Oh, yes, I have a blog - and plans for it

A very quick post that is mostly filler and excuse. Because that's how I roll. I do have plans - they would be resolutions had I blogged them in January as planned - but that's all been a bit scuppered by real life, or...

My Excuses For Ignoring My Blog For Months

- Work: I got a Christmas job in Waterstone's, which is pretty much dream come true except that it is knackering.  Very, very knackering. Nothing like standing up for hours on end and not being able to stretch your legs without looking like you're doing aerobis behind the counter to make you appreciate office work. And when the till decides it's not going to co-operate and send you in circles as you try to process gift vouchers you're unable to do what I usually do: hit the montior and swear, because nothing makes a computer work like tapping it repeatedly and threatening it with violence, but doing this in front of children isn't a good idea (for the record, I didn't; I just made angry faces).

Which makes it sound like I hated the job. I didn't, I loved it. It was Waterstone's, there were books. That is all I really need in my life.

Then in January, I got a temp job that has now become permanent. It's office work and data entry and full time. I have not worked full time since June 2010 - I hadn't worked at all between then and November of last year. It has been a shock to the system, though at least I am no longer in a customer service call centre. That used to have me banging my head against the desk, literally.

This makes it sound like I am complaining about having a job, which in the state the economy is in is a) foolish and b) ungrateful. I like having a job, I just miss having free time.

- Laziness: I am very lazy. Get home from work and crash out lazy. Watch the same sitcom on DVD for ages because it's easier than having to focus on something new lazy. Start the same episode of Fringe three times before deciding to watch something I've seen before lazy. In all this, my reading has slowed down, and my blogging has suffered, as has my own writing.  Knowing I have this problem doesn't make me do anything about it...because I am lazy.

Resolutions, or If I Blog It It Will Happen

This happened with my two NaNo wins (2009 and 2010, yay!) - blogging about it meant I did it.  So:

Blogging
- At least two posts a week
- At least one review a week
- Post a weekly reading round up on Sundays (because I am not working so have no excuses)
- Monthly round ups

Reading
- 10 books a month (need this to hit my target of 100 this year)
- 20 Fill in the Gaps books this year (have made it to 3)

Further details to follow - I am going to make a list of titles and targets and I am going to read them. Yes, I am.

I Think This Post's Mostly Filler

As I briefly mentioned in my In My Mailbox post, I have missed blogging for a while.  I had all sorts of plans and then life intruded.  I had little access to the Internet and was at my parents' house where there is the benefit of all the books I can't cart around the country with me but also not much time for blogging.  So, this post is mostly to have something here before I do a new review/something because I want to create at least a semblance of this blog being live (which it is).  Though this will primarily be a list, because I like them.

- Am rereading Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers - I'd forgotten what a weird book it is.  It's a detective novel without a murder (fairly rare for the Golden Age of Crime) but that's not what I find weird: it's how much of Sayers' own thoughts and beliefs are on the page.  She's addressing her own concerns about writing, feminism, honesty and relationships, and there are lines which Harriet thinks which are clearly Sayers talking about her own work.  It's bizarre but fascinating.  I will have to do a full review of it, just because it is so odd but also brilliant.

- Have decided to do both Group Reads for October at A Literary Odyssey: Dracula and Dante's Inferno (sign up post is here for anyone interested).  I've read Dracula before but haven't read it all the way through for ages; I usually just read the fantastic bit at the beginning with Jonathan Harker trapped in the castle because that is so creepy.  I've never read Inferno but it's one of those books I know bits about, mostly thanks to crime dramas in which the serial killer is recreating elements of the poem with their murders in an effort at originality (it's always Dante or the Bible, televisual killers often lack creativity).

- Doctor Zhivago is still looming at me as the last challenge book I have to read this year.  It scares me a little, and I think I may have to photocopy the cast list at the front so I can keep all the Russian names straight.

- I really want to read more Dickens, and that is something I never thought I'd say.  Am unsure whether to do it chronologically (though am not overly fussed about Pickwick Papers) or start with the books I want to read - although that may means I never get to the ones I'm not sure about.  Mostly, I want to read Bleak House.  And reread Oliver Twist. 

That's about it, really (I hate it when a post runs to an end).  I do have plans, and am undecided about whether to keep reading new books quickly or to go back and reread slowly for the sake of reviewing.  I will definitely be doing the Group Reads, though, so that is something to give me structure for the month.

Challenge Updates: The whole damn lot of them

This year, I signed up for a few challenges: 1st in a Series, 2nd in a Series, Victorian Literature and the A to Z Title challenge.  I've completed 1st and 2nd, done the bare minimum of Victorian reading (5 out of 5-9) and have only Z to go on the title challenge (Dr Zhivago).  So, time for some updates because I have read a lot of books this year and have so far only managed to review 4/113 - that's 3.5% which is rubbish.

I'm not going to list what I've read for each challenge, as that is on the Challenge page, but I am going to make a few plans and hope that by sharing them I actually complete them (seriously, me and Emma Woodhouse have far too much in common when it comes to book related plans).

1) Complete the A to Z challenge.  Dr Zhivago is scaring me a little because a) it's my first ever Russian novel, and b) I've tried to read Anna Karenina and oh good Lord the names.  Why must everyone have so many different names?  It is confusing for the reader.  This is what is worrying me the most, I think, that I'll get so confused I'll give up.  I must not give up.

Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871)
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (1848)
Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes (1857)
Villette by Charlotte Bronte (1853)

There are also libraries I can raid, possibly to find shorter Victorian novels.

3) Review at least half of the books I read for these challenges.  Some of them crossover - so far I have read 55 individual books for these challenges, and have reviewed 3 of them (Ash, Sisters Red and Treasure Island).  I borrowed quite a few of them from the library, or don't have them in my current flat, so I'll be doing those which I actually have with me so I can reread/check facts before reviewing.

4) My final, ongoing challenge is Project Fill in the Gaps.  I've read 16 from the list this year, taking my overall title to 29/100.  I'd like to get to 30.  Some of the books I read for other challenges overlap with this one, and the Victorian novels listed above fit on it, so I should be able to complete this.  Review target: half of the books I've read this year.

So, not too much to be getting on with there.