Space Station Mir

Borrowed from Boston Bibliophile . How many books read in 2016? 65 (not including rereads or work reads) How many fiction and non fiction?  42 fiction and 19 nonfiction (2 short story collections, 1 book of poetry) Male/Female author ratio?  48 written by women to 15 written by men. I didn ’ t  read intentionally in this regard this year, but I did notice I was tending more towards books by women.  Favorite book of 2016?   Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster. Also, The Yiddish Policemen ’ s Union by Michael Chabon, Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, Better Than Before and Happiness Project books by Gretchen Rubin, and Man ’ s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Least favorite?  Paper Towns by John Green or A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler Any that you simply couldn’t finish and why? I DNF ’ d Empress of the Night by Eva Stachniak. I disliked all of the switching back and forth in time. Oldest book...

Yesterday was the last day of NaNoWriMo 2016. I hit over 25,000 words. That was not my original goal for the month: I was aiming for the traditional NaNo goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. However, a little bit more than halfway through, I evaluated my progress and decided to change my goal to 25k. I'm proud of reaching my secondary goal, and I think I did a good job, considering. However, I'm still a little bummed that I didn't hit 50k like I did last year, and I want to figure out why. First, I've had less time to devote to it this year since my work schedule is different. Second, I wrote historical instead of contemporary fiction, and did less research instead of more, due to the aforementioned different work schedule. Third, though, it wasn't my first rodeo. Last year, I was motivated to win my first NaNoWriMo. I followed my scheduled writing plan exactly, and I got a huge head start, finishing 4k in the first day alone. I've been reading Gretc...

My novel is finished. 77, 704 words. 190 pages. Just under three months. It's not good. It's not edited. It will likely never see the light of day. But it is finished. Thank you, Snowzilla, Snowpocalypse 2016, or Snowmageddon 2: Snow Mercy, whatever you are. Now if you could just please melt and let my car out. Thanks.

1. Read more books by minority authors, but also look into new ways of viewing and categorizing diverse books. 2. Read more books in translation. Let's see if I can beat 2015's six and a half! 3. Read more poetry. Now that I've gotten a taste for it! 4. Read more literary magazines. This should also help with reading more poetry and short stories. Also, if I want to be published in literary magazines, I should be reading more! 5. Post to the blog 6 times a month!