Is It Too Late to Do a New Year's Blog? · 10:40am Jan 2nd, 2017
2016 sucked. There really isn't another way to put it. I've watched my country take part in a bitter, divisive referendum with a campaign that resulted in a significant spike in hate crimes, a quite alarming drop in the value of the pound, and something about the European Union. I've watched as the second female Prime Minister of my country rose to power on the basis of everyone else in the race dropping out and she happens to be the one politician I wouldn't want anywhere near 10 Downing Street, since she and I have a fundamental disagreement over the importance of Human Rights. Meanwhile, many of my friends across the pond are panicking due to the election of a president who seemed to be able to get away with saying anything, and many of the things that he has said are more than enough reason to be genuinely scared. Also, I almost ended up dropping out of university due to mental illness (thankfully they're allowing me to return and do my finals this year, instead), and I did end up single a few days before my birthday.
But at least I finally came last in a Writeoff, so things can't be all that bad.
Actually, before we move on thinking about the New Year, I want to take a moment to focus on the good things that have come out of 2016. I mean, looking at my account here, it hasn't exactly been a productive year, but here's a quick list of all the good things I've achieved this year:
• I wrote something for the writeoff that I am genuinely proud of. Like, genuinely so proud. It absolutely tanked in the competition, but I'm still so proud of it anyway. I love that story.
• I did my first reading of a fic! This is something I've wanted to do for years, and I'm really glad I finally plucked up the courage to give it a shot. And that's mainly thanks to:
• I have been part of a podcast for the writeoffs! We haven't been posting every round, but it's been really fun when we have posted, and I've enjoyed getting into the stories with !Hat, Zoey, and Dubs. And CiG that one time. That was cool.
• Speaking of writeoffs, I got to meet a whole bunch of writeoff folks, which was probably one of the highlights of my 2016. Plus, just chilling with everyone in the writeoff discord has been awesome, so that's cool.
• I also reviewed some fics, right back at the start of the year. I hope I get a chance to do that again, because it was fun, but there was too much wine symbolism.
And that's just my writing achievements. Not bad, huh? Sure, 2016 wasn't the most productive year, but given the obstacles I was facing I'm damn happy I got all that done.
So, what's 2017 going to be like?
Normally, my New Year's Resolution is something like "write more things" or "write something every day". I'll be honest, I'm still trying to do the "write something every day" one—more on that next week, if I manage to keep it up that long—but here's my most important Resolution:
In 2017, I am going to read a new book every week
And I'd like to invite you to join me! I'm going to be trying to host a new series on YouTube (I'm thinking "Quill's Book Club") discussing each and every book that I'm reading, possibly in the same kind of ridiculous detail I use for my reviews. Hopefully it'll be fun, we'll all learn some cool things about books and writing, and I won't totally flop on week one.
Obviously, for this venture I needed to find 52 books—specifically, 52 fiction books all by different authors, because I want variety to be the focus of this challenge. Because I work for minimum wage, my first thought was to go through my collection of books, looking for things that I either never read or never finished that fitted the bill.
I managed 51, which was the most frustrating thing ever. I mean, strictly speaking I managed 52, but I didn't think A Shoggoth on the Roof was exactly what I was looking for. So instead I'm ordering a copy of Pierside from Amazon, because bookplayer is cool. All the other books are neatly arranged, in reading order, on a bookshelf, and I'll be adding Pierside to them when it arrives.
If you'd like to join me on this venture, I'll be posting a list of the books I'm reading at the bottom of this blog, in order. If you want to read any of them, and join me in this madness, it'd be great to have you along for the ride! I'll be honest: they're not necessarily all good books, so don't expect this all the be sunshine and rainbows. After all, Stephanie Meyer is on the list.
Anyway, to all my followers (and anyone who happens to have stumbled upon this from elsewhere), I wish you all the best for 2017. Thank you for indulging me in all my silliness over the years, and here's to another year of fun!
Books, in the Order they Shall be Read
I tried to format this to be nicely spaced but it didn't work. Oops.Watership Down Richard Adams
11.22.63 Stephen King
False Witness Dexter Dias
Agnes Grey Anne Bronte
Photo-Finish Ngaio Marsh
A Man Called Ove Frederik Backman
The Portrait of a Lady Henry James
The Gift Cecelia Ahern
The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
The Earthsea Quartet Ursula Le Guin
The Book of Dave Will Self
Quicksilver Neal Stephenson
How to be Good Nick Hornby
Us David Nicholls
The Iliad and the Odyssey Homer (Translated by Samuel Butler)
The Philosopher's Pupil Iris Murdoch
A Discovery of Witches Deborah Harkness
The Tomb of Hercules Andy McDermott
The One from the Other Philip Kerr
Kant and the Platypus Umberto Eco
The Gormenghast Trilogy Mervyn Peake
The Alienist Caleb Carr
The Ladies of Grace Adieu Susanna Clarke
Ulysses James Joyce
Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
Ready Player One Ernest Cline
Red Queen Victoria Aveyard
Freedom Jonathan Franzen
The Ambassador's Mission Trudi Canavan
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson
Three Act Tragedy Agatha Christie
Slaughterhouse 5 Kurt Vonnegut
Digital Fortress Dan Brown
The Undomestic Goddess Sophie Kinsella
Dracula Bram Stoker
The Swordhand Omnibus Marcus Sedgewick
A Game of Thrones G R R Martin
The Final Empire Brandon Sanderson
The Casual Vacancy J K Rowling
London: The Novel Edward Rutherford
A Vicious Circle Amanda Craig
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner Stephanie Meyer
Death of a Red Heroine Qui Xiaolong
Grimm Tales Philip Pullman
The Fault in our Stars John Green
Shada Douglas Adams and Gareth Roberts
Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
In Parenthesis David Jones
Green Rider Kristen Britain
Neverwhere Neil Gaiman
1984 George Orwell
Pierside Emily Spahn
Wait, the entire Gormenghast trilogy in one week?
4366066 What can I say? I'm #Hardcore
In all seriousness, I'm looking to try and get a bit of a headstart over the first few months so I'm not worrying about reading during exam season, so I'll probably end up with more than a week to read Gormenghast.
Well, there's always hope for the future. We just have to all do our bit to try and make this lump of solar driftwood a better place. I like to think that's what this fandom tries to do...most of the time. And there has been some good news this past year. I found this list of good things that happened in 2016.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/11/amazing-list-of-good-things-that-happened-in-2016-delights-the-i/
That's quite this list of books you've got there too. I've been reading Seven Pillars for almost a year now, and I'm only about two thirds of the way through it.
YAAAAAAAY You finally got the wooden spoon! Congratu—
I mean, er, 2016 kinda suuuuucked for me too. Except for the part between June/July when I might have just had some of the best times of my life.
I wondered where you'd gone, among others. There's been a bit of a void in my heart since I left the Writeoff group and, ultimately, stopped writing. I've lost touch with a lot of people, and not only in terms of communication; now it feels like you're all these superior humans again, which is how I used to feel before I began to open up the idea that you were equals instead of "higher beings".
Mental illness is arse. Being unable to concentrate on anything is also arse. We've both had a bit of an arse time. Next year can't be worse, surely. Watch it be now
I might be able to join in with you on the reading thing, though. At some point. I won't have reliable internet again until February, but I should be able to drop in again after that. Maybe. It'd be real nice to have some actual voice chat with Writeoffers again. Might have to invest in a bookshelf.
Oh hey, the first book I read in 2016 was Watership Down as well! And in the first week of January too. It's great. Also grim. Did the film version traumatise you as a child like it did me? Why is it even rated U what was the BBFC on when they did that
This will be the year I too finish Ulysses!
Have fun reading!
1) Well, you didn't die in 2016. That's something.
2) Good on you for reading actual fic! I feel sometimes like I'm putting in that much reading on ponyfics, though there are enough good ones in the mix that I don't regret it.
2b) You should bump Pierside up toward the top of the list so you can plug bookplayer sooner rather than later.
2c) If you need any other original fiction novels that might be relevant to this blog's interests, chuckfinley's got one out too, and JawJoe just published one (which is no longer free, but our local writing community is worth supporting anyhow).
3) Good also on you for your writing accomplishments! I've written some stories I liked that flopped in the Writeoffs, too. It happens.
And your goffik sahdow fic was teh best. Do'nt listen 2 the preps n haters!!!!!!!!!!!!!