2015 Bookish Resolutions

Resolutions aren't really my thing, I guess. For all I'm an expert procrastinator, I think my procrastination skills are still beat by my ability to outright forget things. Add to that my tendency in recent years to be easily overwhelmed and distracted, and the resolve aspect of New Year's Resolutions kind of flies right out the window.

So here's what I meant to do in 2014, compared to what I actually did.

Catch up on my ARCs.

Despite hoping to make this my "#1 priority" for the beginning of 2014, this didn't happen. I certainly got a few read, but nowhere near as much as I wanted. The biggest hurdle here is being overwhelmed; I still have too many and that, coupled with my tendency to view them as one huge thing to be tackled instead of a bunch of little things, makes me anxious and, by extension, disinterested when I think about getting back to them.

This will be something that stays on my list for 2015.

Read at least fifty books I actually own.

Well, after double-checking, I actually did much better than I thought on this one! I read twenty nine books I own this year. Admittedly, a good 95% percent of those were rereads, but... still better than I expected.

I'll be keeping something similar to this on my list for 2015, I think. I own so many damn books!

Finish Sparrow.

This is kind of a weird one. I set Sparrow aside at the beginning of August 2014, having written a total of one hundred and twenty thousand words. Despite the rambling nature of the story, I quite enjoyed writing it--which I did, as a NaNoer would say, as a "pantser"--but it just wasn't sustainable.

After setting it aside in August, I took what I had and wrote up a much more concise outline to use for the second draft. I don't think that's going to be my project for 2015, but I intend to get to it at some point in the future. Could be this year, could be next. Who knows?

Write a cumulative 350,000 words.

I haven't actually finished tallying my words yet; it's a project I'm still slowly chipping away yet. Right now, though, I'm hovering at just beneath 200,000 words, and I've got at least another thirty thousand to add. I don't, however, expect to reach 350,000... maybe 300,000 by the time I'm finished counting?

I think I'll aim for 250,000 this year.

Read at least two hundred books.

I fell short again this year, unfortunately. I read only one hundred and fifty nine books in 2014, and a third of that was rereads.

I think I'll aim for two hundred again, but at this point, I'll just be happy to see my count go up for once instead of down.

Comment on other book blogs.

Yeah, this had a chance of actually being accomplished. /s

Empty out my Pocket.

I don't think I read a single thing from my Pocket this year. I mean, I'm sure I probably did, but if I did, I can't remember what.

Publish a blog post every weekday.

I did extremely well with this for the first few months of the year, but my drive fizzled out sometime in May, I think. But for several months, I was publishing something every day of the week, which was pretty awesome.

I'd like to try this one again in 2015, but I'd like to try to make sure I'm scheduling in advanced this time around.

Procrastinate less when it comes to reviewing.

Nope! I mean, if you want to count those first few months, then sure, but there's still a lot of stuff that I meant to do in 2014 that I pushed back and back and right into the New Year. I'm lame.

Catching up on my backlog of reviews to write should be a 2015 resolution, I suppose.

Procrastinate less when it comes to reading.

Not on your life. This one times in with the ARC one, I guess, since those are the only books I actually feel obligated to read (though one could easily argue that I have some degree of an obligation to read books I own, too...). But since I barely managed to read anything this year, I'd hardly say I stopped procrastinating this year.

This is one I'm not going to be reattempting for 2015, as I think "read more" and "read your damn ARCs" kind of cover the gist.

Anyway, that's 2014. What about 2015?

1. Catch up on my ARCs. (And by extension, get my Netgalley up to 80%.)
2. Focus on reading books that I own; I have so many that they've long since overflowed my shelves, so I'd like to read enough of them that I can feel comfortable passing those I no longer want on to other readers. Since I'm an eternal dork, I'm going to be calling this "Project Get Shit on Shelves".
3. Write a cumulative 250,000 words (including book reviews, blog posts, journal entries, and fiction).
4. Read two hundred books.
5. Stick to my planned posting schedule here at Amara's Eden. I have specific things planned for specific days, and I'd like to stay on top of that for as long as possible. The whole year, ideally.
6. Complete both Camp NaNoWriMo 2015 sessions and NaNoWriMo 2015.
7. Complete at least the lowest level of all reading challenges I've signed up for.
8. Complete the transition from Goodreads to Leafmarks (i.e., finish transferring books, shelves, and reviews once and for all).
9. Read (and watch?) more horror this year. Horror is far and away my favorite genre, but I don't intake anywhere near as much of it as I'd like. I think I'd like to make 2015 the year I really delve into the genre!
10. Read five books published in 2015. I'm always excited when the GR Choice Awards come around, except that always involves me staring at a screen full of books I've never heard of, let alone read. I'd like to try to keep up with some trends this year, I think. Maybe check out some 2015 Listopia lists for ideas?

So that's what I'm hoping to do in 2015. Do you have bookish resolutions of your own for this year? Let me know in the comments below, and Happy New Year, everybody!