At the start of 2020 I made a resolution to attempt to read a book every week. I will not say I succeeded but through adapting and making this blog as a form of accountability I achieved my greater goal of reading more. I had to adapt ‘book’ to mean story and either the posts or the readings were sometimes very rushed. However, every Sunday at 10:30 I managed to post about the story/book that I had read that week. It was very challenging at times balancing this with work, school and generally chaotic life that happened in 2020. With that said there were some key takeaways that I will share here.
- Creating an accountability method was hugely important in keeping my focus and attention on reading.
- Creating a blog to track my reading gives me a way of looking back at what I have read and take pride in my progress.
- The resolution gave me practice at effective reading and writing.
I believe many people make resolutions that they otherwise do not keep, reading is a simple one to engage in. Further, my commitment to the process led to others offering me books they enjoyed or discussions about their own favorite books. Even beyond interacting with others my own learning was advanced by reading more, I found books that I referenced in classes and assignments and expanded my vocabulary.
That said there were some notable drawbacks to my resolution and method of accountability.
- Even without high readership of the blog I felt I had to put out a writeup.
- The writeup was often rushed and had errors but the process of even doing the smallest writeup also caused me to be distracted from other tasks.
- Most importantly, I was rushed in the readings and while I did properly read many of the books there were many that I did not focus on or enjoy as much as I could have.
I am happy enough to claim that I achieved my greater goal with the resolution and also continue to use the blog as a way of tracking what I read but I am no longer sticking to a routine or time deadline.
My general understanding of New Years Resolutions is that many create them and already give them up by the end of January. With the blog I was able to almost force myself into sticking with mine. Resolutions tend to lack a sense of accountability and whether physical, mental or emotional resolutions, an ability to hold yourself accountable whether to others or yourself I believe to be essential. Many also establish unrealistic expectations, progress takes time and occurs one step at a time. There were times when I did not think I would be able to stick with my resolution, at least in the sense of posting weekly. However, through adapting and sometimes selecting short stories I was able to still achieve the main goal of reading more and the arbitrary accountability of posting weekly.
This blog was never setup to receive attention or promote anything, although if someone was encouraged to read more, or a specific book then that is great. As repeated this blog was an accountability method and I will continue to use it as such. I am proud though of what it became, over the year I wrote over 42,000 words, the posts received over 125 likes and importantly I read 52 works of literature through a year. This was irrespective of life events, school work and reading or the length of the books themselves.
The next post will be about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Part 1 and Part 2) but I will take my time and enjoy both the reading and writing process. Here is to a better 2021!
The Weekly Book Report 