January Book Haul: Book Outlet Has All of the Titles, With Only Slightly Less Guilt

Here's how Book Outlet traps you: you remember that it exists.

Chances are, this is happening around the same time that you notice a book on your Goodreads that you've been meaning to pick up lately. Innocently, you check to see if it's offered on Book Outlet. They're selling a hardcover copy for under $7?!! This book was released within the last two years, and they're practically giving it away! 

Now, of course, you have to see what else they're selling. 

Two hours later - and twenty seven tabs closed on your laptop browser as you've been weighing and measuring each of the titles that originally caught your eye, ranking them into lists of what you genuinely want to read before counting them alongside their Goodreads average, finally only placing them into your cart when you know for certain they're in your "must haves" - you're cheerfully informed that your order has been placed. 

Clearly, your girl has some issues with making the most of what she has already. I'm rolling over 100 books deep in my TBR shelves, make at least one trip to the library a month, and now, I'm eight books richer! Somebody sedate me. 

Not that this takes away any ounce of the excitement I feel over the books I ended up purchasing, of course! Let the haul commence: 

Reasons to Stay Alive, Matt Haig

Novelist Matt Haig's first nonfiction work details his experiences with depression, including his near-attempt on his own life at 24 years old while standing at the edge of a cliff.  

I've had my eye on this book for a while, but have waffled a little bit in the past, due to decisions over whether it's the first book of Haig's I should try approaching. It's a Sunday Times bestseller, but Haig is already an accomplished novelist, and his other titles have floated across my TBR list at various times, too. My reservations about picking this one up have actually risen again after purchasing... the book itself is formatted quite spaciously, and the content inside is very accessible, so it will be a quick read, at the very least. Maybe use it in a readathon? 

You Should Have Left, Daniel Kehlman, translated from German by Ross Benjamin

Detailing the contents of a writer's notebook, over the course of seven harrowing days he spends renting a house in the mountains of Germany with his wife and daughter, as he attempts to generate a screenplay while quickly going insane. 

One of two different translations on this list, which is a new and exciting concept for me, as I think the last translations I've tried in the past couple of years have all been poetry-related. And I haven't read a novella in a hot minute, either. In fact, the real reason this one was on my radar was two-fold: 1. I saw it on someone's bookstagram account and it looked neat, and 2. A negative review of it on Goodreads described it as a "majorly streamlined version of Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves," which is one of my favorite Horror novels of all time. Here's the thing, though: House of Leaves succeeds, in my view, because of its impressively engrossing and comprehensive world-building... so how is a pared-down version of the concept going to read, especially in such few pages? 

The City of Brass (Daevabad #1), S. A. Chakraborty

An eighteenth-century con woman and thief somehow accidentally sets free a dark djinn warrior, leading both of them to flee across Egypt, seeking Daevabad, the lost City of Brass. However, even if they manage to find it, there is no guarantee that they will be welcome there... 

So, Book Outlet isn't the only place I like to pick up my reads at a significant discount: Tacoma is home to quite a few authors, book bloggers, bookstagrammers, and more, and for some reason, all of their old, past-publication ARCs end up appearing on King's Books $1 discount table. This is where I ended up committing a major bookish faux pas late last year, when I picked up a copy of Kingdom of Copper for a buck, when I hadn't even purchased, let alone read, City of Brass yet. Now, I have both, and plan on reading them this summer! 

I Miss You When I Blink, Mary Laura Philpott

Found on multiple "Best Books of the Year" lists for 2019, this collection of essays from notable writer Philpott follows as she achieves the touchstones of a happy marriage, a fulfilling job, a beautiful house, and even children, only to find that she's... still not as happy as she'd thought she'd be. 

Reason #1 I actually ended up definitively clicking "purchase" on this Book Outlet order. I have tried to purchase this book from, literally, FOUR different bookstores in the past year, and every single time, they've been sold out. I was totally willing to pay full price and everything, even though it was a recent release and hardcover! So, shout out to Sunriver Books, Paulina Springs Books, and Barnes and Noble - twice! - for helping me save a ton of money. 

(Oh, and of course it's only in the course of writing this post, that I open it up and recognize it's a SIGNED COPY. And I got it for under $7!) 

The Last Romantics, Tara Conklin

A novel about the power of family and stories, in which a writer, when asked about the genesis of her most powerful work, details the inspiration she found in her relationship with her siblings, in the house where they grew up together. 

This novel was a fan favorite of some of my favorite bookstagrammers in the past year, which is the primary reason I picked it up, despite the fact that I don't actually know that much about it... nor do I read too many pieces of contemporary fiction. Also, I keep getting this title confused with The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin, which was also highly reviewed this past year, and I figured if I just suck it up and read one of them, I'll be able to tell them apart more easily. 

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton

A twisting thriller that has been likened to Gosford Park / Downton Abbey in conjunction with Groundhog Day / Quantum Leap - aka, so many good things - where a mysterious party is destined to end in a brutal murder, that repeats itself each night, unless someone can solve the crime. 

I know, I know, I know what you're going to say: "Savannah, it's Seven AND A HALF. Not just seven." Sure, in the US release. As it turns out, I must have gotten my hands on a UK edition, where the number really is seven (the title was changed in order not to cause confusion with another popular recent title, Taylor Jenkins Reid's The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo). The best part of buying this book on Book Outlet, is that I actually just gave a different copy to my best friend for her Christmas present, too, so now we can read it together! 

Vita Nostra (Метаморфозы #1), Marina and Sergey Dyachenko, translated from Russian by Julia Meltov Hersey

Originally published in Ukraine in 2007, this book - following a girl, who ventures to a maddening, mysterious school, after being confronted on the beach by stranger while on vacation - is one of the best-selling Russian Fantasy novels of all time. 

And it is a thick, tightly-formatted behemoth! 

I heard about this read from a YouTube video of recommendations recently, and I was immediately intrigued. I had encountered it nowhere else, in any context, but something about the fact that it was translated from Russian really grabbed me, as well as the astonishingly dark and foreboding descriptions in its reviews. It only has about 4,000 ratings on Goodreads at the moment - with a 4.11 average! - and to say I am totally excited to go in completely blind to this crazy Fantasy novel is an absolute understatement. Plus, Lev Grossman did a blurb for it, so you know it has to be at least a little awesome.

Paperback Crush: the Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction, Gabrielle Moss

A quirky, nostalgic history of a sub-genre that has been, for many, a cultural touchstone of girlhood. From sick lit to horse lit, to all-girls schools and babysitting clubs, to terrifying stalkers and angel boyfriends, these books represent a unique perspective on girl-power at a crucial stage of growing up. 

The #2 reason I knew I had to actually follow through with this book order!

I have been searching for this book for months - after hearing about it, I think, on an episode of one of my favorite bookish podcasts, Sh*t She Read, in which readers revisit books from their youth - and I could not believe that I was not only lucky enough to find it on Book Outlet, but that it was the only one left in stock! This thing is thick, and comes very close to venturing into coffee table book territory... which is where you might be able to find it this summer, which is when I plan on reading it (in honor of the time of year when you could most likely find me read these kinds of books!). Best of all: there's a section dedicated to R.L. Stine's Fear Street. 

What books have you hauled recently? What's been your biggest Book Outlet score? Let me know, in the comments below!

I Read 13 Books in December: What I Learned, and How I'm Tackling My Goodreads Challenge in 2020

November 30th, 2019, I was staring down the barrel of a December so jam-packed full of events and obligations, it seemed on the brink of collapse.

There was "Cookie Day," really a two-day period where my mom and I annually slam out up to 15 batches of cookies to prepare for the Christmas season. My brother, a senior in high school, had not one, but two holiday band concerts, each longer than two hours (one nearly eclipsed three). We have a gauntlet of family holiday celebrations, and even more when you factor in friends, as well as a lot of church time. To cap it all off, my parents, brother, and I would be leaving on vacation for the last four days of the year.

Most importantly... I still had 13 books left to read on my Goodreads Challenge. It would be my first year - since starting the challenge in 2013 - I wouldn't beat it!

In general, 2019 wasn't my year, at all, and this abysmal performance (in my view) only confirmed it. I've read as many as 77 books in a year before; my goal for 2019 was a good 16 below that number. I had deliberately chosen 60 with the expectation that I'd rise up to meet it, by choosing harder books, difficult subjects, a more wide-spanning, inspiring realm of authors. Instead, I didn't really read for two months out of the year, and now was facing down not only a rapidly diminishing calendar, but also had found myself in self-esteem quicksand. (You know, late night thoughts along the lines of, If I'm not a reader, who am I? That kind of not-so-healthy stuff.)

There was only one way out of this mess: I had to read all of those books before the new year rolled around. I had to beat the deadline. I had to win! However, this required a lot of commitment and choice. Was I really up for the challenge?

To be clear: I spent the entire month in a near panic, trying to juggle not only time calendar commitments and regular life events, but also terrified that at any point, I could sink back into a major slump that would take me out of commission entirely. The last thing I'd look at before bed every night, was the stack of books on my table. I even stopped recording what I was reading in my book journal, because I just wanted to get it input into Goodreads as quickly as possible. I was a woman possessed!

At the end of it all, I successfully read 13 books in 31 days... with the final three being completed in the last three days of a year, while confined to a log cabin on an island with zero cell service and a stack of books beside my bed, which, you know, helped. (The same vacation that saw me picking up nine more TBR books, like I talked about here! More on all that in a later post, though.)

Here are a few of the tricks I learned along the way:

on a time crunch? how to achieve a last-minute goal before a final deadline

• Clarify your intentions: Why is it important to you? Why did you choose this goal to begin with? Are these still reasons that resonate with you? 
• Understand your limitations: Consider what aspects of this goal you might stumble with, and make proactive decisions based on those specific vulnerabilities. 
• Take things step-by-step: One day, one hour, one book, at a time! Do as much as you can with the time available to you right now, focusing all of your attention on the immediate steps in front of you. You'll have plenty of time to worry about what comes next later. 
• Get strict, or find people who are, and hold yourself accountable: Turn off your phone, charge your laptop on the other side of the room, send yourself to "time out" by setting timer blocks on your tech. 
• Make it a regular priority: Say "no" to the things you deem as less important... within reason. But when it comes to those things you opt into, make sure you're putting actions towards your goal first. 
• Reward yourself with progress: When you're on a crunch, there's no time to applaud the milestones. Focus on what benefits lay in actually making the progress on its own, and use it as fuel to drive you further towards the finish line! 

Lovely words, you know? But when it comes to utilizing those tips to actually manage a Goodreads win, here's what it looked like: 

"Clarifying my intentions" had a lot less to do with the statement "I need to win," than it did with admitting, "I don't need to do this. No one is forcing me. I want to prove it to myself that I can." External accountability is great if you can find it, but when it comes to personal accountability, you need to focus hard on the "why"s, and the emotional investment you feel. 

In terms of "understanding my limitations" and "getting strict," it had a lot more to do with understanding what's bogged me down in the past. For the most part? Long, uninspiring books that prevent me from enjoying my reading time, feeling too loyal to a bad read, and distracting myself with social media and YouTube, for the most part. Instead, I started choosing books that were under 350 words and were in some of my favorite genres, including rereads - "power player" books like Romances, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, and Memoir - and took a lot more care to get away from my phone. 

The most important three were, by far, "taking things step by step," "making it a priority," and "rewarding myself with progress." It's difficult, to make yourself happy simply with the fact you've made it another page, or twenty, or a hundred, knowing that you've still got another stack of books waiting for you as soon as you're done with this one. So I broke it into chunks, saying, "Today, I just need to finish 50 pages. 100 pages. Whatever it takes, that's my priority." I had already admitted to myself that it was okay if I didn't make my end goal; but by establishing that 50 page limit, I assured that no matter how small, I was still making progress. That made it all the more exciting when I did get to the end of a book, or read past my personal marker: it felt like I was going above and beyond. 

So, those are my last minute models for success, should you need them in the moment. However, all of that is so 2019... we're now in 2020, and a new Challenge looms far off in the distance. 

Here's what I'm doing to set myself up better in the new year, while also aligning with my other reading goals:

tips for reading challenge success in 2020

• Be specific and intentional with your goal setting. Don't just arbitrarily pick a number because you think it looks good, or because it's what you've done in the past... what are you really trying to accomplish this year? If your intention is to become more "well read," but you set a challenge to read 100 books in 2020, are you really aiming to meet your goals, or just have an impressive challenge? 
• Celebrate your TBR for its status as a work-in-progress. Clean up your bookish spaces, and make room in your common areas for a stack or two of books you're genuinely excited to read. Consider "un-hauling" your shelves, to bring books you really love more into prominence. The more you see it on a daily basis, the more you remember its importance in your life. 
• Take things month-by-month. Yes, this is similar to my blind December dash's "step-by-step" advice, but by broadening out those goals over the course of the year, you make more healthy, incremental steps towards your challenge, rather than cramming it all into one go. Set a standard for a certain number of books a month, and delight in the process. 
• Keep your books available around the clock. Admittedly, I'm horrible at this: I'm number one most likely member of a party to get roped into shopping, waiting for a table at a restaurant, or arriving early to a meeting, and thinking, "Man, I should have brought my book!" Make it the last thing you put into, and the first thing you take out of, your bag; keep it close to your desk or your bedside table. You never know when you'll have time to read! This will come in handy as you...
• ... Find your small pockets of time. Sometimes, it's easy to think, "When can I do this? I'm so busy!" But once you start tracking where those minutes go, you'll find you have ample opportunities to fit in a quick read. Waiting for your brother after French horn practice? Got 30 minutes on the oven while waiting for your cupcakes to bake? If you've got your book with you, those are valuable minutes! 
• Celebrate your reading goals. Okay, okay, because sometimes celebrating just the progress can get kind of boring! When I was younger, I'd routinely pass my Goodreads Challenge somewhere around August, and immediately ring in the glory with a few new reads, and now that I'm an adult, I celebrate my bloggoversary every summer by doing the same. Go, team you! Sometimes, those little rewards are what keep you going. 
• Keep up with your Goodreads account! Obviously, you have to log in the titles you read to get them to appear on your Challenge board, so you've probably seen the handy ticker on your home page, telling you how many books you are behind or in front of your goal. At one time last year, I had fallen SEVEN books behind... keep up with the scoreboard you're given! 

What was your Goodreads Challenge like last year? How are you prepping for this year? Let me know, in the comments below!

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Recent Additions to My TBR Shelves

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

First off, let's start this return to the Top Ten Tuesday format with a little honesty: these are not, technically, the most recent ten additions to my bookshelf. 

That honor belongs to my most recent Book Outlet order, completed just two weeks after the year had started out in earnest; however, this being the nature of the Internet's delivery systems, despite the fact that I have paid for them and that they are on my way, I don't actually have them physically placed on my TBR shelves as of yet.

So. Am I stretching this particular piece of information out to mean that I plan on doing two haul posts within the month of January... kicking off a year where, once again, I have vowed to attempt to read more of my own previously purchased material before going out and picking up more? Yes, yes I do.

(Oh, and spoiler alert: nine out of ten of these books were picked up while on vacation - in a quiet island town, where my family rang in the new year at midnight with the ominous snapping of dead tree branches, while the wind swept through the dark forests ringing our cozy log cabin - so get excited to hear more about that particular bookish destination later this month!)

Bookstore #1 - New

1. At Bertram's Hotel, Agatha Christie
My first of four - four! - Agatha Christies purchased on this vacation. I have no excuse, other than the fact that I was clearly in the mood for a good mystery, and the cover was not only a brilliant shade of mustard, but also, decked with a stocked three-level tea tray, which is always a welcome sight, in my life. I've finished this one already!

2. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Natasha Pulley
Okay, also a choice based on cover: it's stunning in all of its antique-y, enticing jade-colored glory. Also, I recognized the name as one I'd been meaning to read for a while. Sometimes, that's all you really need, to have a good day in a bookstore.

Bookstore #2 - Used

3. They Came to Baghdad, Agatha Christie
What do you want me to say? They were a little over two bucks, and I've collected Agatha Christie novels since middle school. Clearly my subconscious wants me back in the game; coincidentally, I've started chowing down Hot Tamale candies again, which was another hallmark of my sixth grade year. What is twelve-year-old Savannah trying to tell me??

4. A Murder is Announced, Agatha Christie
Obviously the most beautiful cover out of all three of the used copies... so foreboding.

5. Death in the Clouds, Agatha Christie
Two bucks, you guys! I bought three at the used bookstore, for still less than the price of one at the new place! I had to! Leave me alone!

6. The Bone Season, Samantha Shannon
Again, a brilliant cover - such a gorgeous shade of true blue, with a really nice texture to the physical copy - accompanying a title I recognized as one I've been meaning to pick up. My system may be flawed, but it's rarely failed me!

7. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Barbara Kingsolver
So, as those who know me well are already aware of, I had my first-ever real, true garden last year, and it was one of the greatest projects of my life thus far. I enjoyed a summer of long, impressive Japanese cucumbers, substantial yellow squash, verdant basil, and entirely too many cherry tomatoes for us to actually eat on time, and I'm already gearing up for planting again this Spring. Kingsolver, on the other hand, makes my little kitchen garden look like kindergarten macaroni art, as she and her family vow to only eat fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat produced from her own neighborhood for a year.

8. My Antonia, Willa Cather
After enjoying Trials of the Earth, by Mary Mann Hamilton, this past summer, I knew that at some point, my 2020 would have to contain another really great pioneer-woman angle to read. I figured, why not try out a classic?

9. Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, Mary Norris
As an ardent admirer of those who routinely solve the punctuation and grammar issues of others, I'm not only excited to read this one, but also, when I'm finished, pass it along to my comma-lacking Dad.

Not a Bookstore - On Lend from the Local Library

10. Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best Life, Ali Wong
Just days after I returned from our family vacation, I checked my email to find that a library hold for an ebook I'd placed - back when I ranked over #20 in line - had finally become available. I finished it by the following day!

What's in your Top Ten? Let me know, in the comments below!

Look Back At It: My 2019 Year In Review!

Whew, boy! 2020 sure came in with a bang, didn't it?

Now, we've found ourselves already two weeks in, I've read one and a half books so far, and I haven't even managed to string together enough letters, sentences, and paragraphs to publish a blogpost in over a month.

Let's change that, and take a look at my Year in Books for 2019! Trust me... there's a lot of ground to cover.

All in all, it's not my best work: My total is a little over 1,250 pages behind what I read last year. I also have an average number of pages-per-book that falls about seven pages lower than the same average last year, as well, so that would also affect those numbers.

I read substantially more Nonfiction this year, which can be explained by the number of Memoirs I picked up for NaNoWriMo (but more on that in a minute). As a result, I read less Fiction, and that includes both Graphic Novels and Romance Novels, which I've seen a lot more of in the past two years of my reading.

My shortest novel wasn't as short as it was last year, and my longest read is almost a hundred pages shorter than last year's longest, too. But neither of those stats mean much to me... what actually ended up drawing my attention was my ratings preferences: On average, last year, I ranked books at a 3.9 out of 5 stars, and in recording that information, I thought that it seemed pretty high. This year, the number came out as 4.2. Are my ratings slipping, or am I just getting too easily amused?

But those are just the numbers. Let's talk about some of my greatest reading trends in the past year:

First book haul of 2019... on January 10th.

I Still Can't Stop Buying Books 

I made one of my mini-reading resolutions for 2019 to stop buying so many books, due to the 147 books left unread on my TBR shelves as of December 2018. Contrary to that decision, the number has only ballooned higher... especially when I kicked off January and February 2019 by purchasing 13 more new reads from Book Outlet and Goodwill, using the excuse that three were for gifts. Of those ten left, I've only read four across the entire year. Math has never been my strong suit, but even I know that's ridiculous. And again, that was just the first two months of the year.


Style and Content Updates... and Other Excuses 

You might have noticed - but probably not, we're all busy - my prolonged absences from this writing space in the past year. This led to, no doubt, my worst blogging year on record, with most months seeing only between 1 and 3 posts published, especially in the second half of the year. This was from a number of decisions on my part: you see, I was desperately trying to find a "reason" for my blog.

My style guide, which I actually love.

My decision to start an Instagram handle for this blog in mid-2018, had gotten me thinking more proactively about marketable elements like theming, design, and audience. By February of 2019, I was determined to give this space a bit of a fresh start, by creating my own take on such hits as an "ideal audience member" and a "style guide," leading to a total website refresh. I thought if things looked more deliberate and put together, it would attract more people to read it... or at least, that's what all those Internet PR classes on Skill Share had convinced me.

To be fair, they were right, as having a specific audience in mind, and a compelling website design, can absolutely help build a comprehensive brand; however, that's not what builds an audience: links, clicks, authentic voice, and, you know, regular post publishing do. That's not what I was focusing on. At that point, I think I was just looking for a reason to stay on this platform, and I thought making it pretty would help.

The truth came to light in July, as I confessed - on Playing in the Pages' Ninth Birthday, no less - that I had been considering eliminating this blog entirely. That post was the first time I'd written since May. The ironic thing is, I spend a good deal of it lamenting how my attention had been so skewed towards creating something "shareable" or resume-worthy, that I had stopped feeling genuine or reading books I found worth posting about, and vowing to turn this space back into something personal and fun... when in actuality, I spent the rest of the year doing the opposite of that!

The only posts that made the cut for the rest of the year, were either general reviews - delivered piecemeal in wide batches, so that none of their individual titles felt all that worthy - or large, in-depth coverage of specific authors I enjoyed (for a favorite: read my deconstruction of Happy Ending tropes, by way of my latest "Reading Romance" series installment here). While they are, in my humble opinion, pretty good, they were daunting to write, and all the less enjoyable for which to plan and read. My profiles on Jasmine Guillory's accessible takes on Intersectional Feminism, or Taylor Jenkins Reid's ability to translate the personal and impersonal through what I called Mediated Intimacy, are definitely among some of my more comprehensive and formal writing on this platform, they also helped turn off those parts of my brain that were just reading for a good time, and turned my writing into... a product.

Which honestly didn't make me want to read at all, let alone write.

Some of the slump advice I compiled.

Readchella Weekend... aka, a Read-a-thon for One 

I found a brief respite in my slump-after-slump hit parade this year around the middle of April. I was already lagging behind on my Goodreads Challenge, and felt like I needed a boost... besides, it was a rare free weekend for me, and if I didn't use it to my best advantage, chances were someone else would fill my schedule for me. It was only after a chance scrolling through my Instagram, that I recognized it was the first weekend of Coachella, and decided to go with a theme; hence, my own personal read-a-thon - or "Readchella," as I dubbed it - was born!

The four books I read that weekend ended up serving as not only the success I needed to get back into the groove of reading regularly (and among the first books I'd finished since February), but also became some of the only regular blog posts I uploaded this past Spring. With day-by-day updates detailing tips I'd found for beating a reading slump, or tracking through the progress I was making, or explaining the logic behind the reading recommendations that had actually helped, it made for a self-motivated activity that kept me accountable and focused on a specific goal, which ended up helping me regain my confidence in my favorite hobby... at least for a little while, before the next slump hit.


NaNoWriMo 2019 Raised the Stakes

By the time November rolled around, I was well and truly behind on my GR Challenge - into a double digit kind of level - but wasn't letting that dull my focus, which had resolutely shifted over to a different kind of annual effort: National Novel Writing Month. I was determined to try it again this year, and my focus was clearly set on writing at least a little bit of a Food Memoir, spurred on by the inspiration of dual Kathleen Flinn reads earlier in the year. I checked out a full stack of the genre from the library - at one point, picking up five holds on a Tuesday, and four more on a Wednesday - and decided that at the same time I was knuckling myself down to write, I'd be reading as much of the genre as possible.

But NaNo this year, ended up being a lot less than ideal. I was unprepared for how emotionally taxing and second-guess-inspiring writing personal-oriented Nonfiction would be, and it felt like none of the books I was reading were really helping me all that much. By the time I reached the end - limping across the finish line three days early, after writing nearly 9,000 words on my second-to-last-day just because I wanted to be done - I was even more burnt out than before, and seriously questioning my own motivations for both reading and writing.


I Really, Truly, Nearly Failed my Goodreads Challenge

As of December 1st, 2019, I was forced to confront an ugly truth: I was 13 - thirteen!! - books behind on my Goodreads Challenge for this past year. I had chosen the number 60, because it was actually much lower than goals I'd reached in the past, and I thought that by giving myself an easier target, it would free me up to make more daring and difficult reading choices.

While I did pick up a couple of hefty pieces of Nonfiction this year, this decision decidedly did not result in me challenging my genre choices; it challenged my ability to not annoy the dickens out of my family for the entire month of December. I mean, I read a total of three books in the last three days of 2019 alone, finishing the last one on New Year's Eve! Sure, I've come close before, but not that close.

And yes, you might be tempted to say that the Challenge is just a number, and it's more about personal motivation... but I've always been motivated by extrinsic values. Setting my goal is a choice I make with intention every year, an external factor that motivates me to take time for my favorite hobby every once in a while. I wasn't upset about lagging on my goal because not being a "winner" makes me sad, I was sad because I know that not regularly engaging in reading is a symptom of a greater part of my life that's been upset.

Needless to say, 2019 left me with a lot of thoughts about how things are going to proceed in the new year, in terms of not only my own personal reading goals, and writing focus, but also how I organize my life to my best advantage, a schedule that makes plenty of room and priority for reading and writing without judgement or hindrance.

---

Whew. Full disclosure: by the time anyone actually reads this post, it will have endured a few rigorous rounds of self-editing, because I'm being very candid about all of this: 2019 brought a lot of good into my life, but it was not my year in a very definitive sense, and that absolutely extends to the kinds of life priorities you see detailed here.

That being said, I am fully prepared to make my happiness - and my reading - a more substantial personal focus in 2020. Here are some of the ways I plan on doing so, as pertain to this blog:

Stop Taking My Own Online Spaces So Seriously 
I spent so much of the last year trying to make something of Playing in the Pages - be it a job-hunting asset, or a potential source of marketable writing material, or a social media boon - I really didn't acknowledge this space has been serving as a very special "something" to me already: my sandbox. I decide what goes here, how it's all built together, and whether it has to mean anything at all. In fact, it totally doesn't! When it comes down to it, some of my favorite blog material - like "Top Ten Tuesdays," personal challenges like "Readchella" or "book blind dates," and all of those damn planner posts - really aren't that marketable or portfolio-worthy, but they're the most fun to write!

And same thing with the Instagram: every second I spend trying to "grow my profile" has been one of abject misery. Once I stopped trying to optimize and filter every day of my presence there, and only really started using it to share things I thought were cool or show what I was spending my time reading, that I had a good experience. Similarly, once I stopped following accounts that made me feel negatively about my own reading abilities, living space, disposable income, etc., I was able to enjoy myself on that platform more.

Enjoy More Bookish Media 
I finally owned up to myself in the past year or so that I don't really love watching movies, and that is still a true statement. I don't like going to movie theaters, and if I binge more than three episodes of television at a time, my eyes will roll up into my head and give my brain a long, hard stare about what the hell it thinks it's doing.

But you know what was one of my favorite movies I watched in the past year? Brooklyn. Not only was it lovely, and emotional, and a testament to the book, but it was something I set out to do with deliberate intention, of watching a great adaptation after I had finished the book. You know what else was great? The Netflix series of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Both were something so out of my normal daily living, that they made a real impression... and I want to keep going.

I've been putting off watching the Good Omens television series, because of how much I dislike watching TV by myself, even though I heard it's great. I've been meaning to re-watch the '90s Secret Garden movie since I planted my garden last Spring, but haven't made the time. My little brother will be reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time this coming year, and I really want to watch the 2005 Keira Knightley version with him before he leaves for college. Adaptations are just as worthy as the stories they're based on, and I want to spend more time enjoying them, too.

Find the Fun in Reading Again 
I think the reason I took to Romance Novels so strongly last year, is because, on the whole, there is no reason for their existence simply beyond making sure their reader devotes a couple of hours out of their regular life and livelihood, to just sit down and enjoy themselves. There is no reason for Romance Novels - as a fluffy, lacy, frilly, guilty pleasure genre on the whole - to exist, beyond their uncanny, innate ability to make people really happy.

I always have fun reading them, but will put them off in favor of "less embarrassing" reading material. They rarely appear, if ever, on my Goodreads lists... but that's absolutely ridiculous. Maybe one of the reasons I've been struggling to hit my bookish stride, is because I'm doing things like this, that undercut my own ability to enjoy what I'm doing.

So, I'm searching for Fun, with a capital "F," in my reading this year. That doesn't mean I'm staying away for deep, meaningful, emotional material... it just means I'm leaving plenty of room for the happiness where I can. That means, reading new subjects in different places, enjoying them with tea, finding even more ways to share them with others, and feeling way less guilty about being pleased. 

Write More, Especially for NaNo 
NaNo 2019 was, as I mentioned, horrible. But it hasn't always been. There have been times when it has been freeing, to be selfish and take an hour to myself to write. It's been inspiring, leading me into new and grander daydreams with flights of fancy to grab hold to when walking around my daily life. NaNo has led to library research, Pinterest mood boards, recipe compilation, and a fair amount of too-long showers that run cold from how much I've been trying to puzzle a plot development out in my head.

The best thing I can do, I think, is write more. Find more time to carve out that place of exploration in my own head, and take charge of it for myself. And, of course, tackle NaNo again in the Fall, with a renewed confidence and a great plot line. 

Keep Free of Self-Judgement, and Look for Happiness Instead 
As someone who regularly has to contend with a lot of guilt, anxiety, fear, second-guessing, and self-destruction in her daily life - I'm Catholic, and the eldest of four siblings, and I am 26 and live at home with my parents and I spend a lot of time with my mom if that explains anything - it's really horrible that any of those negative emotions should end up leaking into the things I love, too. (You'd think that my ability to compartmentalize would come with more waterproof lining.)

So, I'll do my best to keep it out. Chances are, if I'm having trouble reading, then there's something else in my life out of whack; on the flip side, when my life balance starts leaning akimbo, there's nothing that balances me better than taking time to depressurize with a good book. I'll do my best to lean towards the happy. I'll open a blank doc and write something different; I'll walk to the library instead of driving; I'll take a break for a cup of tea, then come back and see if the world looks different, and try again. But I'll always be walking towards happy, if I can help it.


Again, I wasn't really intending for this post to get so personal, but what can I say? It's my first blog post in a while, and the first where I'm really trying to exercise that ability to be less guarded, and more honest with myself. Besides, if you've made it this far, chances are you're my Dad, my brother, or one of the few other trusted folks who've continued to read my blog through much worse than some moody self reflection.

Regardless of the reason as to why you're here, I'm happy you are. Thank you for listening, and I hope that you read some really great books this year.

What did your Year in Books look like in 2019? Have you set any reading intentions for 2020? Let me know, in the comments below!