It’s that time of year – reviewing what we read and wrote in 2018, and looking forward to next year! (Please, 2019…please be something to look forward to.)
The Highlights
First, the juicy bits: the numbers.
- Books read: 84
- Words written in fiction: 25,282
- Short stories finished: 2
- Novel progress: about 20% of a new one
- RPGs written (!): one one-page RPG
- Blog posts: 15
- Reviews: 10
Reading Details, and a Musing on Re-Reading
I set myself the goal of reading 52 books this year – a book a week felt like a good goal. I fell short by three last year at 49 – this year I smashed through the goal, ending at 84 books!
Once I knew I was on track to blow past my goal, I set myself an additional challenge: read 52 new books, not ones I’d re-read. (I am a chronic re-reader – more on that in a bit.) I managed that goal, too, with 54 new-to-me books in 2018.
I also set a personal goal of reading more books by marginalized authors this year, especially black authors. Last year, I read an embarrassing TWO books by black authors (4% of my total), and only four by authors of color in general. I also read few books with queer rep, which is important to me on a personal level.
| Category | # | % |
| Female author | 82 | 98% |
| Author of color | 24 | 29% |
| Black author | 10 | 12% |
| Queer author | 22 | 26% |
| Female MC | 66 | 79% |
| MC of color | 21 | 25% |
| Queer MC | 16 | 19% |
| Queer rep | 34 | 40% |
Generally, much better! Mostly books by women with women as main characters. I read 24 books (29%) by authors of color, of which 10 (12%) were by black authors. This is a significant improvement over last year – and furthermore, some of those books were among my favorite I read this year! The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton and The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin quickly became top favorites of mine.
These numbers are even better when I look at just the books I’ve read for the first time this year – 40% authors of color, 18% black authors, 91% female main characters, and 55% queer rep. This pointed out something important to me: I love re-reading books, but since what I’ve read historically has been less diverse than I’d like. Because of this, re-reads crowd my reading space with their lack of diversity. It’s something I’ll be paying attention to in the future – I don’t think I need to stop re-reading books, I just need to add to my store of books I want to read over and over again.
I found similarly interesting things when I looked at the genres of just new books versus what I read over all:
I knew I read a TON of romance this year, but I didn’t realize it had made up 64% of all new books I read! This is a big contributing factor to why I read so many books with queer and female main characters – a few were f/f romances, but a huge chunk of those books were the Beyond series by Kit Rocha, which is a wonderfully uninhibited post-apocalyptic kinky romance series with characters best described as a “bisexual love army”. (If you’re as delighted and surprised to find out that post-apocalyptic romances exist – Romancelandia will welcome you just like it welcomed me. There are snacks and happily ever afters and plenty of everything to go around. (Seriously, the romance community is awesome and I’m so glad to have found them.)
All in all, it was a good year of reading for me. I found a new genre I liked, and found amazing new authors in genres I’ve loved for years.
Writing for Fun – Next Year for Profit?
I wrote some things this year! Which is good – I don’t thrive unless I’m writing. Some of what I wrote was blog posts, obviously. I’m pleasantly surprised that I managed to post 10 reviews and 5 (now six) additional blog posts this year, because there were long stretches of inactivity on the blog. It’s been a fun experiment that I think I’ll continue.
I also wrote two (and a half) short stories this year, not counting a bunch of writing prompts I didn’t pursue further than the initial draft. None of the stories are available to read anywhere (yet) because I’ve actually submitted them to some magazines in hopes of having them published! If that ever happens, trust me, I’ll be yelling about it. I’m pretty happy with both stories, but if they don’t sell after some as-yet- undetermined number of submissions, I’ll post them here.
To my own surprise and delight, I also wrote a one-page RPG this year! I have yet to post it because I haven’t gotten to playtest it, but that will hopefully change soon. It’s called A Baby’s Gotta Do, and it aims to let you tell stories together in the vein of Rugrats. I’m really proud of it, tbh.
In novel world, I started a new one and have about 20% of the first draft written. It’s been a new process for me (because I can’t write using the same process twice I guess?), but it’s been working out pretty well so far! I’m not bored of the story, I haven’t discovered any major plot holes yet, and every time I’ve gotten stuck, I’ve eventually decided it’s because that scene needs to be kicked to the curb. Maybe I’ll even finish this one! That’s the plan…
What’s Next?
Next year, I’m going to keep the same reading goal – 52 books, one a week. I’d like to keep to under 25% re-reads, OR hit the 52 book goal with only new books, whichever seems achievable. Rereads are actually pretty important to my mental health, so I’m not going to arbitrarily force myself not to have them. The overall goal felt good this year – not so low that it’s trivial, not so high that I had to stress myself to hit it.
What I’d like to step up is my writing, blog posts and fiction and tabletop RPGs. I’d like to write an average of two blog posts a month, at least one of which is a review. This isn’t a huge leap from this year, and I think it’s achievable.
I have A Baby’s Gotta Do all written and laid out – next year, I’d like to post it and see other people playing it. Other people playing a game I wrote would be wild. I’ve also just started working on a full-fledged tabletop RPG – I’d love to make progress on that next year.
In fiction writing, I’m going to push myself. I want to write at least one short story a month – and submit them all for publication. Obviously, it’d be great if any of them were accepted, but I’ll settle for submitting every single one. This part of my goals for next year really scares me, and that’s telling me it’s a good stretch.
I also want to finish this novel in 2019. I’ve never fully finished a draft of a novel – I came really close once, but I hated the last 40,000 words or so and shouldn’t have forced it. I’ll keep plugging away, and hopefully have something to show for it.
As with most people, 2018 has felt years long for me, and yet without enough time to accomplish my goals. Here’s to 2019: let’s suck less and make more stuff.
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