2020 Vision
I have clear 2020 vision this morning....I have been thinking about my reading goals for the year. My goal this year is not a number of books I use Goodreads as a tracking tool for the books that I read and I read 263 books this past year. Clearly making the priority of reading is not a challenge for me but I know that having goals on which books that I want to read helps me develop a focus because I . I know that in previous years I have participated in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge or decided to read my own books harder. Last year I focused a lot of my reading on the excitement that I had on going to Stoker Con.
I have learned a lot about my own reading preferences and habits in taking advantage of different kinds of reading challenges. I am always looking for excuses to buy and read books. I just can't prohibit myself from purchasing books but when I set a budget for myself I am good at adhering to it. I just can't restrict myself from reading just one genre but I can acknowledge that horror, dark fantasy and psychological thrillers are my favorite genres to read and collect.
As a writer horror is the natural direction that my imagination wants to take as well. I have a lot of stories that I have written that I need to take the time to edit and query. I want to find somewhere where I can get a larger readership than I have been able to with self publishing. But I do not see this coming in conflict with my reading goals. To be a self critical writer if I do not have the time to read I do not have the time to write.
Nor do I think that reading goals need to come in conflict with other goals. I have learned that my other interests can be enchanced by doing outside reading or can be a tool for helping me with life's dilemmas. But I know that it can be overwhelming to read at times too. I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes a few months ago and I knew that there was a sea of literature that I could have been reading but the combination of emotional exhaustion and not wanting to read anything with fad diets or pseudoscience made me direct my efforts in that part of my life more towards cooking and training for my first 5K. I've always loved exercise and frankly love that this makes hitting the gym a priority and it also helps me to catch up on some of my favorite podcasts and discover new interesting podcasts.
In reflecting critically over my reading life this past year I realize that I did not read very much non fiction. While fiction remains my main passion for reading and writing, I am very hungry to be intellectually challenged. I realize that saying I need to read more non fiction is very broad. But I do have non fiction books in a variety of genres on my shelf that I have not touched. My resolution is that more of the non fiction that I currently own is to be read and/or sold to a used bookstore and see where my curiosity leads me. I want to continue to write, read and review dark fiction but I want to have a more balanced reading diet again and force myself to grapple with questions and realities about the real world that we live in. Yet as I made this resolution I had to ask my work friends what their favorite non fiction books were and to start looking around for lists of the best non fiction of 2019 and what books will be anticipated in 2020 wanting to see what books I may not want to miss as I have this new resolution. I do want to make sure that my choices are relevant. In the process I will make sure to blog about at least one of the non fiction books I read each month.
How well will this goal go? I will only find out by reading...
I have learned a lot about my own reading preferences and habits in taking advantage of different kinds of reading challenges. I am always looking for excuses to buy and read books. I just can't prohibit myself from purchasing books but when I set a budget for myself I am good at adhering to it. I just can't restrict myself from reading just one genre but I can acknowledge that horror, dark fantasy and psychological thrillers are my favorite genres to read and collect.
As a writer horror is the natural direction that my imagination wants to take as well. I have a lot of stories that I have written that I need to take the time to edit and query. I want to find somewhere where I can get a larger readership than I have been able to with self publishing. But I do not see this coming in conflict with my reading goals. To be a self critical writer if I do not have the time to read I do not have the time to write.
Nor do I think that reading goals need to come in conflict with other goals. I have learned that my other interests can be enchanced by doing outside reading or can be a tool for helping me with life's dilemmas. But I know that it can be overwhelming to read at times too. I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes a few months ago and I knew that there was a sea of literature that I could have been reading but the combination of emotional exhaustion and not wanting to read anything with fad diets or pseudoscience made me direct my efforts in that part of my life more towards cooking and training for my first 5K. I've always loved exercise and frankly love that this makes hitting the gym a priority and it also helps me to catch up on some of my favorite podcasts and discover new interesting podcasts.
In reflecting critically over my reading life this past year I realize that I did not read very much non fiction. While fiction remains my main passion for reading and writing, I am very hungry to be intellectually challenged. I realize that saying I need to read more non fiction is very broad. But I do have non fiction books in a variety of genres on my shelf that I have not touched. My resolution is that more of the non fiction that I currently own is to be read and/or sold to a used bookstore and see where my curiosity leads me. I want to continue to write, read and review dark fiction but I want to have a more balanced reading diet again and force myself to grapple with questions and realities about the real world that we live in. Yet as I made this resolution I had to ask my work friends what their favorite non fiction books were and to start looking around for lists of the best non fiction of 2019 and what books will be anticipated in 2020 wanting to see what books I may not want to miss as I have this new resolution. I do want to make sure that my choices are relevant. In the process I will make sure to blog about at least one of the non fiction books I read each month.
How well will this goal go? I will only find out by reading...
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