Booking Through 2022: Goals and More

 



        We are now a little over halfway through the first month of 2022. This year is already going by too fast. I'm planning author events and trying to crank out my first novel of the year. My writing goal this year is to publish at least three works. My reading goal is much higher. 

    Last year I read over 140 books for Goodread's yearly challenge. I was doing monthly book picks for a while but they didn't seem to be gathering interest. I'm not sure if it is how I formatted them, the graphics, or something else. No matter, I've decided to start fresh with something similar but different this year.

    Each of my reviews this year will contain the following information: book title, author name, rating, age level, genre, format read, and a review.

    I've pledged to read 200 books in 2022, which is the highest reading goal I've ever set. It has been a while since I've made a goal I wasn't sure I could meet and it felt about time I did it again. Thus, 200 books. To stay on track I will need to read approximately 16 books a month. That's a lot of reading. It does give me the excuse to read some small works, though. Short stories and novellas make great cleanses between bigger books.

    I'd also like to do a monthly giveaway, where I give away a copy of whatever book was my favorite for each month. I've set up a bracket and rating system to help me determine my favorite book. Basically, I'm listing out every book I give five hearts to each month. Then I pick my favorite out of those five stars and will use a bracket to determine my favorite book of the year. I'll try to keep an updated bracket going for you all so you can see my progress. 

    Along with my monthly picks, I'm hoping to do a monthly round-up. I don't want to flood you with random reviews throughout the month. Some days I have no reviews and others I have six. Weekends are huge reading days for me. So, to make it easier my goal is to consolidate each month's reviews into a single post. 

    I really want to strengthen my brand this year. This means I need to be posting on here more frequently, attending in-person author events, and getting my name out.

    One of the ways I'll be upping my posting is by offering monthly author spotlights. These will be interviews with indie authors about themselves, their families, and their works. Writing these will be good practice for both my journalism and author careers. It will be a way I can combine the nonfiction side of my life with the creative side of my life. Authors who are interested in being featured on this blog may fill out this form. All independent authors, no matter the genre or age level they write, are eligible for spotlights. If there is enough interest it may turn into a bi-weekly thing. For now, though, we're going to start small.

    To draw reads to the author spotlights I'll be posting a monthly Amazon Gift Card giveaway in my Facebook reader group. Which can be found here.

    I'll be posting again on here soon with January's book reviews. Until next time, stay safe and warm.  


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AI - Is it Art or Plagiarism?

Image
      Artificial intelligence has been a big topic in the art world lately. Some people have won awards for AI-generated content, others use it as nothing more than a filter on their Tik Tok pages, and still, others use it to write entire books. The question is, when does this fun little device become plagiarism? Where is the line that indicates what belongs to the robot and what belongs to the human?      You may say, robots and AI don't have rites. No, I suppose they don't because they are not living breathing creatures. However, that brings up a discussion on what gives a creature rites? Is it breathing? Or is it having the ability to think? We are still a while away from needing to have this discussion, though we get closer every day as inventors try to create realistic-looking AIs (aka, androids). Avoiding the Star Wars conundrum of whether droids should have rites, there are things we need to be considering as artists.      Here's the d...
Read more

The Start of Something New: First Steps to Freelancing

Image
       On July 29, 2022, a 114-year-old newspaper ceased publishing. I worked on this paper for the last year and a half of its life and it was one of the greatest experiences of my existence. It taught me a lot of things. I learned a bunch of programs like InDesign and Adobe Photoshop. It taught me formatting and AP style of writing (which I had the basics of before I started but rarely used). To steal a description from John Green, the paper's end came upon us like sleep, slowly at first and then all at once. Those of us that worked there knew the paper was in trouble. There were times we'd compare it to a sinking ship and ourselves as sailors using buckets to scoop water out of the vessel. I loved that paper, though. With every fiber of my being.       The Gothenburg Times was the first place to give me a writing job full-time. I never met the owners, but I worked closing with its publisher, who mentored me and taught me a lot about publishing...
Read more

The Alphabet Ancestry (Part I)

Image
      I don't know how into video games you are, but there are four games I play with a dedication so strong that I've literally lost nights of sleep over them. One of these games is Sims. I played Sims 3 long ago, but I'm currently playing Sims 4, and if you're a Sim's player then you know that EA just keeps adding more expansions to this game.      I've played the game so much that I've beaten many of the challenges, yet there was one I have failed to complete several times. The Alphabet Family Challenge. The rules for this challenge are as follows:      1) You must play through 26 generations of the same household.     That's it. That's all the guidelines Sims gives players. Seems simple enough, right? WRONG! Sims is a time-consuming game. Getting to 26 generations takes a long time...and I may have neglected to consider what 'same household' might have meant until I was already a decent way into the challenge.    ...
Read more