I know that we are only half way through December, but I’m starting to feel the end of the year crunch. I really should be feeling the “the holiday comes first you idiot” crunch, but for some reason I’m not worried about that. Perhaps it’s because I have everything mailed that needs to be. Sure, there are still some things that need to be wrapped, but I can keep putting those of for days yet.
That’s not to say that I haven’t gotten any of the end of the year prep done yet. The Realistic List of conventions to attend is coming along nicely (the word “realistic” is what differentiates that list from the big spreadsheet of ALL of the conventions that are coming up next year). I spent part of the yesterday afternoon reorganizing the con material and updating the stock counts (just how did I end up with more books in some cases?)
Honestly, the real reason that I feel like I am behind is that I am trying to catch up on things that I should have kept up on. This is the time of year when people start posting their Goodreads totals and I realize that I’m six weeks behind in my book reviews. I have a journal that I am supposed to be logging my daily word counts and publishing related work in that was similarly behind.
In a totally unrelated note, I received the items from my Eldritch Elf the other day — a bunch of cool stuff including the super cute Cthulhu pictured above. The Eldritch Elf Exchange is put on by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society. It operates like a Secret Santa exchange, but with cooler stuff.
Listening To: The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry. Harry is a single mother who works part time cleaning the house of a famous horror director when disturbing things start to happen. Are these products of her imagination or are the various props and costumes moving…
Currently Reading: Hack/Slash Vol. 5 Omnibus Sometimes it is difficult to concentrate on reading big blocks of text at the end of the day, especially if my eyes are bugging me, so I decided it was time to start working my way through some of my Kickstarter rewards. I always enjoy the exploits of Cassie Hack and Vlad.
Current Obsession: Humorous Sci-Fi. As part of my “the world is too serious and sometimes I just want to laugh and maybe see people get blown up” mood I recently binged the first season of Twisted Metal (pretty sure I still have the game around somewhere too) and the third season of the amazing Resident Alien.
Dragon’s Roost Press News
As mentioned above, we did our end of the year stock accounting, which means that all that is left is the accounting accounting. Ugh. Beyond that, not a whole lot is going on that we can talk about now. Look forward to some interesting announcements in the new year.
This Week’s Rambling: Did I Mention I Have A Goodreads Account?
Yes, I know that I did mention it above, but in case you were wondering, here is a link to my page.
I usually do a more thorough review of the books that I have read over there. I try to delve a little deeper into why I did or didn’t like a book. If you are interested in that, feel free to follow. Don’t worry, I’ll still be giving my little capsule reviews here.
Every year I try to keep an accurate accounting of what I read during the year. Part of this comes from an obsessive desire to make lists and cross things off of them, to keep track of things. Another part is my desire to share with other the things that I have read and enjoyed. I know how difficult it is to get reviews and how important word of mouth is, so I try to share the wealth when I can.
Sidenote: One of the best ways to support an author is to leave a review of their work. It’s all about that algorithm now and we need those views and reviews to show up on other people’s searches.
The problem that I have is not with the reviewing, but as I hinted above, keeping up with my own progress (or lack thereof). Some of it just comes from achieving goals, which sounds a bit contradictory. This year I set a goal to read at least 75 books. Right around the time I crested that goal, I stopped reviewing. Granted, it was right around Halloween and things were exceptionally busy, but I think that part of it was knowing that I had hit the goal.
Fortunately, my stupid brain says that IT DOESN’T COUNT IF YOU DON’T LIST THEM ALL!
So, if you will excuse me, I have to hop on over to Goodreads and finish the reviews of the NINE books I still have to do. I know it’s nine because I have each one of them open in a separate tab.
Closing tabs is just like marking things off of lists.