Resolutions aren't really my thing, I guess. For all I'm an expert procrastinator, I think my procrastination skills are still beat by my ability to outright forget things. Add to that my tendency in recent years to be easily overwhelmed and distracted, and the resolve aspect of New Year's Resolutions kind of flies right out the window.

So here's what I meant to do in 2014, compared to what I actually did.

Catch up on my ARCs.

Despite hoping to make this my "#1 priority" for the beginning of 2014, this didn't happen. I certainly got a few read, but nowhere near as much as I wanted. The biggest hurdle here is being overwhelmed; I still have too many and that, coupled with my tendency to view them as one huge thing to be tackled instead of a bunch of little things, makes me anxious and, by extension, disinterested when I think about getting back to them.

This will be something that stays on my list for 2015.

Read at least fifty books I actually own.

Well, after double-checking, I actually did much better than I thought on this one! I read twenty nine books I own this year. Admittedly, a good 95% percent of those were rereads, but... still better than I expected.

I'll be keeping something similar to this on my list for 2015, I think. I own so many damn books!

Finish Sparrow.

This is kind of a weird one. I set Sparrow aside at the beginning of August 2014, having written a total of one hundred and twenty thousand words. Despite the rambling nature of the story, I quite enjoyed writing it--which I did, as a NaNoer would say, as a "pantser"--but it just wasn't sustainable.

After setting it aside in August, I took what I had and wrote up a much more concise outline to use for the second draft. I don't think that's going to be my project for 2015, but I intend to get to it at some point in the future. Could be this year, could be next. Who knows?

Write a cumulative 250,000 words.

I haven't actually finished tallying my words yet; it's a project I'm still slowly chipping away yet. Right now, though, I'm hovering at just beneath 200,000 words, and I've got at least another thirty thousand to add. I don't, however, expect to reach 350,000... maybe 300,000 by the time I'm finished counting?

Read at least two hundred books.

I fell short again this year, unfortunately. I read only one hundred and fifty nine books in 2014, and a third of that was rereads.

I think I'll aim for two hundred again, but at this point, I'll just be happy to see my count go up for once instead of down.

Comment on other book blogs.

Yeah, this had a chance of actually being accomplished. /s

Empty out my Pocket.

I don't think I read a single thing from my Pocket this year. I mean, I'm sure I probably did, but if I did, I can't remember what.

Publish a blog post every weekday.

I did extremely well with this for the first few months of the year, but my drive fizzled out sometime in May, I think. But for several months, I was publishing something every day of the week, which was pretty awesome.

I'd like to try this one again in 2015, but I'd like to try to make sure I'm scheduling in advanced this time around.

Procrastinate less when it comes to reviewing.

Nope! I mean, if you want to count those first few months, then sure, but there's still a lot of stuff that I meant to do in 2014 that I pushed back and back and right into the New Year. I'm lame.

Catching up on my backlog of reviews to write should be a 2015 resolution, I suppose.

Procrastinate less when it comes to reading.

Not on your life. This one times in with the ARC one, I guess, since those are the only books I actually feel obligated to read (though one could easily argue that I have some degree of an obligation to read books I own, too...). But since I barely managed to read anything this year, I'd hardly say I stopped procrastinating this year.

This is one I'm not going to be reattempting for 2015, as I think "read more" and "read your damn ARCs" kind of cover the gist.

Anyway, that's 2014. What about 2015?

1. Catch up on my ARCs. (And by extension, get my Netgalley up to 80%.)
2. Focus on reading books that I own; I have so many that they've long since overflowed my shelves, so I'd like to read enough of them that I can feel comfortable passing those I no longer want on to other readers. Since I'm an eternal dork, I'm going to be calling this "Project Get Shit on Shelves".
3. Write a cumulative 250,000 words (including book reviews, blog posts, journal entries, and fiction).
4. Read two hundred books.
5. Stick to my planned posting schedule here at Amara's Eden. I have specific things planned for specific days, and I'd like to stay on top of that for as long as possible. The whole year, ideally.
6. Complete both Camp NaNoWriMo 2015 sessions and NaNoWriMo 2015.
7. Complete at least the lowest level of all reading challenges I've signed up for.
8. Complete the transition from Goodreads to Leafmarks (i.e., finish transferring books, shelves, and reviews once and for all).
9. Read (and watch?) more horror this year. Horror is far and away my favorite genre, but I don't intake anywhere near as much of it as I'd like. I think I'd like to make 2015 the year I really delve into the genre!
10. Read five books published in 2015. I'm always excited when the GR Choice Awards come around, except that always involves me staring at a screen full of books I've never heard of, let alone read. I'd like to try to keep up with some trends this year, I think. Maybe check out some 2015 Listopia lists for ideas?

As I wrote in my post yesterday, 2014 was a really fantastic reading year for me. I'm hoping that 2015 will be as well! I don't think that I'll be able to read too many books just for fun, but I'll be reading a lot for school, so that's good at least. My overall goal for the year is to read 150 books. That's 43 more than I read in 2014, but I think the goal should be pretty attainable, since I have to read 60 just for one of the classes that I'm taking this semester. 

I also would like to make more time to read at least one book for me each month. I don't know how realistic that is. Last semester, by the time I was done with all the reading I had to do for school, the last thing I wanted to do was read some more. It's definitely possible that that will continue, in which case I won't be doing much reading for myself until August. But I'd like to make more time to read books that I actually want to read. 

I also want to make sure that I keep up with my activity on here. If I don't, it's not a big deal - between grad school and my personal life I'm pretty busy and legitimately don't have too much time these days to be on - but I miss the community on here a lot when I'm gone, so I really would like to make more time for booklikes when I'm able to. Hopefully, while I'm in school, I'll be able to write at least one post a week. It's not as frequent as I'd like, but that's probably as much as my schedule will realistically allow. 

Finally, I need to start introducing the baby to books. For those who don't know, my husband and I are expecting our first baby on June 2 - so baby still is quite a long way off from making his/her appearance, but I'd like to get started with reading to him/her. My mom and my mother-in-law have both spoken to me about how important it is to begin reading to babies even before they're born. I feel kind of awkward just reading to my bump, haha, but I want to do what's best for the baby. And of course, once he/she is born, I'll be reading to him/her all the time. So, if those of you who are parents have any advice about what kinds of books are good for babies before they're born, please send it my way! Or if you have advice about how to feel less weird about reading to my baby bump that would be very welcome, too, haha. I want the baby to love reading just like I do (of course, if he/she doesn't that's fine but it's an interest that I'd love for us to share). 

I hope all of you have a wonderful 2015, both as far as books go and with the rest of your lives! Happy New Year!