Goals for 2014 (and the sad truth about Bout of Books)

Last year, I made a few vague, last-minute goals for the new year. I was still new to blogging and I wasn't even sure what I was trying to accomplish in 2013. (I reviewed those goals in this post.) This year, though, I have just a bit of book blogging experience under my belt, and I've been able to come up with goals that I think will actually help focus my reading and blogging for the next year.

Reading Goals: 

• Read more than last year. More books, more pages. 
• Always have at least one book that I'm reading just for fun, and allow reading for fun to be a priority. 
• Use my e-reader. 
• Save the hard stuff for school, and focus more on light, fun books. (I read a lot of dense, thought-provoking classics for school, and then I go and try to read even more of them on my own. This year, I don't want to push myself so hard. Fun books are not just okay, they're good for me.) 

Blogging Goals: 

• Write shorter posts. (If you've spent much time here, you know that I can go on and on about books. But even I have to admit that long posts are not usually much fun to read. In the end, it's better to get directly to the point, especially when I'm in the middle of school and finding time to blog can be difficult.) 
• Make blogging a priority. (When school and life get stressful, blogging is usually the first thing to go. I don't want that to happen. I don't always have to be posting constantly, but I want to at least keep blogging in the back of my mind.) 
• Write more broad, discussion posts. (These are the ones people actually like to read and respond to. Not to mention, they're the most memorable and fun for me.) 

Of course, I also have the goal to complete all the challenges I've signed up for this year. 

As you can see, I'm keeping it low-key this year. I want to do better without putting too much pressure on myself. Believe it or not, this is my last year of school! (I hope...) So, of course, school is pretty much going to take center stage for the next year. But I still want to keep reading and writing on my own, and blogging has been such a great way to motivate me to do that. Here's to 2014--I hope it's a great reading year for all of us!

Now, for the sad truth about Bout of Books, which lasted through the past week: I didn't really do it. I did read what I had to for school, but I didn't even complete my goal, which was to try to read for fun at least a little bit. This has been a much denser first week of the semester than I've had in the past, so I've had a ton of school reading to do--and what little downtime I had was usually spent with my husband. (Or, actually, writing, which I was suddenly more motivated to do--and I don't want to discourage myself from that!) So, my reading from the past week consists of 4 chapters from my Physical Science textbook, some articles on peer tutoring, a few essays from Michel de Montaigne, a textbook chapter on Judaism, and some wonderful essays and short stories from F. Scott Fitzgerald. Perfectly lovely reading, for the most part, but it was all for school and not exactly readathon material. But I'm cutting myself some slack this time--I only signed up for the readathon because I didn't expect school to get so quickly into full swing. Well, anyway, enough excuses--I'll just say that I'm a little disappointed in my inability to really participate in the readathon, but I hope the rest of you who participated enjoyed it!