Monday 5 December 2011

Challenging Myself

With December slowly slipping away I thought it was time to review my progress on the challenges I'd set myself for the year, and think about which I'm going to do in 2012. The ones I picked last year were nice and straightforward, probably because I'd only just started blogging (in fact it was my one year bloggiversary yesterday!)
  
2011 Reading Challenge
The first one was the Goodreads Reading Challenge. At the start of the year I set myself a target of 110 books in total (based on 2 a week and rounded to a nicer number) I hit this quite some time ago so I increased it to 150, which I hit a few days ago. As the list includes a couple of short stories and a few novellas I think by the end of the year I will have read the equivalent of more than 150 novels easily.


The second challenge I signed up for is still a work in progress. This is the Borrowed Book Challenge, hosted by ShellyRae at Bookd Out. I'm aiming for the entry level, Borrower Be, trying to borrow, read and return 12 books from our local library. I started well as I was visiting the library on a weekly basis with Monkey for a toddlers group, but that went awry during the school holidays and we've been otherwise engaged since. On Friday though I went and picked up The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I'll be reviewing The Alchemist tomorrow, having just finished it, then I just have two more to go. I consider that on target!


As far as 2012 goes, I have signed up for the 2012 e-book challenge hosted by Workaday Reads. I'm aiming for server level, 100 books. I have gone lower than this year because as Monkey gets older and less inclined to nap I'm getting less time to read, so I'm getting through as many a week as I was earlier in the year. I'm hoping it'll be achievable though. As I mostly read e-books I'll probably set the same target on Goodreads.


I've also seen a couple of other challenges I'm quite interested in, one a round the world affair, picking books set in different countries, another based on reading Australian female authors. I'm having to have a good think about how attainable they are though before committing to do them.


How are others doing with their 2011 challenges?

1 comment:

Webbiegrrl Writer said...

Sorry to be so entirely self-absorbed, but I'd like to be sure you save two reading spots for the two books I expect (hope? pray?) I'll be releasing in 2012:

1) My SciFi Thriller Conditioned Response, Book 2 of The Phoenician Series, written under my pen name of Marjorie F. Baldwin. Recall, I had scheduled its release for New Year's weekend but might delay to the end of January to be sure I have it polished all nice and shiny. I'd hoped you'd be one of the Advance Readers who get an ARC (don't you remember my asking you to review this? :-))))

2) The still-untitled Lacey / Rainey Story of the Banbha Series of Romantic Suspense I'm writing under my own Sarah R. Yoffa name. This can't get finished until the June to September timeframe since my schedule's booked up (haha) with the e-release of Conditioned Response, then the paperback release of that 3 months later, then I'll need at least 3 months to finish writing the Lacey / Rainey Story (which is only about 80% done right now)

So please save a spot in the Jan-Mar timeframe for me and another over the summer!

-sry