I’m not much of a fan of new year’s resolutions in general, but I do like to have goals to work towards, so in this third Yearly Roundup post – after my 2020 in Numbers and 2020 Highlights articles – I’m going to talk a bit about what I want to achieve for Track of Words in 2021. This is my eighth year running the site, and while there have been a few ups and downs along the way I’m grateful for all the enjoyment that I’ve got out of it so far. Hopefully I can continue to enjoy myself in 2021, and at the same time keep producing content that you can enjoy and appreciate.
I wrote one of these goals articles last year too, so first of all I’ll take a quick look at how I got on in 2020, and then I’ll talk about my goals for the new year.
Recap on 2020 goals
Before I talk about the specific goals that I set for 2020, I should mention the reading challenge that I set every year (using Goodreads usually, although this year I might use StoryGraph too). For each of the years that I’ve been running Track of Words, I’ve set myself the target of reading 52 books – and every year I’ve surpassed that target. In 2019 I managed 90 books, but in 2020 I smashed way past even that with (for me) a whopping 130! I’m pretty sure 2020 will end up being an outlier, as I can’t really imagine myself reading quite so many books again in a single year, but I can honestly say that reading was a big part of what kept me sane last year!
As well as the reading challenge I set several specific goals for 2020, and while I’m happy with how some of them went, if I’m honest I didn’t do that well with others. Here’s a quick recap, along with my (not entirely serious) judgement of how well I did:
- Read and review a wider range of SFF stories: I read 50 Black Library books (which is still loads, to be fair) and reviewed 29 of them, compared to 80 non-BL books and 40 non-BL reviews. Those BL books were fun, but I had a blast reading more widely too! TOTAL SUCCESS.
- Expand my interviews:of the 66 interviews I published (14 more than in 2019), 31 featured non-BL books, four were specifically about pitching and writing horror stories, and two featured multiple authors (my two ‘Nounslayer’ interviews). I’m very happy with all of that! TOTAL SUCCESS.
- Read more stories written by women: compared to 2019’s 20 books either written by women or featuring stories by women, I did do better in 2020 with 44 (including non-binary authors) – but that’s still only 34% of what I read. It’s a start, but not good enough. MINOR SUCCESS.
- Write more reviews elsewhere: I wrote four reviews for Grimdark Magazine and three for the British Fantasy Society – not a huge number, but not too bad either. SUCCESS.
- Listen to more audio dramas:in 2019 I reviewed 15 audio dramas, and probably listened to a few more as well. In 2020 my total number of audio drama reviews was a whopping…one. I don’t know what happened, I just didn’t seem to find the time for them! FAIL.
- Work on the design of the site: I did make a couple of little tweaks, including adding a few ‘recent post’ sliders to the homepage, but design work just didn’t end up being a priority in 2020. FAIL.
2021 goals
Looking back at last year’s goals, I don’t think I really had much of an overarching aim for what I wanted to achieve. Specific, individual goals for sure, but in terms of the big picture I just had a vague idea of wanting to branch out a bit more and not go crazy with the amount of work I put in. This year I’m going to clarify that a little bit, by saying that my overall objective for the year is to make sure that I continue to enjoy both reading and writing. Whatever decisions I make regarding books and blogging, they all need to go towards making sure I’m enjoying what I’m doing. After all, I don’t get paid for this so it needs to be fun! Not saying that it wasn’t fun in the past, just that I want to make sure I’m looking after myself.
With that in mind, I’ve got a few goals that I’d like to achieve – some of them specifically regarding reading (which may or may not impact on Track of Words) and others regarding writing.
Reading goal: maintain a good reading balance
In part, this is much the same as last year’s ‘wider range’ goal – I had loads of fun in 2020 checking out all sorts of new series and authors, so now I want to make sure I keep that up. As I said last year, this doesn’t mean that I’m stopping reading Warhammer fiction, just that I want to read other things as well. I’ve got my eye on a few of the BL books announced for 2021, but I’ll probably be a bit more picky with which ones I buy because I’ve got all sorts of other books on my radar too.
This isn’t just about what I read though, it’s also about why and how. I’ve talked before about the differences between reading for fun and for review, and I think in 2019 I accidentally came to a good balance between the two. That wasn’t really intentional though, so this year I want to make sure I’m deliberately setting out to read more books purely for the fun of it, whether that means revisiting old favourites, picking up books from genres outside of SFF/horror, or whatever. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been a bit slow to really get into audiobooks but I had loads of fun with them last year, so I imagine I’ll do the same this year – I find it harder to review something I’ve listened to in audio compared to in print, so it makes sense to choose audios more for fun.
Reading goal: do better with reading more diverse authors and stories
I’m making this goal broader than last year. I don’t just want to read more stories not written by men, I also want to read more fiction from non-white authors and more fiction set outside of the English-speaking world. That’s not to say I don’t want to read stories written by white men or set in places I’m familiar with, but rather that I want to read more broadly in as many respects as possible. The way I see it, this can only be a good thing! I didn’t do well enough with that last year, so hopefully I can make a better job of it this year.
Reading goal: explore more IPs
One of my highlights of 2020 was getting stuck into fiction from Aconyte Books, exploring IPs like Arkham Horror and Legend of the Five Rings along with various characters from the many worlds of Marvel. I also read what was probably my second Star Wars book ever, and my first (in fact the first) long-form League of Legends story. In case you hadn’t guessed, I absolutely love IP or tie-in fiction as a way of exploring or getting to know cool new worlds, and this year I’m keen to dig even deeper into what’s available. I’d like to try a few more IPs that I haven’t yet explored (I could see myself checking out some Star Trek fiction for example, but I’m open to suggestions too), and also read more within some of the IPs that I made a start with last year. I’ve got several Aconyte novels waiting to be read, with loads more due to be published this year, and likewise for Star Wars, so I think I’ll have plenty to enjoy.
Writing goal: more guide articles
From where to start with Black Library’s ‘new 40k’ novels to short stories that deserve their own series, I really enjoyed putting together a bunch of ‘guide’ articles last year. I feel like this is an area where I can contribute really valuable content as someone who’s read a lot of Warhammer fiction over the years (I knew it would come in handy eventually), so I’m hoping to be able to put together more articles along these lines. I’ve got a couple of ideas for new guides already, but I’d love to know if there are specific topics, series, characters etc. that you would be interested in seeing me cover, so do let me know what you think!
Writing goal: more non-Rapid Fire interviews
I love putting together my Rapid Fire interviews, and I hope they’re valuable to readers, but I’d like to put more time into author interviews that aren’t necessarily linked directly into new releases. I mean, that’s the point of a Rapid Fire interview – to give you the lowdown on a new book. That’s cool, but it’s also fun to work on interviews which cover different topics, whether that’s talking to authors about their approach to writing, looking back through the history of a specific series, digging into certain genres or themes…there are loads of possibilities. This sort of interview takes much more work, but they’re fun to do and hopefully interesting to read, so hopefully I can find the time to do a few more like this!
Writing goal: have fun with a wider variety of articles
In 2020 I published my first guest post, my first cover reveal and my first exclusive announcement of a new book, alongside the ‘guide’ articles I mentioned earlier and all the usual suspects. I’m keen to do more articles along those lines, as they’re great fun to put together and I feel like they offer something nicely different to the reviews and interviews that are the mainstay of what I produce. There may even be other types of new-to-me articles that I could work on as well, so I’ll see what I can come up with. If there’s anything you’d like to see then do let me know, and likewise if you’re an author, editor, publisher or PR person and would be interested in working on something together then by all means get in touch!
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So those are my reading and writing goals for 2021, along with my usual reading target which I’m going to set at 52 books as always (although I’d love to get closer to 100). Have you got any goals of your own for 2021, whether reading, writing or otherwise? Is there anything that you’d like to see me cover on Track of Words? I’d love to hear from you, so let me know in the comments below or get in touch on Twitter. Here’s hoping for a great 2021!
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