2022 Goals

Most years I’ve had this blog I’ve made some sort of goals post. It is mostly an exercise in futility (as I rarely follow them throughout the year) but I still like to look back and see what my goals were and which, if any, I actually worked on during the year.

Often I post my year in review, but I’m not planning to do so this year, until perhaps 2023 when I’ll take a look at the past two years. This year I’ve also made more modest goals than usual as events in my personal life make it likely that I may be blogging less.

Empty my negative review shelf.

I have a bookcase for to be reviewed books (although they don’t always stay there) and there’s an entire shelf of books waiting to be reviewed with the “not recommended” label for some reason or another. Although I do post negative reviews, my ideal/easiest review is of a book I liked but didn’t love – it’s more effort to edit myself when posting about a book I adored, but also my passion for the book provides motivation to complete the review.

This year, I want to clear off some of the holdouts on that shelf so I can get rid of them and open up space for new reads to ponder. There will be books this year that I read and put on the shelf – but this goal is more about clearing out some of the long-standing books which have been on it for a year or more. There are approximately 30 books on this shelf, I’m hoping to review 5-10.

Post more diverse MG fantasy reviews.

One of the bright spots for me over the past few years has been the resurgence of diverse MG fantasy novels, and I’d like to continue these reviews. My next booklist was planned for the end of last year but could not go up as I had a few books still to review and photograph. Once those 8 are posted my list can go up. I also have about 25 reviews of continuing series to complete from either the forthcoming list or the previous one. So I think aiming for 20 diverse MG fantasy reviews for the year is a moderate goal.

Update my old list pages.

Especially my 100indigenousbooks project page – it’s been getting some traction lately but is very outdated. I also get a lot of views on my Diverse Disabled page, which has been more recently updated but is missing so very many books. But I’m struggling with how best to organize that one (by genre? age range? disability? race or ethnicity? keep it random like I have been and assume people have the patience to scroll or keyword search?), so it is unlikely to see substantial changes this year.

Review more historical fiction and narrative nonfiction.

I’ve been working on a passion project on the side for over two years now and am not ready to start talking publicly about it yet, but getting more reviews of history-related books posted is key for the next step. This year I’d especially like to focus on indigenous history as I update that tag and list. I think 10 reviews from this category is a manageable goal for this particular year.

Take two months off.

My unexpected semi-hiatus reinforced that it’s okay and even good to plan a break into the schedule – both for resting and for keeping up with posts. At this time I plan to take the month of June off from active blogging. I’m not sure yet if I’ll take two months in the summer or if I’ll take June and December off. We’ll see how I feel at the end of June!

Review five books each in other categories.

Although this year I plan to focus mainly on historical fiction and diverse MG fantasy novels, I still read and would like to keep occasionally reviewing in other areas as well. Specifically, I’d like to put the extra effort in to review a few board books, picture books, adult nonfiction, graphic novels, and early chapter books. I don’t expect that I will complete five reviews in all these categories, but this will be my “stretch goal” for the year.

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That’s it for this year! Five goals I feel serious about achieving, and one maybe. We’ll see in 2023 if having fewer, more moderate goals made them more likely to be completed or not.