Well, I’m rather late getting this up, aren’t I? This honestly slipped my mind the first week of the month, and then I was busy for nearly another week. It’s really dispiriting how fast October has gone by. I had some hot cider for the first time, which was nice, but I haven’t stomped through a pumpkin patch yet or even fought a ghost yet.

Anyway, it’s the final stretch of 2020, and with that I’ve got less than three months to make good on my reading challenges for the year. Let’s see how I’m doing, shall we?

Goodreads Challenge

This is looking a little worse for wear than it did in July. I decided to lower my goal for this year to 55 (down from 70 in 2019), just so I wouldn’t stress so much about keeping up with it. On the one hand, I haven’t been all that stressed or fixated on it, which is nice. On the other hand, I’m six books behind schedule, sitting at 37 out of 55 books completed.

More specifically, as of this writing (which bleeds into October) I have read 19 text-only books and 18 comic books.

I think this all really comes down to my lackadaisical approach to reading comics. I always have so many of them, they’re much quicker reads for me, and I set my goal with reading a good number of them in mind, yet I don’t crack open as many of them as I could. I suspect these final three months shall have me rectifying that, assuming I get serious about catching up.

Scrappy To-Read List

I’ve also got my personal to-read list for the year, which for 2020 consists of 22 books I just want to finish before the year is out. It’s on a scrap of paper because I enjoy crossing them out. I’ve never actually finished a list before and wanted this to be the year, but I’m honestly having my doubts looking at it now.

Since July I’ve read through Different Seasons by Stephen King, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, Kong Unbound by various, Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett, and Thermopylae by Paul Cartledge (which I finished in early October).

I am left with 8 books to read over the next two and a half months, and I must admit that I don’t like my chances. Two main issues are how slowly I read and how often I am compelled to go off-script. I just can’t stick wholly to a list I wrote back in January. With a book like Moby Dick still on it too, I’m not sure how I’ll manage it. I’m still going to try, but I have to be realistic.

I have  kept on track with Discworld books (one per quarter), though, which I continue to be happy with. It’s a small victory, but I’ll take what I can.

Writing

This continues to be a dismal showing, I’m afraid. My creativity continues to feel a little stunted, and I guess for the time being I’ve accepted that, at least as far as outlining that fantasy novel goes. I do have ideas for some shorter creative stuff here and there that I might try to push myself toward putting into words, but with end of year fast approaching, I think I’m more inclined to reorganize all of these priorities into something I can more happily manage in 2021. Much of this is rather off-the-cuff, and I really ought to get my priorities more in order.

That’s it for this update. I’m really in the final stretch now, let’s see how I’ve done come new year. Thank you for reading!