Share some things you hope to achieve in the new year. Mine will be book/blog related but you can make a more personal one or add a personal touch if you like!
This is the last post of the Readiculous Reads End of Year Celebration and these past four days have been so much fun, and all of this couldn't have been possible without the amazing Shelly. I have had so many family obligations and plain life has gotten in the way so on the first day of 2014, the other two posts of the Readiculous Reads End of Year Celebration will be posted.
I was actually very excited about this post because it gave me an oppurtunity to organize my book read, blogging life. As you probably know, Loving the Language of Literacy is a very new blog as of December, so I was bascially just trying to get into the swing of things, and this crazy blogging world I never knew even existed before. I have to admit, I took off a bit more than I could chew on some readathons, and if there's one thing I've learned this month from blogging is that always set the bar lower than you want. I'm not saying to have low ambitions, but realistic ones. The goals I had previously set were ones that I wanted to accomplish, not ones I could accomplish. So I'm going to use this post as my guide, of what I want to do in 2014 to make my life, blogging and otherwise, a lot less stressful.
Again I don't want to set the bar too high, and especially on something like followers. People following me is all up to them, but they make their decisions based on the quality of work I produce.
This isn't a resolution, but what I would love to achieve twitter-wise by the end of 2014 is 500 followers. I know it's a loft goal, but I'm already over 250, after only about three months of solid tweeting. A whole year to less than double that seems reasonable to me.
This one also isn't a resolution, but I would love to achieve bloglovin-wise by the end of 2014 is 150 followers. I certainly know it won't be easy, and that I have no control over who follows me, but what I do know is that I will strive be the best book blogger I can be, thus people will actually want to follow me, and read what I have to say.
Another huge part about being a blogger is interacting with people. I like following lots of people via Bloglovin, but sometimes my unread count is more than 200 posts. I know I'm not a human machine, and I know I can't comment on everything (although I would like too) but my goal is to comment on as many posts as I can.
On top of that, I want to host a few giveaways this year. I'm not even a month into this whole blogging thing, so I'm trying to ge settled, but as soon as I am, I hope to host monthly or milestone (a certain follower count) giveawys.
What I want for the year of 2014 post-wise looks a little something like this:
Monday: Book Review
Tuesday: Top Ten Tuesday
Wednesday: Waiting on Wednesday/Wish list Wednesday
Thursday: Discussion
Friday: Book Review. Feature and Follow Friday
Saturday: Saturday Surprise
On one of the very first "Switched at Birth" episodes, Regina talked about her alcohol addiction. How she kept promising herself, over and over at differnt times that she would get sober, but she kept breaking that promise. So instead, she had to make promises to other people, so they could help motivate her and be there along the journey.
I certainly don't have an alcohol problem (I'm not even legal to drink), but I do have a problem with keeping commitments, so I'm hoping that this post will be a promise to all of my followers that I will be able to keep. I want to have a post up Monday through Saturday so that my followers will know I am solid, consistent, and committed to them. My Saturday Surprise is actually a post that is completely spontaneous on my part, it might be an end-of-the-month challenge update, random reading survey, or one of my three new review styles (look out for that post within a week).
I'm not going to use the word goal, or resolution because these ones are out of my control since it involves my mom driving me to places. This year I want to go to one book signing/author meet-up a month, so 12 by the end of 2014.
I also would like to start receiving physical ARCs from publishers that want me, to review their books. I first need to gain a modest following before I start requesting them. After I do so, I need to have the confidence to do so, and learn how to deal with rejection better.
Another aspiration that I'm going to make myself get over is my fear of librarians. Yes I did say it. I'm afraid of librarians which is ironic since I'm doing the Library Book Challenge. My mom actually says to me, "Sofia, what are they going to do, bite you?" I don't know where the hec this fear originated, but I'm afraid the librarians will tell me I'm wrong, or that the book I want to read is inappropriate, or all manner of weird notions that will never happen. At my local library, you have to register and set up a four digit pin in order to renew/reserve books online, as well as borrow e-books from the online library. In all the years I've been going, I've been scared to talk to the librarian to get that four digit pin.
Now of course, with all of this blogging going on, I can't forget what made me want to do all of this in the first place: reading. My goal for 2014 is to read 150 books, roughly three books a week. I know some people read a lot more, and I know some people read a lot less, but this is what I think is reasonable, and I think I am capable of this. I probably would want my goal to be 300 books, but I know there's no way for that to happen, so I'm going to do my best and shoot for 150. Two of the three books per week would be physical, which means I have to restrict myself to library hauls of six books at a time (the horror). Then the other book in the week would be an E-copy from Netgalley, or something else like that.
My goal for 2014 is to post 104 reviews. I know on occasion things will come up, so I'm not promising that there will be a review for every book I read (unrealistic) but I do want more than 104 (two reviews a week) because I do spend a lot of time on each review to make it special with all of my focus weighing the pros and cons of it.
Now I'm going to tell you a little something about myself. I truly do want to be organized, and prepared for anything life hits me with, but frankly, I'm not. My goal for 2014 is to be organized. Even if I only post three times a week (just an example) I would rather be relaxed for those three posts, than paranoid about six.
Another fact about me is that because my goals are so high, I'm often disappointed with my results and outcomes. My goal for 2014 is to not beat myself up over things. If I read one book in a week instead of three, that's fine. If I only post two posts in a week instead of six, that's fine. If I mess up on a challenge, it's fine. My mom actually says to me that I am my own worse enemy for putting so much pressure on myself, and although I hate to admit it, she's right.
I hope this post showed you a little more about myself as a blogger/person. I'm sorry Shelly that the other two posts for the Readiculous Reads End of Year Celebration weren't up on time, I had so much going on. If I don't get another post up tonight, I just want to say Happy New Year, and I hope all of you have had a wonderful 2013 and an even more fantabulous 2014.
Love,
Sia
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