January 2018 in Review

So, along with talking about the books I’ve read for the month, I think I’m also going to discuss the progress I’m making towards my goals and reading challenges.

First up: the books!

I read eight books in January:

• Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (adult nonfiction)
• Snow Falling by Jane Gloriana Villanueva (aka Jane the Virgin) (adult fiction)
• Black No More by George S. Schuyler (adult fiction)
• The Mother of Black Hollywood by Jenifer Lewis (adult nonfiction, memoir)
• Renegades by Marissa Meyer (YA)
• Herman and Rosie by Gus Gordon (children’s picture book)
• Daring Greatly by Brené Brown (adult nonfiction)
• Sula by Toni Morrison (adult fiction, audiobook)

I had a good reading month! The only book I didn’t like was Snow Falling (seriously, so bad). I gave Daring Greatly three stars, but everything else got four stars, except Lewis’s memoir which was my five-star read for the month.

I cleared five categories for Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge:

• Task 9: A book of colonial or postcolonial literature (Black No More)
• Task 12: A celebrity memoir (The Mother of Black Hollywood)
• Task 13: An Oprah Book Club selection (Sula)
• Task 14: A book of social science (Daring Greatly)
• Task 16: The first book in a new-to-you YA or middle grade series (Renegades)

I’ve made no progress on my other reading challenges (Bible as Literature, #MustReadin2018).

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As for personal goals:

Deal with my mail as it comes in so it doesn’t pile up and turn into a towering monster that takes me hours to open/sort/deal with at the end of more months than I’m comfortable admitting here.

I am doing really well with this! I don’t deal with everything immediately, but I am getting rid of the junk mail right away, and I have, at least, opened all of my mail.

Eat the frog when it comes to grading so I can actually get it done in a timely manner and stop bitching about how much I have done when I’m not doing anything about it.

I’m still on vacation so I am CRUSHING THIS. 😂

I’m also planning to enter at least one writing contest before the year is out.

I have identified a contest I want to enter during February, and my manuscript is ready.

And to work on my creative writing every day, starting someday this week that isn’t today or yesterday.

Here’s my calendar for January with the days written marked by a sticker (I started on the 5th):

I haven’t written every day, but I did more writing than not during the month, so I am counting that a win.

Oh, and to see Hamilton.

Come on. You would know if this had happened.

Also to eat more vegetables.

I am doing really well at this. If it were up to me, I would eat nothing but fruit most days, and I have been eating vegetables every day.

So far, so good re: my goals this year. My goals for next month are to do the following:

• Enter that writing contest
• Go see Black Panther
• Get my classes completely prepped and loaded into the LMS (I have about ten days to do this)
• Keep up my writing momentum

Here’s to a productive February!