Reading Resolutions 2019: Part 2-- Becky's Resolutions

Yesterday I began the process of posting my 2019 reading resolutions by first looking back and assessing how I did on my 2018 resolutions. You can read that post here.

Today, using what I learned by assessing how last year went, and knowing what planned things I have coming up this year, I present my 2019 Resolutions-- the ones I will hold myself to for assessment a year from now.

Again, please remember, I post these both so that I am forced to hold myself to them [or not as the case may be] but also because I am a big proponent of the "lead by example" leadership style. If I am advocating for you to make resolutions and then go back and assess how you did before making the next year's resolutions, I also have to do it myself.

However, that being said, my resolutions are very specific to me. I do not expect nor encourage you to take mine as your own. Please use the process as the example and then try to make some for yourself.

Here we go. I have some BIG plans in store for me and all of you this year.

2019 Resolution: I will move the backlist to the front list. As I saw in my assessment of last year, I did not read any true backlist titles last year. Zero. Zilch. As a huge proponent of the joys, power, and importance of backlist titles, this is inexcusable. In order to improve here I need to be more conscious of seeking out backlist titles; therefore, I am going to set a goal of reading at least 6 books in 2019 that are new to me and have pub dates that are at least 2-5 years old. I will start with my Goodreads "want to read" list; in fact, I am putting one on hold at the library as I write this.

2019 Resolution: I will post reading challenges here on the blog. Reading challenges are very popular, the most notable being the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. I think reading challenges are great for a lot of readers, and I often glance at the Book Riot one when I am hunting for inspiration on something different to read, but for me personally, they do not work as a training method. I think reading challenges are very good for the general reader and the library worker who needs help getting out of their comfort zone, but for me, they just aren't a good fit. However, I am going to use the idea of the reading challenge to inspire all of us to read something different, but at the same time in order to spark conversation. I am working on a way we can interact more and discuss this challenge-- together. Since this will be a new feature here on the blog, it may take me a month or two to work this out, and I will probably only have 4 all year; they will function more like mini discussions rather than a list of books you should read. Stay tuned! [As a result, I think I might also be phasing out the Call to Action posts, but again, we will see. Those have gotten less frequent anyway. And the archive won't go anywhere.]

2019 Resolution: I will "read about" all areas of Speculative Fiction and share that process with all of you. This resolution is here for two reasons. The first is that I am the "captain" of the team that is in charge of revising the Speculative Fiction section of the ARRT Popular Fiction Workbook [older version is available to members and on NoveList]. In 2018 our team focused on the genres and subgenres, redefining many, streamlining others, and adding and eliminating. We are presenting our work to the entire committee this week [as are the other groups for their work]. In 2019 we are going to be assigning the authors to the subgenres, so I need to make sure that we capture the most representative authors for each subgenre. Yes, as you can see, I was going to be doing this resolution anyway, but it leads to directly to reason 2 for this resolution. The second reason I am making this a resolution is that I often talk about how reading about books is just as important as reading the books themselves [it is part of Rule 5 of my 10 Rules]; however, I haven't spent much time showing you how to actually "read about books" and keep track of it in a way that is helpful. In other words, I am telling you to do this, but I am not leading by example as well as I should. Therefore, since I have to spend a lot of time" reading about" Speculative Fiction this year, I will make sure to have posts where I talk about how I am doing that, how I am keeping track of what I am learning, and how I use it in as I help readers. I will be sharing the process and the content in order to help you do the same.

2019 Resolution: I will continue to closely monitor my horror vs no horror reading. As I mentioned yesterday, this was a transition year, as I increased my commitment to the horror writing community. And now in 2019 is when that increased commitment turns into more work. I am excited for the new experiences and challenges, but I know it will have some effect on the rest of my work, I am just not sure if that effect will be positive, neutral, or negative. Most likely it is a combination of all three, and I am okay with that. I just need to actively consider the overall effects throughout the year, as it is happening, especially in how it effects all of you and my work as a general RA Service trainer.

Finally, I did not mention it in the post yesterday, but as I was going over my assessment one more time yesterday while putting the final touches on my official resolutions, I did go back and look at the over a decade worth of resolutions I have posted here on the blog. If you have made resolutions in the past, I highly recommends taking some time to go back and look at your past self. For example, I noticed areas in which I grew overtime, but also places where while I accomplished the goal in a given year, 2-3 years later I can see I didn't keep it up. It was a very enlightening experience.

Now I'm ready 2019. I have assessed 2018 and planned for 2019. Let's do this and see what happens along the way...together.