2020 releases this year, I think four, though two were carry-overs from last year! I’d like to try and catch up on a few more before the year is over, especially some of the ones that I was most excited for last year like Good Girl, Bad Blood and Where Dreams Descend.

6. Read more new to me authors

Finally one I’ve been doing quite well on! I’ve read five new to me authors so far this year, and I have more planned for the rest of the year, so I’m hoping I will be able to call this a significant success by the end of the year.

7. Continue reading more by authors of colour

I can’t say I’m doing the best on this one, though admittedly I’ve not read much this year, but only two of the books I’ve read so far have been by authors of colour. I have a few more planned for the rest of the year though, so I’m hoping to get that number up much higher.

8. Read more non-fiction

I’ve read one memoir so far this year, so not very much! I’m hoping to read a few more non-fiction books lined up to read before the end of the year but given my reading slump, I’m very much going wherever the reading feeling takes me and at the moment, it’s not toward non-fiction!

9. Try to have Writing Corner posts more regularly

HA HA HA HA. This has been going terribly! I haven’t done a single Writing Corner post this year. Honestly it’s been hard to get people signed up for guest posts and I haven’t really had many ideas of things I’ve wanted to talk about myself. I may get a couple done before the end of the year, but I’m not stressing too much over this one as I tend to get more engagement on my regular discussion posts anyway, so if I’m doing long posts, I prioritise those ones.

10. Don’t buy any physical books from Amazon

Finally one I’ve been doing great on! Of all the physical books I’ve bought this year, I’ve not bought a single one from Amazon, they have all been from either Waterstones, Blackwells or Bookshop. It’s actually not been massively difficult to cut off buying physical books from Amazon, I bought a lot from Waterstones anyway and if there’s something I can’t find on there, Blackwells or Bookshop usually has it, so I really don’t need to rely on Amazon for physical books at all. It has felt pretty great not to use them for that actually, so I definitely think I’m going to continue this past this year.

So that’s how my year has been going so far, it’s been a bit of a mixed bag, but I definitely think I can improve on and complete at least some of these before the end of the year. How about you guys? Did you make any reading/writing/blogging goals for this year? How are they going so far? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back on Tuesday with my regular Top Ten Tuesday for you all, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

End of Year Check In (2020)

Hello everyone! So it’s the end of the year, and I think I speak for many people when I say, thank goodness it will soon be over. I’m not expecting things to magically get better in 2021, but I do feel a cautious sense of optimism that things might at least start getting better next year. Anyway, as I always do at the end of a year, I’m going to look back at the goals I made at the beginning of the year and see how I did with them:

1. Complete My Goodreads Challenge-SUCCESS

Okay, so technically at the time of writing this I still have one book to go, but I only have about 20 pages left of my last book of 2020 (very poetic), so by the time the 2021 rolls around, I will have finished, so I’m counting it as success early! I started off with a challenge of 24 books at the beginning of the year and by the end, I will have read 45, so I think we can count this as an extremely successful reading year (in fact my best ever).

2. Complete My #RockMyTBR Challenge-SUCCESS

Okay, so I didn’t actually make all 12 books this year, in fact I’ll be finishing on 10 but I’m not going to count that as a failure, because it’s 2020 and calling yourself a failure for missing 2 books from your challenge list seems overly harsh!

3. Finish the first draft of either This Is Not A Love Story sequel or Underground Magicians-FAIL

Okay so yeah….this one didn’t quite go to plan. I had the best of intentions when I made this goal at the beginning of 2020, but I obviously did not predict the whole global pandemic thing and my creativity just kind of lapsed through the year. I did get back to writing with edits to This Is Not A Love Story over the summer though, so this year hasn’t been a total waste writing wise and hopefully I’ll be able to get back to these drafts next year.

4. Read more adult fiction-SUCCESS

I ended this year with 7 adult books, both fiction and non-fiction and I think that’s pretty good, last year I think I did about 6, so it’s slightly up on that. I still read majority YA, but since that’s what I most like to read, I don’t really mind that (and I really needed the YA escapism this year!).

5. Read more books by authors of colour-SUCCESS (but can always do more)

My final count on this was 11, which is much better than last year and about a quarter of my total reads of the year, but I always want to be able to do better on this, because I feel like there’s always more you can do to make your reading more diverse, so next year I definitely want to be seeking out even more authors of colour to read (especially as several of the books I read by POC this year were among my favourites of the year: Cinderella Is Dead, The Gilded Wolves, A Song of Wraiths and Ruin and Night Spinner).

6. Catch up on 2019 releases-SUCCESS

I actually only read 5 of my initial list of 10 2019 releases that I missed out on, but I read another 8 2019 releases that weren’t on that list, so in the end I caught up with 13 2019 releases which I feel like is probably the best I’ve ever done!

7. Get Netgalley ratio up to 80%-FAIL

Not only did I not get up to 80%, my Netgalley ratio is actually lower than it was at the beginning of the year *cries softly in a corner*. I had a last minute requesting spree this month and got approved for A LOT, so that kind of knocked my ratio back.

8. Buy less physical books/do another unhaul-SUCCESS

I definitely acquired fewer books this year than I have in previous years, mostly due to not being able to go into bookshops for a large portion of the year. I mean don’t get me wrong, I still acquired quite a few new books, but there were definitely months this year where I didn’t get any books at all, so I’m counting this one as a success.

9. Tackle some of the 500+ page books on my TBR-SUCCESS

Of the books I read this year, 7 of them were 500+ pages and I have an eighth still in progress, so all in all, that’s pretty good going for a girl who tends to avoid long books! I definitely chose to tackle a lot of longer books in audio form this year, which seems to work well for me, so I think that’s definitely something I’m going to consider going forward, especially as big books take up a lot of space on my bookshelf!

10. Read more new to me authors-SUCCESS

I’m super proud of how well I did on this one this year, out of 45 books, 20 of them were from authors that were new to me this year, which is really great! I also found several that I definitely want to read more from next year, which is always what you want when reading new authors.

So there we go, that’s how I did on my 2020 goals, 8 out of 10 were successful and honestly for a year like 2020? I will TAKE THAT. How did you guys do on your 2020 goals if you made any? I realise that this has been a disaster year for everyone, so definitely don’t be too hard on yourself if you didn’t get to all the goals you made in January. You survived, and that is honestly enough! Do you have any plans for goals for 2021? Let me know in the comments!

That was my last post of 2020! I hope you guys have a good New Year’s Eve, however you’re seeing it in, and I will be back with my first post of 2021 over the weekend, which will be my review of Good Omens! I’m also hoping to get my final #RockMyTBR posts of the year over the next week (I fully did intend to have my November/December update up before 2020 was over, but I still had a book to finish so it will just have to carry over to next year now!).

Mid Year Check In (2020)

Hi everyone! We’re halfway through the year, and honestly it feels like we should be so much further on by now? Am I the only one who feels like 2020 has been going on forever, January already feels like it was last year! Honestly aside from Cape Town, which was amazing, 2020 has kind of sucked and I’m already ready for it to be done? Sadly though, we still have another six months to go, so it’s that time of year when I like to check in on the goals I made at the start of the year to help keep myself accountable and see where I’m at. So here we go, here’s how I’ve been doing over the past six months:

1. Complete Goodreads Challenge goal

This is one of my annual goals, I always start off with 24 at the beginning of the year and since the one upside of lockdown is that I’ve had basically unlimited time to read, I’m already at 25 and have upped my goal to 40. Ambitiously I’d quite like to get to 50 this year, but if I beat the 42 I managed last year, I’ll be happy.

2. Complete my #RockMyTBR Challenge

My other annual challenge, I have 12 books on the list and I’m right on track, having completed 6 books at this point in the year, with 6 more still to go.

3. Finish the first draft of either This Is Not A Love Story sequel or Underground Magicians

Ha ha I had the best of intentions on this one I swear, but 2020 has kind of kicked my writing in the teeth and I’ve just not been in the place creatively where I’ve felt able to make any real progress on either of them. I’m hoping this might change before the end of the year, but I’m also not going to push myself because it’s been a tough year and pushing myself to get back into writing my novels when I’m not there yet is not going to make them any better.

4. Read more adult fiction

I still read majority YA, but I have read a few more adult books this year and I’m hoping to squeeze more in before the year is over.

5. Read more books by authors of colour

I’ve been doing okay with this one, though I could still definitely do better, and to be honest, I always want to feel like I can do better because there’s always more you can do and I definitely want to read more books by authors of colour in the rest of the year.

6. Catch up on 2019 releases

I’ve only read one and am in the progress of another one of the books on my list, but I’ve read several other 2019 releases that weren’t on my list as well, so I’m feeling pretty good about how I’ve been doing with this one.

7. Get Netgalley ratio up to 80%

So I’m not quite there on this one yet, but I’m getting there……slowly. I’m at 72% right now and I’m hoping that I can make it to 80% before the end of the year.

8. Buy less physical books/do another unhaul

I’m probably not going to be doing another unhaul, but I have been buying less physical books this year, mostly due to lockdown and not being able to go into bookshops. I do have a lot of books pre-ordered for September and October, but I’ve only bought about 4 physical books this year so far, so I think I’m actually doing pretty well.

9. Tackle some of the 500+ page books on my TBR

I’m still kind of wary about longer books, but I have knocked a few of the longer ones off my TBR: The City of Brass, The Kingdom of Copper (and currently The Empire of Gold) and The King of Crows and I’m currently reading King of Scars and hopefully The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes later this month, so I’m working on it!

10. Read more new to me authors

I’m doing so well on this one, and it’s made me so happy because I love finding new authors. Of the 25 books I’ve read so far this year, 12 have been by new to me authors and I have another one in progress, which is so great and several of them are definitely ones that I want to come back to.

So that’s how my year has been going so far. I’m pretty pleased that even with all of the uncertainty that the lockdown has caused in other areas of my life, that my goals have still been mostly going well! I think I’m on track to complete most of them by the end of the year. How about you guys? Did you make reading/writing/blogging goals for the year? How are they going so far? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back with a new tag post on Monday, my first in a while, the Mid Year Freak Out Tag, so keep an eye out for that one on Monday!

End of Year Check In (2019)

Well we got here at last, the final day of 2019 and also the last day of this decade! To celebrate the end of the year, I will be looking back at my goals for the year, and seeing which of these I completed, and which I didn’t. So here we go, my goals for 2019 and how I did with them:

1. Complete My Goodreads Challenge-SUCCESS

I set my challenge for 24 books this year to start off with and by the end of the year I had almost doubled that goal. Not only did I read 40 books this year, I beat that by 2, ending with 42 books read ths year, the best I’ve ever done since I started doing this challenge!

2. Complete My #RockMyTBR Challenge-SUCCESS

I managed to read all 12 this year! The last two years I read 11 books on my list and while that was perfectly good, I’m glad that I managed to read all of them this year.

3. Become a 5 star writer for The National Student-SUCCESS

I finished this one all the way back in January and I’m really glad I did because sadly The National Student closed down in August, so it was nice to hit that milestone before it closed down.

4. Continue working on revisions for This Is Not A Love Story in order to prepare it for querying-SUCCESS

Yes, I finished revising and sent queries out over April, May and September. I haven’t had any requests yet, only rejections but here’s hoping that 2020 goes a bit better!

5. Read more non-fiction-SUCCESS

I’m not going to lie, I didn’t read a massive amount, I read 3 books that were non-fiction this year, but considering that I started from a baseline of 0, I’m counting that as a success.

6. Catch up on the 2018 releases I missed-FAIL

Not that I didn’t read any, I got 5 of the books on my list read, but that was out of 16, so I could have done a lot better than I did. I’m going to try and read more of them next year.

7. Unhaul some of my books in preparation for graduation-SUCCESS

Yes, I used Marie Kondo’s method in order to choose what books to get rid of, with the help of my friends earlier in the year. I still have a rather unwieldy book collection, but I’m going to continue working on that next year. Hopefully someday I will be able to keep all my books in one place!

8. Start my Book/Movie comparison feature-SUCCESS

I started this one back in June and have done one post a month since then. It’s been a really fun feature to do, and I’m definitely going to carry it on next year.

9. Focus on backlist books 3 years old or more-FAIL

Yeah this one was kind of wishful thinking. Of the 42 books I read this year, only about 8 of them were published in 2016 or before!

10. Get my Netgalley ratio up to 80%-FAIL

This one really did look like it was going to go well at the beginning of the year, but unfortunately I requested a lot of books at the end of the year and didn’t read many of them, so my ratio went down to 70%. Fingers crossed for next year!

11. Try more audiobooks-SUCCESS

I started reading audiobooks back in July and have read 7 since. I’ve really enjoyed the ones I’ve read this year, and am looking forward to reading more next year.

12. Have more guest posts on the blog-SUCCESS

I had quite a few of these this year, from Madeline Dyer, Amy McCaw and Z.N. Khan, as well as author interviews from Amanda Foody and C.G. Drews. I’ve really enjoyed having other people featured here this year and hope to continue with this next year.

So there we go, that’s how I did on my 2019 goals, 9 out of 12 completed, one less than last year, but I still think I’ve done pretty well. 2019 has been a pretty good year all round really, at least for me, not so great for the world. How about you guys? Did you make any goals for 2019? How did you do on them? Do you have any plans for goals for next year? Let me know in the comments!

You won’t have to wait all that long to find out my 2020 goals, I’ll have them up by the end of the week. In the meantime, I will have my Best Books of 2019 up later today as part of my last TTT of 2019, so stay tuned for that!

Mid Year Check In (2019)

Hi all! We’re over halfway through the year, can you believe that because I can’t. I’ve had such a packed year already with Uni finishing and graduating, that’s it hard to believe we’re this far through 2019 already. Only six months to go till we’re in the 20’s guys! Anyway, at this point in the year, I like to check in on how I’m doing with the goals I made at the start of the year, it’s something I started doing about three years ago, just to help keep me accountable for the goals I’ve made and also it’s quite fun to see how I’ve done with them over the past six months. So here we go, here’s how my goals have been going:

1. Complete my Goodreads Challenge

This is one of those goals that I have every year, I started off at 24 books at the start of the year, but I’ve already reached that and I put it up to my usual goal of 35 books. I reckon if I keep going at the pace I’m going, I should reach 37 books by the end of the year, but I’d quite like to push it and get to 40 if I can.

2. Complete my #RockMyTBR Challenge

This one is going really well as well, it’s another annual challenge. I have 12 books on this challenge list, and I’m right on target with them, having finished 6 of them so far and started my seventh. I’ve really enjoyed the books I’ve read for this so far this year (for the most part) and I’m really excited for the ones I have to come going into the second half of the year.

3. Become a 5 star writer for The National Student

I did this one! I actually completed it all the way back in January since I wasn’t far off it by the end of last year. I’ve now written over 100 articles and had over 100,000 views, which I’m really pleased with.

4. Continue working on revisions for This Is Not A Love Story in order to prepare it for querying

I’ve done this! I actually sent This Is Not A Love Story off for querying back in April, and then to more agents in May and although I haven’t had any requests on it yet, only rejections, I’m really proud of myself for actually doing it, I wrote a book and sent it to agents and that is no mean feat. I’ve also made a lot of headway on the sequel as well, which makes me happy.

5. Read more non-fiction

Of the 24 books I’ve read so far this year, 3 of them have been non-fiction, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but since I started at a base of 0 from last year, it’s definitely an improvement, and my shelves are largely fiction, so I only have a handful of non-fic to read anyway. I’ve really enjoyed the ones I have read, so it seems like this is a trend I need to keep up.

6. Catch up on 2018 releases I missed

I have so far this year, read 4 of the 16 2018 releases that I said I wanted to catch up on in a Top Ten Tuesday post at the beginning of the year, which isn’t as many as I would have liked, but it is something, and I plan to read more before the year is out. 16 is quite a lot of books, so I think if I finish half of that list I made, then I’ll be quite happy.

7. Unhaul some of my books in preparation for graduation

Yup, done! I used Marie Kondo’s method to decide which books to unhaul way back in April and then when I was up at Uni for graduation, I finally took them all to Oxfam books, so my book collection, whilst still huge and unwieldy, has been streamlined a little bit.

8. Start my Book/Movie comparison feature

I started this one last month, it’s under the Book Vs Movie tab in the menu bar. So far I’ve only done one, for The Perks of Being A Wallflower but I’m planning on doing another one this month, and every other month for the rest of the year.

9. Focus on backlist books 3 years old or more

Ha ha this was a well meaning goal, but I haven’t done very well on it! I’ve read a couple of books from 2015 & 2017 and even the rest of the Grisha trilogy books which were published in 2013 & 2014 but largely my reads this year have been either new releases or books that were released in 2018.

10. Get my Netgalley ratio up to 80%

I’m not quite there yet, but I’m doing really well, I’m at 75%, so I’m hoping I can get the other 5% before December, I’ve got a couple more books on my shelves to clear and then I probably will reach it.

11. Try more audiobooks

I’ll be honest, I’ve actually only just started with this one, it’s been hard to find the time when I’ve had so many Netgalley books to read throughout the year, but I’m reading Priory of The Orange Tree on Audible at the moment and really enjoying it. They’re really good for reading on the bus, as they’re divided into short 15-40 minute chapters which are quite easy to consume on my morning commute to work.

12. Have more guest posts on the blog

I’ve had a couple of these, author interviews with CG Drews and Amanda Foody, and a guest post from writer Madeline Dyer, but I’d really like more, so if you’re interested in doing a guest post for me, especially if you’re a writer, then please get in touch, either via Twitter (@iloveheartlandX) or via my email, jo.ell.x@hotmail.com.

So that’s how my year has been going so far. I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve done, I’ve done better on some goals than others, and I think I’m on track to complete most of them by the end of the year, which is good. How about you guys? Did you make any goals for your reading/blogging/writing life this year? If so, how are they going so far? Let me know in the comments!

I will be back with a new Top Ten Tuesday post on Tuesday, so stay tuned for that. I’ve started work, so my posting my be a little more sporadic over the next month or so, so please be patient, I will get around to doing all the posts I want to, it just might take a little longer than usual!

End of Year Check In (2018)

We made it everyone! The last day of 2018, honestly I wasn’t entirely sure we’d get here after all the trash-fire things that have been happening in the world this year, but we did, so congrats to all of us. As it’s the last day of 2018, I will be looking back at the goals I made in January (remember January, that month that happened a million years ago, and none of us are quite sure was actually part of 2018?) and see how well I did on them this year. So here we go, this is how my 2018 goals have worked out:

1. Complete my Goodreads 2018 Challenge-SUCCESS

Yes I did in fact complete my Goodreads challenge this year! I started off with my usual challenge of 24, but I put it up back in July, and ended up on my final challenge of 35 books, which I just met two days ago. I would have liked to one up my 2017 challenge and read 37, but I’m still really proud of 35, especially given how stressful my most recent Uni semester has been.

2. Complete my #RockMyTBR 2018 Challenge-SUCCESS

Yes, I completed my #RockMyTBR challenge, though like last year, I ended on 11 books rather than 12 because there was one book on my list that I just couldn’t finish-I’m not going to count it as a failure for the sake of one book, that would just be petty! Hopefully next year I will be able to finish all 12 though 🙂

3. Expand my Writing Corner Feature-Success, but could have done better

I don’t want to count this as an outright failure, because I did write a few more posts about my writing this year, though due to time constraints, I didn’t post as frequently through the end of the year as I would have liked and I didn’t do any collaborations on it. Having said that, I have written 6 posts for the feature this year, and I only had one last year, so in that respect it has been successful and I’m hoping that I will be able to grow it even more next year.

4. Look into querying agents/the first steps of the publishing process-SUCCESS

I’m actually feeling really good about this one. I’ve been bookmarking agents since January, so every time I have seen one on Twitter, I’ve added their agency’s page to the list. I also had to write a query for the #YA4YA competition, I’m pretty sure it was terrible, but hey it was a start! I have a list of tips about querying from a querying talk I went to with agents at YALC. I pitched my book to an agent at YALC as well as part of pitching practice and she said it sounded marketable, so that was also awesome! I’ve also been doing the most important part of getting ready for querying-revising my book. So yeah, I’m feeling pretty good about the preparations I’ve made for the next step in my publishing journey this year.

5. Finish Underground Magicians-FAIL

Yeah, this one was a pretty clear failure. I’ve only written one more chapter of this than I had last year. I’m trying not to be too hard on myself, because having writer’s block is not something I can really help and I have made a lot of progress on TINALS this year, so I’m trying to focus more on where I’ve succeeded in my writing than where I haven’t.

6. Start giving a Bechdel Test rating for the books I read-SUCCESS

This went really well, in fact I’m going to continue it next year! The final results turned out to be 24 books passed and 11 books failed, so I was quite pleased with that and I’m hoping that next year, the pass/fail margin will be even narrower.

7. Read more of my YALC books from 2015/2016/2017-SUCCESS

So I did read some of my YALC books this year, I read The Exact Opposite of Okay, Rose Under Fire, The Fandom, Daughter of The Burning City & Days of Blood and Starlight this year, so that’s 6 more YALC books than I had last year. I could have done more, probably, but I have offloaded some of the YALC books that I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to read and my YALC book shelf is down to only 29 books now, so hopefully I should be able to knock off more next year (whilst of course acquiring more!).

8. Read more of my #otspsecretsister books-Success, but could have done better

I only read 3 #otspsecretsister books this year, so I still have 10 that I need to read, but since I didn’t set a number for this challenge, I’m still counting it as a success! Hopefully next year, I will be able to finish all of the books that I have received through the #otspsecretsister project.

9. Reread some of my old favourites-FAIL

Ha ha this one was just too optimistic to start off with! I don’t know why I thought I would have the time to do this, much as I used to love rereading, I do not read fast enough to justify it!

10. Make time to read a little every day-SUCCESS

I actually feel really good about this one! There were I think one or two days in November where I didn’t read, but much like my #RockMyTBR challenge, I’m not going to punish myself for a day or so when I was just too tired or stressed to read. I’m really pleased with how this goal went, because it kept me accountable for making sure reading was always a part of my day.

11. Carry on colloborating with other bloggers-SUCCESS

I did 3 collab posts this year, one with other people on my blog in January, which was super fun, I did my first guest post on This Northern Gal (which you can read here: http://thisnortherngal.co.uk/guest-posts/guest-post-maximising-your-reading-time-at-university/) which was amazing fun to do and something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while. I also featured on Rae Coleman’s blog, as part of her Summer Spotlight blogger series, so I did an interview with her, which was also amazing to do and you can read that here: https://bookmarkchronicles.wordpress.com/2018/07/31/summer-spotlight-series-jo/). I also did an interview for Literary Lovers Magazine, but I’m not quite sure when that’s going to be available. I’d love to do some more collaborations next year, so if you’d like to contribute something to my blog (especially if you’re a writer!) or you would like me to contribute to yours, then you can get in touch with me via Twitter @iloveheartlandX or email: jo.ell.x@hotmail.com.

12. Catch up with 2017 releases-Success, but could have done better

I had 12 books on this list and I’ve read 6 of them. So half. I could have done better sure, but I think this was a case of me being overenthusiastic rather than anything else, because thinking I would be able to read 12 missed releases this year was probably a bit optimistic!

So there we go, that’s how I did on my 2018 goals-10 out of 12 completed, I have to admit, I’m pretty satisfied with that, even if I could have done better on two of them, it’s the best I’ve ever done on my yearly resolutions! 2018 may have been a horrible year for the world, but it was a great year for my blog and I’m hoping that 2019 will be ever better. How about you guys? Did you make any goals for 2018? How did you do on them? Do you have any plans for goals for next year? Let me know in the comments!

You won’t have to wait too long to find out my 2019 goals, I think I’ll probably have them up on Wednesday. In the meantime, I will have my Best Books of 2018 up tomorrow as part of the first TTT topic of 2019, so stay tuned for that!

Mid Year Check In (2018)

Hi all! It’s July, can you believe it, because I can’t! Anyway as we are now officially halfway through the year, I’m checking in on how I’m doing with the goals I made at the start of the year for my reading/writing life in 2018, it’s something I started doing two years ago, and it helps keep me accountable for my goals throughout the year, plus it’s just quite nice to check in on what I’ve been doing in the first six months of the year. So here we go, this is how my goals have been going:

1. Complete my Goodreads Challenge

I set my challenge at the beginning of the year at 24 books, but it’s the end of June, and I’ve already read 21, so I’ve upped the challenge to 35, same as my challenge last year. I actually read 36 books last year, so I’d love to better that this year, ideally I’d love to get to 40 books, but 37, one upping last year, would also be fine!

2. Complete my #RockMyTBR Challenge

I started doing this challenge in 2016 and have been doing it every year since, even though I don’t think it’s officially being done this year! Anyway, I had 12 books on my list at the beginning of the year, and I’ve read 6 of them so far, so I’m on track to finish them all by the end of the year.

3. Expand my Writing Corner feature

I have definitely started to get this up and running! It’s still quite small, I’ve only done a few posts and I haven’t done any collaboration posts yet, which I would have liked to, but I’m happy that it’s starting to become an established feature on my blog. I’m hoping to get a post a month done on there for the rest of the year, if I can, so by the end of the year, my posts will be in the double figures.

4. Look into querying agents/the first steps of the publishing progress

So since January, every time I’ve seen an agent on Twitter, I’ve bookmarked their agency’s page on my browser, so now I have a built in list of agents for when I’m ready to start querying. I haven’t written a query yet, but I have been doing revisions on my novel since the beginning of the year and it’s with my critique partner at the moment, so between that and having my list of agents, I’m feeling a lot more prepared for when I finally do send out my novel for querying.

5. Finish Underground Magicians

Yeah…..so…….umm this one hasn’t been going so well! I’ve only written one more chapter of it than I’d had last year and I’m feeling kind of blocked for this story. I don’t want to give up on it, but I’m feeling a lot more inspired for TINALS at the moment, as I just finished my revisions and have started writing the sequel, so I’m going to leave this one on the back burner for a while and focus on my TINALS projects, in the hope that when I come back to Underground Magicians, I’ll be feeling more inspired!

6. Start giving a Bechdel Test rating for the books I read

This is going really well, I’ve rated every book I’ve read this year against the Bechdel Test, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the results: out of the 21 books I’ve read this year, only 6 haven’t passed the test!

7. Read more of my YALC books from 2015/16/17

I mean I’m not gonna lie, I could be doing better on this one, but I have read a few of my YALC books this year, I read The Exact Opposite of Okay in February (which I got at YALC last year), I read The Fandom in January & Rose Under Fire and Daughter of The Burning City in May so that’s five YALC books knocked off my list already. I did actually get rid of a few that I didn’t think I was going to read, so if there are still some from 2015 that I haven’t read by next year, I will probably unhaul them too. I’m super excited to pick up some more books at YALC though, even though I still haven’t read all the ones on my shelf yet!

8. Read more of my #otspsecretsister books

Okay so I’ve only actually read two of these this year, but out of 18, I now have 5 books that I’ve read, so I’m almost a third of the way through the books I’ve received through doing the Secret Sister project and I’m actually reading a third one at the moment, so I’m hoping by the end of this year, I’ll have read most of the books I’ve been given by my previous sisters and maybe have taken part in another round!

9. Reread some of my old favourites

Hahahahahahahahaha…….no. I haven’t reread a single book this year. I don’t know why I thought I would have time to do this. Much as I used to love rereading, I am just too busy now and have too many new books to read to do it. Maybe I’ll squeeze some in before the end of the year, but I doubt it!

10. Make time to read a little every day

I’ve actually done really well with this one! I’m proud to say that since January, I have read at least a few pages of a book every single day, this goal has kept me accountable for making sure that I squeeze in my reading even when I’m super busy, so it’s been really great!

11. Carry on collaborating with other bloggers

So I had a collab post as one of my first discussion posts of the year, which was really great, and I did my first guest post on This Northern Gal (which you can read here: http://thisnortherngal.co.uk/guest-posts/guest-post-maximising-your-reading-time-at-university/) which was so much fun to do. I also did an interview with Rachel from Bookmark Chronicles for her blogger Summer Spotlight Series (which starts next week!) which was super fun to do. I would love to get some more contributions for my blog and I’m definitely going to try and think of some more collaborative posts that I can do, but thus far, I’m feeling good about how this goal has been going this year.

12. Catch up with 2017 releases

I had 12 books on a TTT list where I talked about the 2017 releases I missed out on that I wanted to read by the end of the year, and so far I’ve read 4, which you know, could be better, but it’s 4 more than I read last year and I will definitely have read more of them by the end of the year as quite a few are on my #RockMyTBR challenge list as well.

So that’s how my year is going so far! I’m really happy with how I’ve managed my goals this year, at least 10 of them, I have been doing well with and am on track to have completed by the end of the year, there’s only two where I can definitively say that I’ve not done so well with, but there’s still six months of the year to go, so I’m hoping I will be able to complete all of these by the end of the year (though it may just be 11, I’m not sure whether I’ll actually do any rereading!). How about you guys? Did you make any goals for your reading/blog/writing/life this year? If so, how are they going so far? Let me know in the comments!

I will have my June #RockMyTBR update for you guys tomorrow, so stay tuned for that!