Friday, January 10, 2014

Completed Series I Own!

This is an addendum of sorts to my most recent video. I mentioned that I owned 42 completed series and had personally read 20 of them. It turns out I only own 41 completed series (Ender's Game apparently has a 5th book!) but of those 41 series I have actually read 21! I thought I would make a list, because who doesn't love a good bookish list?

So here they are! These are all of the completed series I currently own! They are sorted alphabetically by author's last name and I will note whether the series is unread, started, or read.

Holly Black
Curse Workers trilogy (3 books, read)
Modern Fairytale trilogy (3 books, unread)

Kendare Blake
Anna Dressed in Blood series (2 books, read)

Libba Bray
Gemma Doyle trilogy (3 books, read)

Kristin Cashore
Graceling trilogy (3 books, started)

Cassandra Clare
The Infernal Devices trilogy (3 books, read)

Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games trilogy (3 books, read)

Ally Condie
Matched trilogy (3 books, started)

Leah Cypess
Mistwood series (2 books, started)

Lauren DeStefano
The Chemical Garden trilogy (3 books, started)

Simone Elkeles
Perfect Chemistry trilogy (3 books, started)

Gayle Forman
If I Stay series (2 books, read)

Kami Garcia + Margaret Stohl
Beautiful Creatures series (4 books, started)

Kirstin Gier
Ruby Red trilogy (3 books, read)

Cynthia Hand
Unearthly trilogy (3 books, read)

Rachel Hawkins
Hex Hall trilogy (3 books, read)

Julie Kagawa
The Iron Fey series (4 books, unread)

Marie Lu
Legend trilogy (3 books, read)

Lisa Mantchev
Eyes Like Stars trilogy (3 books, unread)

Myra McEntire
Hourglass trilogy (3 books, started)

Lisa McMann
Wake trilogy (3 books, started)

Richelle Mead
Vampire Academy series (6 books, read)

Stephanie Meyer
Twilight series (4 books, read)

Patrick Ness
The Chaos Walking trilogy (3 books, unread)

Jana Oliver
The Demon Trappers series (4 books, unread)

Lauren Oliver
Delirium trilogy (3 books, read)

Jackson Pearce
Fairytale Retelling series (4 books, started)

Tamora Pierce
Song of the Lioness series (4 books)(unread)

Louise Rennison
Confessions of Georgia Nicolson (10 books, started)

Beth Revis
Across the Universe trilogy (3 books, read)

Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (5 books, read)
The Kane Chronicles trilogy (3 books, started)

Veronica Roth
Divergent trilogy (3 books, read)

J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter series (7 books, read)

Jeri Smith-Ready
Shade trilogy (3 books, started)

Maggie Stiefvater
Shiver trilogy (3 books, started)

J. R. R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (3 books, read)

Scott Westerfeld
Uglies series (4 books, read)
Leviathan trilogy (3 books, read)

Kiersten White
Paranormalcy trilogy (3 books, read)

Rick Yancey
The Monstrumologist series (4 books, started)

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Goals For 2014

I always debate making New Year's resolutions. It's been proven over and over again that I hardly ever complete them. But at the same time there's something so fresh and promising about the first day of a brand new year. There are so many what-ifs and possibilities! My inner dreamer kinda loves it.  

So of course I have some goals for 2014, even though I know I probably won't complete all of them. Or any of them, if recent history repeats itself. Though it should be noted that I don't think completion is the only thing that matters. I think the setting of a goal—deciding to work toward something, striving to better yourself—is pretty important too. As is the follow through. Even if you don't complete a goal, as long as you tried and made good progress, that's still something, right?

I didn't complete any of my goals for 2013. But does that mean I failed? I read 94 books instead of 100. I drafted two novels instead of drafting one and revising another. I didn't maintain a three video per week average, but I still made a lot of videos this year and my channel has grown far more than I expected it to. I didn't study Korean as much as I wanted to, but I did watch a ton of Korean dramas.

Sounds like a pretty successful year, even if it didn't go just as I'd planned. And who knows what 2014 has in store? I have no idea where this year might take me, but here are the five main things that I plan to focus on:

READING – I'm going for the 100 book challenge again. I fell 6 books short this year, which is a bummer, but I'm not going to be upset about reading 94 books! I'm just going to try a little harder this year to hit those triple digits. I also want to do more book reviews, both video and written. Ideally, every book I read will get at least a brief written review and I'm going to try to do one book review video each week.

WRITING – Since I didn't revise a novel last year, I'm going to focus on just that this year. I have several sloppy first drafts of novels that desperately need revision. I don't know exactly which one I'm going to focus on—I simply CANNOT decide and it's driving me crazy and I'll make a vlog rambling all about this soon. But basically my writing goal is to work on revising something and get it to my betas by the end of the year.

VLOGGING – Just like last year, I'm going to aim for an average of 3 videos per week. I'm thinking one book review, one book tag/haul, and one writing related video each week. But this is just a loose plan and I don't have a schedule or anything so don't count on that. Mostly I just want to focus on putting out good content that I enjoy and that you all enjoy too! Lots of vlogging in 2014!

BLOGGING – Oh hey there, welcome to my blog. I've had it since 2009 but it's been neglected for the last few years because most of the time I prefer to vlog. But lately there have been things that I wish to discuss that wouldn't be right for a video, or maybe I just don't have enough time to make one. So blogging might be my solution. I say might be because I'm still iffy about this one, but I'd like to post here at least a couple times a week. Also, don't be too shocked if this whole blog changes up soon. (I might move to wordpress because everyone says it's great, but I really like blogger so I'm inclined to stay. But oh, what do I know? I'm blog-ignorant. Blognorant?)

KOREAN – This one is difficult to quantify, but I want to put more effort into studying. I've been in this beginner stage for a while now and I know the basics, but I'm eager to start learning more. I will probably do at least one blog post each month about my Korean studies, just to keep me on track with my language learning progress. It's too hard to set a measurable yearly goal at this point, so I'll probably set monthly goals. For example, in January I'll be making my way through the TTMIK level 2 lessons as well as miscellaneous other studying (e.g. watching Korean dramas).

There you have it! Those are my goals for this new year. I think it's gonna be a good one and I'm excited to see what plot twists 2014 might throw my way. I'm looking forward to a very busy year of reading, writing, vlogging, blogging, and watching K-dramas studying Korean!