July 15: Looking Back to Look Ahead

A look at what I accomplished last week and what I hope to achieve this week.

Welcome to a review of last week and what I hope to do next week.

I’ll look back on and create goals for…

• Reading

• Writing

• Creativity

Reading Life

Last Week I Finished…

Adult

• Spark of the Everflame (Kindred’s Curse #1) by Penn Cole

  • Such a great fantasy! I absolutely love the world building and am getting a certain Hunger Game vibe that I don’t want to share because it might be a spoiler…

• Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde #2) by Heather Fawcett

  • I really love this series. It’s a “cozy” fantasy, but honestly this one was a lot more action-packed and intense than the first. Fawcett has a great way of building worlds and I loved the mountain setting in this one. Looking forward to the next one.

• Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead (Finlay Donovan #2) by Elle Cosimaro

  • If you need a good time, this is it. It’s funny, ridiculous, and hooks you from the start.

Young Adult

• Guardians of the Dawn: Zhara (Guardians of Dawn #1) by S. Jae-Jones

  • I am not sure why I took so long to read this…I got distracted with other books and was worried I wouldn’t understand everything. I was wrong and I am so glad I dove back in. This is going to be a great series full of mystery, darkness, and love. Sister love. Romantic love. I asked for the next book (Ami) on Netgalley and fingers crossed I get it! But, good news is, it does release soon (August I think).

• What the River Knows (Secrets of the Nile #1) by Isabel Ibañez

  • Isabel’s writing is so elegant. The way she describes Argentin and then Egypt is absolutely stunning. Also, the twists and turns in this book had me turning pages so fast! I definitely recommend.

  • Also yes…it has The Mummy vibes.

I also had a great time in my reading journal-which is a sign that this book was awesome.

This week I hope to read…

I am hoping to focus on the following reads each week:

• 1 nonfiction

• 1 ARC

• 1 book I own

Here’s how these reads fit in to those categories:

• 1 nonfiction: Quiet Power

• 1 ARC: The Poisons We Drink

• 1 book I own: Basil and Dahlia AND Chlorine (as of an hour ago when Hoopla removed it from my shelf)

Reading Challenge

Storygraph has reminded me that I am behind on my reading goal. Now, goals are just goals. I don’t want to make reading stressful. But…I do want to try. So, to get closer to my goal, I asked Instagram what kind of reading challenge I should do this week and the people wanted: SWAP SCREEN TIME FOR READING TIME.

The challenge is to take the screen time from the week before and read for that much time.

As this is summer…this is going to be really difficult. Take a look at last Monday’s screen time (which means I have to READ for that amount of time):

To may defense, those 2 hours on Youtube were CROCHETING TUTORIALS…but I shall keep the goal simple and read… 8.5 hours TODAY. I am scared to see what the rest of the days’ screen times are…

Author Features and Celebrations

Writing Life

I have been doing a couple of things to get my writing going:

• Look for quotes in songs and books to write poems for. I had fun with these and hope to write more soon (when I posted I had hoped it would be daily…don’t look at those dates though…):

• Researching women who have been left out of history for a new project (feel free to share your favorite women in history below)

• Setting up a Notion page to track page numbers and time spent while writing-here’s a snapshot. I love my motivational quotes too. I hope to change it out monthly and include some pictures of my writing to give me inspiration. I may also add a timer to help me record time spent writing.

If you write, how do you motivate yourself?

This week, I hope to start filling in that Notion page with more days spent writing.

Creative Life

Crocheting was my creative outlet last week- I made a cute pig for my niece and a cute walrus. Currently, I am working on a Highland cow. My daughter has also started crocheting and made a capybara and a mallard duck! She’s doing fairly well.

For this week, I have a fun idea for bookish bracelets…stay tuned!

Other goals and things of interest

• I’ve been walking 3 miles a day and I love it. I might read or crochet while walking, which has led to some startling moments of running into fellow neighbors out walking…but it’s worth it. I hope they haven’t take video of me multitasking out there lol.

• Booktube: I’ve been enjoying watching booktube again, particularly Haley Pham, Destiny Sidwell, and Heather McLarry.

  • I also am debating on making more videos…but I struggle with it. Possibly some imposter syndrome (I feel lame) and also, I don’t want to fix my hair to talk about books.

• Daily journaling to keep myself productive and reflective..and for my mental health

• Reading Journal-as I shared my page above with What the River Knows, I want to do more with my reading journal. I regret using such a big notebook, so I’ve been reluctant to use it. But, I also feel like I started it and need to finish-can’t waste a notebook!

I would love to hear how your week was and what you hope to do this week!

Take care.