Tag: 2024 Retrospectives

January 2024 in Retrospect: What I Read/Listened to/Wrote About

Before I get into anything, I want to give a shout-out to the tech wizard behind all this, Micah Burke, who (seemingly effortlessly…but probably not) got this site updated and fixed overnight. Hopefully the comments that I inadvertently broke are back online–many other things behind the scenes are much improved, too. You’re a legend, sir. Check out his website, buy one of his pics, hire him for something…

I finished 17 titles (10 down from last month, 3 down from last January), with an equivalent of 5,655 pages or the equivalent (2,250 down from last month), and gave them an average of 3.89 stars (.1 up from last month). I’d realized that I was taking longer with most books this year, I just didn’t know it was that much slower. I’m okay with that number–I only track so I can see how I’m spending my time–it’s just strange for me. Another thing that stood out to me is that my Traditionally vs. Indie Published ratio isn’t what I hope for, but looking at my TBR for the year, that should level off.

Most of my writing was focused on 2023, but I tried to keep a hand in and an eye on 2024 as well, with decent results. I left a couple of items on the drawing board, but not enough that I care. All in all, I’m calling this a good month and a strong start for ’24 for myself and for this wee lil’ blog.

Now, next week something’s happening in that part of my life that pays for all this. I don’t know how that’ll impact my posting frequency or my reading and listening. I’m pretty sure it will…but what do I know? The last 3-4 times I’ve said something like this, no discernible change was visible. Stay tuned, I guess.

But let’s get back to January, here’s what happened around here:
Books/Novels/Novellas Read/Listened to

Book 3 of
The Azure
Archipelago
The Blacktongue Thief Miles Morales Suspended
4 Stars 4 Stars 3.5 Stars
The Tainted Cup Charm City Rocks Cultural Christians in the Early Church
5 Stars 4 1/2 Stars 4 Stars
The Book of Doors America Fantastica Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
4 Stars 2 Stars 4 Stars
Calculated Risks The Two Kingdoms Hacker
3.5 Stars 4 Stars 4 1/2 Stars
Prayers for Rain Death in the Dark Woods Planet Narnia
4 Stars 3 Stars 3.5 Stars
The City of Scales Dream Town
4 1/2 Stars 4 Stars

Still Reading

Glorifying and Enjoying God Word and Spirit Redemptive History & Biblical Interpretation
Institutes of Elenctic Theology Vol. 1 The Water and the Blood Didn't See That Coming

Ratings

5 Stars 1 2 1/2 Stars 0
4 1/2 Stars 3 2 Stars 1
4 Stars 8 1 1/2 Stars 0
3.5 Stars 3 1 Star 0
3 Stars 1
Average = 3.88

TBR Stacks/Piles/Heaps

Audio E-book Physical Goodreads
Want-to-Read
NetGalley
Shelf
End of
2023
6 47 68 152 5
1st of the
Month
6 47 68 152 5
Added 2 3 4 3 3
Read/
Listened
3 2 5 3 2
Current Total 5 48 67 152 6

Breakdowns:
“Traditionally” Published: 14
Self-/Independent Published: 3

Genre This Month Year to Date
Children’s 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Fantasy 5 (29%) 5 (29%)
General Fiction/ Literature 2 (12%) 2 (12%)
Mystery/ Suspense/ Thriller 5 (29%) 5 (29%)
Non-Fiction 1 (6%) 1 (6%)
Science Fiction 1 (6%) 1 (6%)
Theology/ Christian Living 2 (12%) 2 (12%)
Urban Fantasy 1 (6%) 1 (6%)
“Other” (Horror/ Humor/ Steampunk/ Western) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

Review-ish Things Posted

Other Things I Wrote
Other than the Saturday Miscellanies (6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th), I also wrote:

Enough about me—how Was Your Month?


January Calendar

2024 Plans and Challenges

Finally it’s time to stop looking at 2023 (as fun as that’s been) and to start focusing on 2024.
2024 Plans and Challenges
Many of my goals and the challenges I set for myself for 2023 were not accomplished. I’m okay with that, mostly, because some of what came up along the way ended up better than I’d hoped. And the rest…well, really didn’t matter much anyway. So I’m over it.

I do have things I want to accomplish here over the next 12 months for a variety of reasons—and listing them like this helped last year (although, you’ll see a lot of echoes here from that post. But most of those echoes are of a “continue doing this” nature). So, here’s what I’m going to shoot for around here in the next 12 months.
bullet Cut down on my Goodreads Want-to-Read list and the unread books that I own (a perennial project, but 2024 was not good for the size of that stack)—at least two of the Book Challenges this year should be a fun way to help.
bullet I’m going to finish my Classic Spenser series and maybe find another Classic to do a project read-through. We’ll see about that. (This is a repeat from the last couple of years, but it’s nagging at me)
bullet I’m going to continue to be picky in the Book Tours I participate in. I still like Tours, they expose me to things I wouldn’t normally read—and I’m going to keep doing them. But if I’m picky, it helps me focus on other things.
bullet I was planning on cutting back on the Reading Challenges I was trying, but ended up just exchanging two for two new ones. There’s plenty of overlap possible between them, so that’ll help. These are concrete tasks, no more of these “Read as Many of X as You Can” challenges. I’ll talk about those in a minute.
bullet Try to interview more authors (maybe others, too?), and get better at that, too. The Literary Locals series is helping with that.
bullet I want to continue the Literary Locals, but I think I need to find a new phase of it, something different.
bullet I plan on pressing forward with Grandpappy’s Corner, and hopefully do posts for it more frequently.

2024 Book Challenges


Goodreads Challenge
Goodreads Challenge
My oldest son taunted me into upping my annual goal to 250 last year. I think I’ll go for that again–I’m not sure I’ll beat it this year. Some things might come up to cause me to read a little less–and I’ve got some slower reads on my calendar for the year. So if I hit that, I’ll be more than satisfied. If I miss it, well, I really don’t care–it’s just habit to set a goal for this at this point.

Well, okay, I don’t care that much.


12 Books
I did this one in 2022, and it really expanded my reading. I thought the same would happen last year, but…wow. I got distracted. So I want to take another stab at this group of selections.
12 Books Challenge


Reading with Wrigs
Reading with Wrigs
This is a fun-looking challenge designed to step into the gap left by the retirement of the While I Was Reading Challenge. I’m looking forward to giving it a shot.


The 2024 Booktempter’s TBR Challenge

The 2024 Booktempter's TBR Challenge
I really appreciate the way this one is put together, and it’s pretty easy—just 1 book a month and my TBR should go down by at least 12, more if I can squeeze in some of the stretch goals. This has been pretty helpful the last two years, and I expect the same this year.


Backlist Bingo 2024
Backlist Bingo 2024
I enjoyed participating in Armed With a Book’s Bingo a few years ago, so when I saw this one announced, I found myself ignoring my resolution to cut down on challenges for the year.


20 Books of Summer
I’ll also undoubtedly do the 20 Books of Summer Challenge…that’s been pretty fun. And I can easily combine it with 2 or 3 of the above challenges, to be super-productive.


That’s everything I have planned, I can’t wait to see what unplanned things happen around here. Hope you’re around to join in the fun!


(Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay)

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