I fully intended to post these recaps every month, but have definitely been falling short of that, so I’ve been getting them posted as I get around to writing them.
Old Goals
Lately, a lot of my time has been prioritized to new tasks around the house (for example, we now have chickens, and are working on setting up a hugelkultur garden). Despite that, I have been slowly plugging away at the goals I set back in March (read the post here).
- Monday and Wednesday 5AM work nights, Wednesday dedicated ONLY to reading or writing
- Book reviews updated and posted on Goodreads and StoryGraph
- Read Age of War
- Re-timeline my story (I want to update my story outline/ timeline with what I have actually written, they’re very similar but a little off right now. Also, I’m thinking that this will get me back into working on the Story, while not letting my reading affect my writing.)
Continue reading to know what worked and what didn’t these past few months, or skip down to read my new goals for June 2021.
June Recap
Progress on my goals was spotty, but positive overall.
WORKNIGHTS – I still tend to slip into using all my time on household tasks, but dedicating Wednesday work nights to just reading or writing has been very helpful and I will definitely continue to do it. I won’t ever be perfect in this dedication, but I’m sure I’ll slowly get better at it because of the obvious help that it is.
POST REVIEWS – this had mixed success. Before I put my reviews up on Goodreads and StoryGraph, I wanted to make sure that they were presented in a uniform manner. This led me down a rabbit hole of figuring out how I wanted things ordered in the review copy, and getting the Blog to present the reviews better, which led to more Blog copy work elsewhere, and eventually to rehashing a part of my review process. All that said, I have made a lot of progress on this goal but haven’t achieved it yet because all that progress was on unexpected aspects of it. I’ll continue adding this to my goal list unit it’s done, but I’m feeling good about where I’m at with it and what I’ve gotten done, especially compared to the months where I had no progress at all with this.
READ – I finished reading Age of War in early June (read the review here), and have started the fourth book in Sullivan’s The Legends of the First Empire series – Age of Legend. A lot of this was only possible because I was pretty diligent with my goal of dedicating Wednesday worknights to only reading or writing. I’d like to finish Age of Legend this Month and will definitely be able to if I continue to set aside my Wednesday worknights for it.
WRITE – I completely didn’t do this. I did some bits of writing with a different story that randomly surfaces in my brain, but didn’t actually touch my WIP (Work In Progress). And I’m OK with this, especially because of my progress with reading, and the fact that I’ve taken on an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) of Mark McGinn’s Home Truths that I need to review by August 11th … because TBRs (To Be Read lists) are meant to grow indefinitely. I also have a few other books that I want to read soon and not let sit on my TBR for years, like books usually do, so I’m at a point where I really want to knock out some books instead of knock out some writing.
New Goals
Looking forward to the rest of July, I’m going to be working on the following goals:
- Reviews – finish rehashing and reorganizing reviews and get them posted on Goodreads, StoryGraph, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.
- Read – finish Age of Legend
- ARC – read Home Truths and have review posted on August 11th
- Blog – set up email host (because I’ve had this blog up for 1 year, and still haven’t gotten that done)
I’m excited to be doing the ARC review of Home Truths, so that will definitely take priority as soon as I finish reading Age of Legend. Other than that, the actual order of these goals is whatever happens whenever.
Have you ever had any books surprise you and jump to the top of your TBR?