At the beginning of 2011 I set myself a goal on Goodreads of reading 50 books in the year. I figured I could do that, and I certainly did--in fact, I was so close to reaching my goal this spring that I upped it to 100 books.
Then Mom had her stroke and I stayed with her in the hospital for an entire month, and I was incapable of reading for about three weeks. I couldn't face fictional angst when real-life angst was so painful at the time. And even after I started reading again, for at least another month I wasn't reading at my usual pace.
Then we moved to our new house, Mom and I, and I sold a bunch of books at our local used bookstore. I need the shelf space. And since I like my Goodreads shelves to reflect exactly what's on my real shelves, I deleted the books I sold from Goodreads. Which took them off my list of "read" books, which dropped my count for the year.
Since then, despite gearing back up to my normal reading rate, I've been consistently 19 or 20 books behind my goal. And there are mere weeks left in the year. And I don't count books I don't keep. So I still need to read 30-odd books that I like enough to keep on my shelves by the end of the year.
Why do I do these things to myself? Oh yeah, and I'm 15,000 words behind on my NaNoWriMo book.
6 comments:
I stopped setting myself a goal with my reading. I think I've only read about 19 books this year so far, but right now, I'm just happy that I'm getting to read at all.
That's a needless stress that you need to remove from your life, Kate.
19 books behind? I'd be lucky to finish 19 books in a year. The munchkins are really keeping me down.
I love 'em, though.
Danielle--I don't really need the goal, but it's fun to see the numbers climb. Until they stop climbing.
Cate--I think you may be right.
Aaron--One of the reasons why I didn't stay in teaching. :)
I'm behind as well, and having difficulty reading at all. Someone I know was murdered recently in a pretty awful way. Reading is normally one of my best escapes, but since my go-to books are mysteries and fairly dark things, I'm sort of at a loss. I read a YA book, and I'm thinking about some Twain. I need some things that are light, but not insulting.
(My GoodReads updates won't reflect this for a while, as I'm always behind on adding things.)
That's awful about the murder. I can definitely see not wanting to read anything dark for a while. Twain sounds like a good choice, or RLStevenson if you like his writing.
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