How my reading plan for 2015 fared

In a moment of being extremely OCD last year, I started writing reading plans . . . lists of books I was going to be reading on specific days, like so:

EVERYDAY, READING TO REVIEW:  Book A

Monday:  Classic SF:  Book B

Tuesday:  Rereads:  Book C

and so on, with the last list being non-fiction that I could read whenever I wanted to.

I kept this up even after realizing it was a dumb idea.  With the iteration I made in January, I gave myself permission to not stick to the plan.  Seriously, it said so on the plan.

Eventually, I realized this was a rather stupid thing to do.

So, how much progress did I make through this list of 45 books?

Not much, it turns out:

In the books I was going to review list, I read one, didn’t finish a second, and am still reading a third.

In  the classic science fiction list, I misplaced one book and never started the others.

In the rereads list, I never got past page, like, 30, in the first one.

In the classic fantasy list, I forgot I was reading the first one and never read the rest.

In the Forgotten Realms list — yes, my favorite fantasy setting got it’s own day — oh, that’s kind of neat.  Totally forgetting about this list, I started reading the first thing on this list a couple of weeks ago.

In the Anne/Little House list, I forgot I was re-reading Anne of Avonlea and never started the others.  Also, I discovered I could probably do with a new copy of Anne of Avonlea.  The one I’ve had for about twenty-five years is not in very good shape.  Hard to read a book when you’re worried about the pages falling out and/or crumbling.

In the fantasy list, I didn’t finish the first book and, you guessed it, never started the rest.

In the “other” list, I misplaced the first book and . . . yeah, never started the rest.

In the non-fiction list, I quit reading the first and will start it again sometime when I can concentrate on just it.  I, yep, never started the rest.

So what did I read this year?  (ignoring the fact that there’s still a month left in the year :P)

Not much, honestly.  At least, not many books.  I read lots of samples and excerpts, adding lots of books to my “to read” list.  I read most of the original GI Joe Real American Hero issues and every new issue to come out this year.  I read all of Dumbing of Age early in the year and have kept up with it since.  I continued religiously reading Questionable Content, and re-read it from the very beginning at one point (or that might’ve been at the end of last year, I can’t recall).  For several months I regularly read a couple of royal fashion blogs I’d been reading for years, until I decided my morning list of websites to check had gotten too time consuming and, well, they were the least interesting so they were what I cut.  I’ve also read lots of various news articles, blogposts, interviews, Twitter conversations, Facebook posts, bits and pieces of rpg books, some fanfic, etc.  This is why next year I won’t be doing the Reading Challenge thing on Goodreads.  It’s depressing to spend as much time as I do reading and see “28 out of 100” for how many books I’ve read this year.  Yeah, so maybe I have only read 28 whole books, but what about those five short stories that didn’t have entries?  That 70,000 word Doctor Who/GI Joe crossover fanfic that I really want the author to finish?  That almost novella length work-in-progress of Jaye’s?  That awesome blogpost by an author I love that was longer than most short stories?  That one issue of Uncanny X-Men I re-read on a whim?  That webcomic I read from beginning to end?  All those books I read the samples of but couldn’t afford right then?  It’s dumb for those not to count as things I’ve read.

Fuck you, Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word fucking hates me. I’ve long suspected this; today, I have proof. I noticed a couple of places in a short story I was about to submit where, for no apparent reason, there were smart quotes instead of boring ass quotes.  (Well, I think I know the reason for some:  I forgot to turn […]