Top Ten Tuesday: My 2016 Resolutions!

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish meme, brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish!

Well, we're officially a fair amount of days into 2016, and while there were a lot of links popping up on my Facebook feed around the start of the year about "Why I'm Not Making Resolutions This Year," I've always been someone who really benefits from New Year's Resolutions, and have had a lot of success. Because of this, I have a long list of brainstormed ideas for what this year is going to look like, for me... and that includes some goals for aspects of my readerly life. 

So, why not record some of them here? 

BOOKISH

1. Read more classics. The thing I love about classics is that they've already been enjoyed and lauded by so many people, that they're almost guaranteed to be good! I would love to read more classics than just for class this year. 

2. Read more nonfiction. My reading choices have shifted a lot in the past year, where I'm starting to branch out from more than just YA Fantasy (though that is still one of my favorite genres!). One of the areas where I showed particular growth was in the realm of nonfiction... I want to learn more about the culture, history, and people of the world around me! 

3. Complete a challenge. And more than just the Goodreads Challenge this year! (Though I am still doing that, too... I'm gunning for 77!) There are so many great challenges for pushing yourself out of your readerly comfort zone... and it doesn't have to be anything as daunting as the Rory Gilmore Challenge, either. I really like the look of Popsugar's 2016 Reading Challenge for a comprehensive way to get myself reading more adventurously this year. 

4. Revisit the books I loved as a kid. There are so many great titles I read cover-to-cover, over and over again, as a kid... back before I realized there was more to the world than the scant books I had gathered on my bookshelf. Some of these tomes get a regular reading workout from me - like The Phantom Tollbooth - but others, like the Harry Potter series, I haven't read in years... and for a while, that was all I read. I think it's time for a revisit. 

BLOGGISH

5. Review more mediums... cookbooks, magazines, etc. At the very beginning of starting this blog, I had some pretty lofty goals for myself, in terms of what kind of content I wanted to produce, especially content that differed from other bloggers. I mentioned wanting to explore my love of cookbooks as early as my very first blog post, and my love of fashion hasn't waned with the end of my College Fashion editorship. I think the time has long since arrived that I start to bring more of the things I like into my blog!

6. Find a better balance of pictures and words. I know, I know, as is probably evident with this post, as well, I am a bit word-reliant with my blog, and I know that doesn't exactly always make you want to read it. Trust me, I'm trying to get better. Besides, one of my personal Resolutions includes taking more pictures anyways!

7. Create a more organized space. The organization of this blog can sometimes be a little hectic... I don't make the best use of my overhead tabs, and there really should be more efficient means of navigating. How can I expect people to read my posts if they're hard to find?

WRITERLY

8. Write for something other than Playing in the Pages. I've officially gone a year with not writing for College Fashion, and I've been looking for more ways to publish the things I have to say than just on my own platform. Finding somewhere else to reach out to people would go a long ways in not just beefing up my resume, but making me feel like I'm actually, well, a "real" writer.

9. Finish my book. I said it time and again after NaNoWriMo was over at the end of November 2014... I was going to box that manuscript up and put it away for at least a year, because I didn't want to read those words for a long time. Well, it's been over a year now, and even I'm getting a little curious as to how the whole thing turned out. Time to reopen that Word doc!

10. Journal when I want to. I was a rabid journal-enthusiast from about sixth grade through my sophomore year of college... the beat-up composition notebooks I carried around with me were as good an indicator of my physical presence as my actual body. However, I got burnt out and jaded from writing the same things day in and day out, and needed a better outlet for my feelings than just my daily life... thankfully, after a year of writing in a much more comprehensive planner, I no longer feel the need to write down the immediate happenings, and and much more interested in exploring deeper themes and issues in my life. It just doesn't have to be every day.

What are your Top Ten? What is your Goodreads goal for this year? Let me know, in the comments below!