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.