Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Bookish Resolutions for 2018

January 16, 2018

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme originated by The Broke and the Bookish now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is: Top Ten Bookish Resolutions/Goals

When this was announced as a Top Ten Tuesday I was both excited and frustrated. I wanted to post about all my goals RIGHT AWAY in 2018! I’m glad that I took some time to sit on my goals before announcing them, however. Having time to ruminate allowed me to develop stronger, more meaningful goals. 

I broke my list up into two sections: 5 reading goals and 5 blogging goals. The number might be a bit intimidating, but I feel like these goals are all shallow enough I can make a dent in them this year. 2018 is going to be one heck of a year for me– so I need to make certain I balance my blogging, reading, and real life!

Without further ado…


 

Top 10 Bookish Resolutions for 2018

 

2018 Reading Goals

Read at least one ARC each month.

As you might have seen when I joined State of the ARC, I have a backlog of ARCs (don’t we all?), and I want to prioritize them. In the end of 2017, I weaned myself off requesting binges on NetGalley. By reading one ARC a month, I will achieve the coveted 80% on NetGalley. That said, not all my ARCs will come from there. I have quite a few ARCs from other locations. So, it would be great to finally achieve my 80%, but it’s not the priority; 12 ARCs is.

Read fewer books.

It sounds crazy, I know. Sometimes, I’m forcing myself through so many books I don’t have time to stop and write a book review. I didn’t come close to reviewing all 130 books I read last year. I am also actively involved in 7 book clubs, plus occasional buddy reads. Yikes! I also need to make time for my own mood reading. I hope to read less, but read more of what I want to. It’s okay to attend a book club without finishing the book. They will survive, and so will I.

Read more non-fiction.

In 2017 I feel like I barely touched this genre. It makes me so sad! I love listening to memoirs read by the author on audiobook. I love learning about aspects of the world I am unfamiliar with. I love history. I love essays. Where was this last year? No idea. I hope at least 15% of my 2018 reads are non-fiction.

Read 20 Newbery Award Winners. 

I am on a quest to read all the Newbery Award Winning books before the 100th anniversary of the Newbery in January 2022. So far, I’ve read 30 of the books. This means I need to read about 17 Newberys a year to make my goal. I’m going to aim high now and see if I can push my luck.

Participate in at least one read along.

I had SO MUCH FUN participating in #AnneReadAlong2017, I definitely want to do something like this again. I hope to host one in the future, but not this year. This year I just want to find a single quality read along I can participate in. I love bookish discussions, and this is a great way to get involved more in the community!

 

2018 Blogging Goals

Write more book reviews.

Oh, the irony. One of my 2017 goals was to expand my non-book review posts. And I certainly did that! I continued by Between the Lines series, but I also added two new series. I love writing those posts, but they are time-consuming. In order to stay on top of this goal, I found that I published fewer book reviews than I wanted to. This is a book blog, after all! I am aiming for at least 1/3 of my 2018 blog posts to be book reviews.

Expand the book discussion question database.

Did you even know I *had* a book discussion question database? Well, I do. It’s one of my favorite things! I love leading book club discussions, so I thought I’d help people out by sharing the book club discussion questions I’ve written. Last year, I only expanded by 6 new sets of questions. For 2018, I aim to add 12 new sets of discussion questions.

Expand upon my series posts.

I mentioned this in my 2 Year Blogoversary post, but I’d like to expand upon my series posts. As mentioned above, I have Between the Lines, as well as Building Better Book Clubs and Solving for Tsundoku. I aim to publish three posts from these series each month. No, they don’t all have to be from different series. But there should be three of them.

Deepen my existing blogger friend relationships.

Last year, I aimed to spend at least 5 minutes a day blog hopping. I found a number of new blogs to follow and quickly got lost in the community. Eventually, I realized that I crave *meaningful* relationships. In order to gain those, I need to spend more time with a smaller group of people. So, my goal is not to expand to a new community, but rather reinforce the one I already know. I’m sure I’ll find new members of my community on the way I’ll take in, but the goal is in the connection, not stats.

Make my blog a source of solace and joy.

I know this sounds silly or corny. But it’s an important part of blogging I think a lot of us forget. For the majority of us, blogging is a hobby. There were moments this year where my blog felt like a chore and a source of anxiety than a positive force in my life. Never again. 2018 will be a busy year for me; my life is going to change a lot. I never want to lose sight of the joy blogging, reading, and reviews bring me. This will be harder to measure. I am to stay positive, forgive myself, and write what I want to write, even if it strays from my schedule.

 

It is also my plan to check in on these goals regularly with you guys so I can be held accountable on some level. You’ve also noticed that quite a few of these will probably intersect with you! I hope you’ll be helping keep me honest. Let me know if there is any way you think we can help each other achieve our 2018 goals!


What do you think?

  • Did you participate in Top Ten Tuesday? Share your links below!
  • What do you think of my goals? Any suggestions for a read-along I could participate in this year? Other ways we can work together to achieve our goals?
  • What are your top resolutions and goals for 2018? Bookish or not!
  • How are you keeping track of your 2018 resolutions?

16 Comments

  • Helen Murdoch January 16, 2018 at 9:26 pm

    I also want to read more non-fiction this year. I’ve got a good start as a judge for the CYBILS since my category is non-fiction 🙂

    • Jackie B January 23, 2018 at 8:07 pm

      I’m so glad I’m not alone in this, Helen! I am looking forward to hearing how your CYBILS judgeing goes; I would love any recommendations you have after reading them all! How many books are you reading and judging?

  • Annemieke January 17, 2018 at 1:41 am

    Having meaningful relationships in the community is important. Otherwise sometimes you can feel as if you fall to the side. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a lot of new bloggers or start interacting more with some that I already knew about things that are totally not books and it is a lot of fun. 🙂 Good luck with all your goals. 😀

    • Jackie B January 23, 2018 at 8:23 pm

      Thank you for the well-wishes, Annemieke! I know that having meaningful relationships is important to me, and with how busy 2018 threatens to be, I want to make certain I maintain those I value. I already know I lack the time I want to spend blog hopping in order to maintain my own mental health. By staying focused, I hope that I can be a stronger friend to a smaller group. Does that make sense?

      Good luck with all your goals as well!

  • Dani @ Perspective of a Writer January 18, 2018 at 7:18 pm

    I agree about keeping my community small and tight. I do want to explore other blogs but I’m not going to follow just anyone anymore. There is a small group that I check in with (or tried to) and I want to do that much more regularly now! Which means staying on top of my comment reply. <3 Good luck Jackie! I'll be interested in seeing what read a long you find!

    • Jackie B January 23, 2018 at 10:06 pm

      I hear you about trying to stay on top of the community. Melanie @ Grab the Lapels recently encouraged me to do a purge of the blogs I follow on WP to ensure I’m not overwhelmed with blogs I don’t want to spend energy following. I haven’t done it yet, but I’m considering this strongly. It seems important, but I can’t bring myself to let go, you know?

      Any read along suggestions?!

  • Laila@BigReadingLife January 20, 2018 at 2:50 pm

    Those are awesome goals! I’ve not seen a Readalong yet (that I remember) but if I see one I think looks interesting, I’ll let you know! As you may know my reading goals are super small this year – just read twelve of my own books. So far I’ve read two and am currently reading two so that’s a great start. I think your last blogging goal is the most important – sometimes it’s easy to let your blog become one more thing you “have to do.” When I start feeling that way, I just clear the deck with a min-review or catch-up post, and move forward. Good luck with your 2018 goals!

  • theorangutanlibrarian January 21, 2018 at 9:25 am

    I actually really agree with reading less books- I think it’s easy to get swept up in numbers, but it’s better to read more books you actually enjoy and read fewer in general. I definitely want to read more non fiction too. I absolutely love your last goal as well- what a beautiful sentiment!! 😀 Lovely goals- I hope you achieve them all!!

  • Books, Vertigo and Tea January 21, 2018 at 11:08 am

    As expected, you have some admirable and beautiful goals I am also aiming to read less this year. So that one I can totally relate to. I am going to actually be decreasing reviews though I think. I will have a post in the next week or so touching on that Have a beautiful 2018 my friend!

  • Amanda @Cover2CoverMom January 21, 2018 at 12:45 pm

    So I wrote a long comment on another post but I got an error on this one?! Why?!?!?!

  • Amanda @Cover2CoverMom January 21, 2018 at 12:46 pm

    I have very similar goals for this year. I also want to read a little less and focus on reviewing more of the books I read. Last year I read 120, but want to read about 100 this year and work on reviewing the majority of them. I will write full reviews for review books and mini reviews for the rest.

  • Amanda @Cover2CoverMom January 21, 2018 at 12:47 pm

    Another goal of mine is to read 3-4 review books per month to clear out NetGalley 🙂

  • Lashaan (Bookidote) January 22, 2018 at 2:19 pm

    I like the deepening of existing relationships rather than increasing the number of acquaintances. Some really fantastic resolutions you got here, Jackie! I personally want to reduce the number of ARCs I read in order to read the books I own and have always been meaning to check out. ARCs are nice but man do I feel like I’m missing out on some classics.

  • Jamie January 25, 2018 at 7:47 pm

    You outlined some really good and detailed goals, I need to work on something like this for my blog eventually. I definitely want to make it a goal to read more non-fiction as well, after reading so much for my degree I stopped for a while and went crazy reading all the popular genre fiction I could get my hands on. Now though I’m starting to miss it and need some more memoirs and history books in my life. Agree also with the lack of meaningful blog relationships, I try and hop a lot just because I like to leave some love on blogs, especially for newer bloggers, but I feel like I’ve been a really bad blog friend having fallen off the edge of the world end of last year. Here’s to strengthening blog friendships and making blogging a happy hobby!

    • Jackie B January 28, 2018 at 10:16 pm

      Thank you, Jamie! I need solid goals for myself with concrete definitions of success. Otherwise, I allow myself scope creep and I also beat myself up for not achieving some silly explosion of this goal in my head. Oops!

      Haha– I can understand how academic reading for a degree can cuase burnout. What did you get your degree in? I found that audiobooks for memoirs can really get me back into the swing of things for non-fiction!

      Yes! Developing a strong blogger community SEEMS so easy– but, alas. It is often a struggle to find time for all the amazing people out there. I hope we can BOTH stay happy and on top of our own goals this year. 😀

      I appreciate you stopping by and commenting. Thank you so much!

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