We’re one month into a new year, fellow readers! Has your 2021 TBR Challenge started with a bang or a whimper?

Mine is somewhere in between, lol. I have a research book going that I started last year and a textbook for a class I’m taking, both of which are being read bits at a time. I started a Tudor-era romance early on in the month, but put it down to go do something else and just never wanted to pick it back up again. In all fairness, I don’t think there was anything wrong with the book–I just didn’t have any focus or concentration–but I DNF’d it and took it off my Goodreads Currently Reading shelf so it didn’t feel like something left on my To Do list. Maybe I’ll give it another try in a few months. Maybe it will go in the donate bin and I’ll try a comfort read instead 🙂

I’m interested to see how the rest of the year goes with respect to my reading time, though. I’ve finally landed a new day job so I’ll be back to working full time again soon, and I’ve got at least one book to write this year. I also need to relocate for the new job, and have promised to stay on as Treasurer of Regency Fiction Writers for one more year, so I won’t have a ton of free time. I suppose I’ll be putting my vacation time to good use 😉

We’re a few days in to 2021 and I’m in the process of getting organized in writing, reading, and around the house. I started a modified bullet journal last year, but it didn’t work out so well–too much work. This year I’m going back to a regular monthly planner so I can keep all my To Do lists and calendars and appointments in one place. Seems like I get all the organization of a bullet journal that way, with none of the extra set up 😉

One thing I did manage to get organized was I my TBR Challenge conditions for this year:

1. How many books from your TBR pile will you read?  I’ve decided on an overall goal of 30 books for my Goodreads challenge, and 20 of those must be from my TBR list. It doesn’t seem like a lot–especially when I was regularly reading over 50 books a year a few years ago–but it’s more than I read in 2019, and I struggled to meet this same goal in 2020 so I figured I’d give it a try again. Plus I always have the option to change it later if I feel like I need to.

3. How will you hold yourself accountable? Like years past, I’ll post here once a month to share my progress and see how you all are doing. I found that creating a Goodreads shelf and the dedicated page on this website to be enormously helpful, too, so I’ll do both again. I’m a very visual person and being able to see the collection of books that I’ve read gives me a nice sense of accomplishment, which makes me want to read more TBR books when I’m able.

4. What about adding more books to the pile? Like previous years, I’m going to keep track of how many books I purchase with another Goodreads shelf. I’ve found it really helpful to have an exact number readily available that I can compare to how many books I’ve read. By the end of the year, I’d like to have read more books than I bought (though that hasn’t been the case…ever!).

So that’s my set up for this year. What plans do you all have? Anybody feeling really ambitious? Cautiously optimistic? Reading to comfort yourself through hard times? Let me know!

We have reached the final day of 2020, fellow readers. How did you fair in your TBR Challenge?

I fell short, reading just 12 TBR books this year out of the 20 I’d set as my goal. I fell short of my overall Goodreads goal, too, reading 22 books out of the 30 I’d pledged. And I acquired 65 new books, so my TBR pile had a net gain.

But you know what? That’s okay.

This year was bad in a lot of ways and when my energy ran dry, reading was one of the first things I put aside. Fiction helps me cope with real life, and has pretty much since I learned to read. But this year I got my fiction fix more often from my TV, which requires less energy. It was easier to lay down on the couch or stretch out on my bed and grab the remote than to decide which book to read and keep myself (and my dwindling attention span) engaged in it.

In this year of abject misery, easy is what I needed. So that’s what I did 🙂

And I got through it. We got through it. Hopefully 2021 will bring peace and energy and lots of reading time, but if it doesn’t, we’ll get through that too ❤