A Much Needed Update
One post every six months? Is that even a blog? Not to lean on tired cliches, but life has truly gotten in the way of my ability to write. Having a baby, juggling work and various daycare outages, and trying to find time to keep our house in order leaves little time for other things.
Regardless of what’s going on, however, I have been able to make time for reading. When the boy is in daycare and I’ve got an audiobook going I would get a solid hour of reading time in per day, which was awesome. Other times it’s the last ten minutes of the day…but I’m still reading. That being said, things are changing a bit for my project, and this blog.
When I started this project a couple years ago things had gotten out of control. My unread book count was at 171 and I wasn’t even looking at my backlog. I’ve come a long way in those two years, reducing that number to 108. I’m very pleased with this, and being able to make meaningful progress through the first year of our son’s life was an accomplishment.
Some time earlier this year I made it to a point where I was done with all of the standalone books and series that I owned, which meant that if I liked a book from The List I would have to pick up the subsequent titles to finish things out. This was nice as it felt a lot less confining and I was able to dig into books that held a lot of interest for me.
But recently I’ve come to realize that reading should be more enjoyable for me than it had become during my project. While it’s good to work through my backlog, I want to be able to read a book someone recommends to me, or one that I’ve had my eye on for a while. And after a couple years of working on The List? It felt like a chore. The structure was nice at first, but became more like a set of shackles.
So where does that leave my reading, and more specifically this blog? Good questions. As far as my reading goes, I’ve always been a reader and that will never change. I feel like 2023 will bring with it a little less pressure to read every day – especially as I’ve had a few “oh shit, I’m exhausted but I need to squeeze a few minutes in to keep my streak going” days in the past couple of years. I’m looking forward to reading whatever I want and making my way through some of those recommendations I’ve gotten since this started.
More than anything I feel like I’ve learned to be a LOT more selective with the books I purchase. This entire problem was caused by the “that looks mildly interesting and it’s only a buck” mindset. And you know what? Most of those books have turned out to be less than stellar, proving that sometimes you do indeed get what you pay for. Although I do want to stress that sometimes good books go on sale, Laura.
As for this blog? Well, I enjoy writing so I’d like to keep it going. And I want to talk about the books I read, as I’ve found that to be a good way for me to elevate how I think about writing and storytelling. But I have so many things in my life that I would like to talk about. I play board games, I love sports, I’ve been more invested in my personal fitness this ever of late, I enjoy video and roleplaying games…and I’m a new dad. There’s so much to talk about, so a format change feels like it is in order!
This has been a fantastic journey. I’m very proud of the progress I’ve made with my backlog, and I’m comfortable with my new outlook on reading. While things might change a bit, this is not the end of The List, nor is it the end of this blog. And even though my books won’t be the primary focus any longer, there’s no need to rebrand the blog…because as you will come to see, my wife is usually right about a lot of things!