Bookish Resolutions for 2020

Originally posted on 2/29/20.

A post about New Years resolutions posted on the last day in February. Yeah, that sounds about right for me. Let's get to it.

BOOKISH RESOLUTIONS FOR 2019 REVIEWED

Read fifty books. Well, we know how that one went.

Write the first draft of a book. Didn't do this either. I had a good idea for NaNoWriMo this year which I'm most likely still going to try to get to, but there were too many things going on in my life at the time (in particular, financial problems) that I just couldn't focus on it.

Write a short story. See above.

Visit the Hobbiton set in New Zealand. Did it! It was stupidly beautiful.

Visit El Ateneo Grande Splendid. Did it! Would have been perfect if they had a better English language section but I can't fault a bookstore in a foreign country for not catering to American tourists, especially since our bookstores don't exactly have the best foreign language sections.

Read one book a day for a week. Did it! It brought me out of a bad reading slump.

Publish one blog post every two weeks. Didn't do well with this one obviously. I'm going to try to do better this year, but it's still probably best to keep expectations low.

Get bookshelves set up wherever I wind up living. Did it, but somehow the three bookshelves I've set up so far are still not enough to hold all of my books. My biggest problem is my enormous collection of unread books, hence why I have a big reading goal this year.

Go to a book festival or convention. Kind of? So, I moved to Providence, RI and they are really into Lovecraft here. Like, I cannot walk anywhere without passing some monument to Lovecraft. So it's not surprising that they have a Lovecraftian festival here. There are a lot of interesting events going on during this festival including author panels and a Lovecraftian tea party, but the only thing I could afford were the vendor tables. I thought that would be fine because I essentially go to conventions for the shopping. In this case, I was unimpressed.

BOOKISH RESOLUTIONS FOR 2020

Read 100 books this year. I have so many unread books that I really need to either read or get rid of. I have never in my life read 100 books in a year. The closest I've ever got was 85. As of right now I'm up to seven, so I'm having kind of a slow start. But hope springs eternal.

Don't buy any new books until my birthday. I don't know why I'm bothering with this one because I've technically already broken it. I broke down and bought one book in January and one in February. But I'm doing my best to keep the number of new books down. I know that I'm going to want to buy books for my birthday, but after that I'll go back to enforcing the buying ban until I go to a literary festival.

Read one book a day for a week. I always have fun with this challenge so I'm doing it again.

Read books about writing and Pagan spirituality. Maybe this isn't a very good resolution because it's vague and isn't measurable, but I'm okay with phrasing it this way anyway. I want to get serious about pursuing writing, and part of that is researching how books are made and how people make a living writing. I've also been feeling disconnected with my own spirituality, so I want to read witchy books that will feed my soul.

Write 500 words every day. Doesn't matter what it's for. It could be for a blog post, or a short story, or a book, or a diary entry. I just want to create a habit of writing.

Go to a literary festival. There are two that I'm thinking of: the Brooklyn Book Festival or the New York City Comic Con. It all depends on whatever work schedule I have, my best friend's availability, and how much I want to spend on tickets.

And that's about it for this year. Less individual resolutions but the ones I have are big. Wish me luck, and hopefully it won't be two months until my next post.