2015 Goals Update

So it's now quite a bit over halfway through the year, but I still wanted to get this post up. If not just to organize my thoughts, but also maybe for some feedback, depending on where those thoughts lead to. As might be obvious from the title - this is going to be a post talking about my progress in relation to the goals I made for my reading at the beginning of the year.

I'm also, as you can tell by my lack of posts, trying to get back into writing posts and I feel like this kind of thing will help me refocus my energies a bit. Also, the weather hopefully will start cooling off soon, which I'm always looking forward to by this point.

First - read 100 books - well, by my goodreads challenge, I'm completely done with this. But I've been counting single issues on there, which I think I'm still going to do next year (I like everything together there, it's nice), but I'd rather go by my spreadsheet and towards those 100 I'd include novels and then collected single issues (trades) and graphic novels (everything but single issues, pretty much. And currently, for that count I'm at: novels - 57, graphic novels/trades - 40. Which, if my math is correct here, is 95. So I think it's safe to say I'll get to 100 probably very soon. However, it'd also be kind of cool to get to 100 book books, but I really don't think that's going to happen just because of how slump-y I've been since after the first month, which I feel like I'm just pulling myself out of (maybe, though, who knows). (Also I don't want to put too much stress on myself, because I've learned I then just stop reading.

Read more physical books/ buy less books - although it doesn't seem like it on the surface, I do think I'm buying less books (this month has not been good for that, but I think it's just because of getting back into podcasts and stress. Hopefully, September will be better and onward).

Complete series - I have not been doing good for this one, though I didn't technically set a number. I've completed three so far, which is one better then 2013, but I'm still a little disppointed in myself since I completed 12 in 2014 (trying to not be stressed about it, though. I've been reading a lot of pretty good books, that's all that matters)

weekly wrap ups - I was doing great with this before I went on hiatus the first time, even though I wasn't reading as much, I was having a lot of fun mentioning and talking about other things, but I've now fallen off the wagon with it a little. I'm thinking of doing it every two weeks, depending on how much I'm reading / on the internet (my mom's going to be moving, NaNoWriMo - I'm not going to be near a computer for either of that).

more discussions/reviews - I don't know how I feel about this, how I've been doing, because I know I haven't been doing more reviews mostly because I wasn't reading things, period, let along things I wanted to review. I don't always want to review everything I read, or am in the mood to do reviews, they normally take a lot out of me, maybe I'll do discussions for those instead? Do a mini review post of 3-5 books that I don't have enough to say for a full review?

read more of - I'm not entirely sure how I've been doing with any of these things, I feel like I was doing pretty good at the beginning of the year, but at the moment I'm feeling kind of down on myself in relation to how many books I've bought this months and how many things I haven't read (I have so many, it's one of those SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME kind of days)

Challenges - I actually feel like I'm doing pretty good with the Book Riot read harder challenge, though I'm not 100% sure I'll finish all the challenges this year, or that I need to? I mean, it'd be nice and such but I don't think it's necessary. And also okay for the series challenge, like I mentioned, and then also just okay for the banned book challenge.

That is my goals update! I'm hoping to get more reading done in the last four months of the year. (Also - there's only four months left of the year? When the hell did this happen?) How are you doing on your goal for this year? Did you make any or nah? I think next year I'm going to pick three reading goals, and five blogging/youtubing goals but we shall see. I'd love to hear your thoughts/opinions in comments, though!

2015 Challenges | BookRiot Read Harder (1)

I'm not going to put pressure on myself for any challenge, but I still like pushing myself to read more or places where I feel like I'm lacking. Not putting pressure means I'm not officially joining anything, posting about it here is enough of a declaration to keep me to it, but also enough I won't feel horrible if I don't complete them all. I tend to aim high and hope for the best, in all honesty, and even if I don't make it all the way to my ridiculous goal, I'll have gotten a lot done between.

I wanted to put all of the challenges into one post, all nice and tidy, but it would of been a post that'd been probably as long as I am tall (though, considering how short I am, I guess that doesn't mean much, but it would of been really freaking long. And some don't go the whole year or whatever. Parts. Doing it in parts).

First off, one you might heard about it, is the BookRiot Read Harder challenge. (Link to their post, which includes links if you're unsure about what something means or need a recommendation). (Also, while on the topic of BookRiot, I'd like to point out their post from last year about why setting challenges/goals is good).

• A book written by someone when they were under the age of 25
• A book written by someone when they were over the age of 65
• A collection of short stories (either by one person or an anthology by many people)
• A book published by an indie press
• A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ
• A book by a person whose gender is different from your own
• A book that takes place in Asia
• A book by an author from Africa
• A book that is by or about someone from an indigenous culture (Native Americans, Aboriginals, etc.)
• A microhistory
• A YA novel
• A sci-fi novel
• A romance novel
• A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade
• A book that is a retelling of a classic story (fairytale, Shakespearian play, classic novel, etc.)
• An audiobook
• A collection of poetry
• A book that someone else has recommended to you
• A book that was originally published in another language
• A graphic novel, a graphic memoir or a collection of comics of any kind (Hi, have you met Panels?)
• A book that you would consider a guilty pleasure (Read, and then realize that good entertainment is nothing to feel guilty over)
• A book published before 1850
• A book published this year 
• A self-improvement book (can be traditionally or non-traditionally considered “self-improvement”)

Some of these should be pretty easy for me to complete - specifically: a young adult book, romance, SciFi, graphic novel/such, published this year (I'm taking to mean 2015) - but others I know I might have trouble completing, I might not even complete all of them.

I had a huge rambling thing here about diversity and how I feel like it's important, but that I can't honestly say it's the first thing I think of when picking up a book. I cut it out. Why? Because I didn't feel like it helped anything. It isn't always the first thing I think of, when picking up a book, though, that part is true. I tend to be more interested in the story then the author and, even then, sometimes I just want a fluffy romance or a quick YA novel. I read by mood, completely, and it's been working for me if the last year is anything to by. 

However - diversity is important. Especially right now, it seems like. And I do want to read a lot of books by a large, diverse bunch of people. And I think this is a good way to try and remind myself of that, even if I don't hit all of them (I'm mostly eyeing the 'self-improvement' one, that might not happen. Unless Amy Poehler's new book counts). Actually, I have a surprising amount of ideas for them and am trying to compile a list on goodreads for possibilities (If you have any recommendation - books by people of color or LGBTQ+, or anything different, feel free to leave a comment or rec it to me on Goodreads).

I also always enjoy reading diverse books - a different culture is very intriguing to me, especially one that I'm not familiar with at all, or one I've just barely grazed the surface on. Or LGBTQ+ characters. I haven't read a lot of books with that and I'd really like to read more, it definitely can make the story more interesting (there are probably more problems to face, along with the normal ones).

Saying that, I am going to try and not buy all the books in 2015, so that'll hurt my ability a bit to branch out too much, though I do have quite a bit (at least I think, from what I expected, in all honesty).

So now I want to know - do you make it a priority to read diversely? Even as small a thing as your male/female ratio (that's something I payed attention to in 2014)? Are you considering myself taking on some of these challenges for yourself? Let me know! And let me know if you have any recommendations!