What Do We Plan For 2021?

What Do We Plan For 2021?

2020 certainly was a year. I’m not sure 2021 will be any better when it comes to plans, but we can try. So, let us share you with some of our reading/blogging/life plans. Then let’s keep our fingers crossed that we actually can realize some of them.

Arina

Netgalley Backlog

When I first started my personal blog, the first website I came across was Netgalley. For someone with little buying power, perusing Netgalley was like those times my parents gave me 5 euros and let me go nuts at the candy shops close to my school. Ok, they were half unaware that’s where I spent my money on, but the rush only added to…well, the sugar rush. And so, just like when I was a kid, I went on a sweet binge and requested any book I found interesting, having no knowledge of the deeper workings of Netgalley at the time. 

Regardless of how foolish past me was, and how quickly my ratio declined thanks to them, I still thank myself for the wonderful selection. If anything, sometimes big mistakes make for unforgettable experiences. 

With this year having been the 12 months free trial of Hell that it was, I fell a bit behind on my Netgalley backlog, for which my mental health thanks me, but it destroys me. In 2021, my main goal will be to get that coveted 100% Netgalley ratio and be more mindful of my future requests.

Exploring New Genres

SFF has always been and will always be the focus of my reading. It’s my greatest passion and I’m all the happier for it, and it’s definitely a combo of genres I’ll never let go. Even so, this coming year I’ve made it one of my goals to jump into new genres I’ve always been interested in, but somehow only read mixed in with SFF. 

Crime is one, and Horror another. I’ve already planned to read titles such as

Author
Title*
Lee C Conley
Jeremy C. Shipp
David Wellington
Stephen Graham Jones
Alyssa Cole
Eugen Bacon
Nuzo Onoh
* titles are linked to their respective GR pages

I’ve also set a goal to introduce myself to the LitRPG genre, and to explore a few movie/game based novels such as

Master & Apprentice and Into the Void from the Star Wars novel universe; The Stolen Throne from the Dragon Age saga; Halo: Fall of Reach; Mass Effect: Revelation; to name a few. 

Drop your recommendations for these genres on the comment section if you have any, I’d love to destroy my TBR lol!

Books I’m Excited About

Boy, do I have a never-ending list. I really have too many books I’m looking forward to reading next year, so many that not even 1/382984 will fit here. 

2021 lingers, and I can already tell you I’m super fucking excited for what’s to come to the literary world. Awesome new releases arise, and I’ve also set personal goals of backlists I’m dying to get to. I want to have an overall more conscientious, enjoyable 2021 when it comes to reading and let my mood reading guide me a bit more into pleasurable, ostentatious landscapes. Of course, plans always change, as is life’s prerogative, but I like having small goals to look forward to, and I’ve been eager to get to these titles ever since I heard about them. 
Some of them I already own copies of, so whoohoo for being on the right track! You’ll be seeing me talk about

Author
Title*
C. L. Clark
Everina Maxwell
Joan He
Z Brewer
Rob J. Hayes
Jed Herne
Luke Tarzian
Sarah Chorn
Michael McClung
Clayton Snyder
Wesley Chu
Ada Hoffman
Ben Galley
Rory Power
Mara Fitzgerald
Mike Shackle
RJ Barker
K. C. Alexander
S. L. Huang
Nghi Vo
Travis M. Riddle
Shelley Parker-Chan
Suyi Davies Okungbowa
* titles are linked to their respective GR pages
divider
Jen

Looking ahead at 2021 I am not sure how much planning should go into my life goals for this year considering what a shitshow 2020 was, and that the start of this year isn’t looking much different – at least not here. Who knew we’d still be dealing with Covid and lockdowns almost a year later….

Anyway, goals! I will begin with my usual which is to finish off my reddit bingo card. Hopefully, this goes better than my Goodreads reading goal for 2020, which fell short of by ten books – if I finished the last one on my currently reading shelf in time. Spoiler alert… I didn’t. 

One of 2020’s goals that I did mange to achieve, was to complete all the requests in my backlog. I am proud of myself for that, and of all my reading goals, it was the one that was most important to me. Of course, I added requests almost as fast as I could read 2019’s up but the new ones don’t count, after all I do need a goal for 2022. 😉

Now my book backlog is lighter, I plan to start working on the backlog of books that I won in 2019-2020. There is a lot of great titles that have been burning a hole on my bookshelf waiting for me to get to them and I am excited to finally be able to move them up the TBR pile.

And my last book related goal is that I would like to be a part of SPFBO7 this coming year (if there is one) but I know Timy is going to step back. Whether I join another team, or our team continues on, minus our Terrible Queen, or none of us continue on… we will see what happens come May. 

Books I Am Looking Forward To

Series enders – well, I have very few series I have stayed on top of in the last five years. One of those wrapped-up recently (Teresa Frohock’s Los Nefilim – just incredible), and I am hoping to see the final book in MD Presley’s Sol’s Harvest, this year. And of course, Mike Shackle’s, The Last War – I assume this will be wrapping up this fall/winter with the third book, where I am sure he will be serving up lots of tea and cookies as a balm to my broken heart. I can’t wait. I have his Fool’s Hope on my list for January, which was supposed to be my Christmas break read but I was a bit down in the dumps and reading went with my mood. Now I’m thinking it’s going to be my birthday-week read. 

New series/or standalones – The book I am looking forward to the most this year, outside of those, and I don’t know a thing about, is Jon Hollins’ upcoming release (that I hope is still inline for this coming summer/fall). I am a forever fan of his Dragon Lords series, something everyone should go check out and I am so freaking excited to see what he does next, because The Dragon Lords was one of my top five series from the last decade. 

So that wraps up the book portion of my life. Outside of that, I just hope to get to see my family at some point this year and maybe con some kid with a strong back to help during haying.

Stay healthy, happy, and I look forward to reading, discussing and enjoying more books with our online bookish friends in the coming year! Happy 2021!

divider
Timy

Well, it was nice having all those plans back at the start of 2020, failing almost all of them was quite another matter. And I was being quite reasonable too! So this year I’m setting my expectations even lower. Maybe. So let’s get down to it.

Requests/Backlog

While I really tried to get to the end of my backlog and managed to diminish it somewhat, I still have a few to go. At the moment I plan to focus on these plus my approved and hopefully upcoming ARCs and SPFBO until May or maybe June. After that? Hopefully I can do whatever the fuck I want for a while. I probably will open my review requests again eventually, but will be taking less. Anyway, my immediate TBR for the next few months (SPFBO titles not included):

Author
Title*
Ben Galley
Mike Shel
Gabriel Houston
J.J.A. Harwood
D.M. Murray
Matt Larkin
Steven A. McKay
Clayton Snyder
Staci Olsen
Steven McKinnon
S.C. Flynn
* titles are linked to their respective GR pages

SPFBO

We are well into the SPFBO 6 Finals and due to luck and other circumstances, I only have 3 finalists left to read, yay! As Jen mentioned, as a team we are not quite sure yet how we’ll go on, assuming there will be an SPFBO 7. I, personally, plan to take a step back and just enjoy reading whatever comes my way for a while. There hardly been any break for me ever since I started the blog 3 years ago, and with my backlog and SPFBO out of the way, I think I’ll take the second half of the year more relaxed. Rediscovering my love for reading. Venture into other genres maybe. Who knows?

The Sound of Madness Reading Challenge

One thing’s for sure, I’ll take my time enjoying my reading challenge which I filled with music-related prompts. I’m not planning to take part in any other reading challenges or any such, but then again, we all know what bitches plans are. Anyway, if you’d like to join in the fun you can read all about The Sound of Madness here!

Blogging and Other Plans

Apart from the fact that the 3rd anniversary is coming up, I honestly don’t have many plans for the blog at this time. I think the biggest change I could make was already done – we started the new year with a new name and updated design. Probably once SPFBO ends, we’ll have less content, which is not necessarily a bad things as I’m currently up to 5-6 posts a week and that can become a bit draining, even if not all of the posts are written by me personally.

And then, everything depends on whether I can find a new job and if yes, would it be a part-time or a full-time one. A lot of things are up in the air at the moment. Plus, I really want to make time to pursue some other hobbies. Not sure what yet. Maybe I’ll go back to jewelry making, or we are planning to organize monthly online boardgame days with friends (though nothing’s set in stone at this time), and probably going out a bit more wouldn’t hurt either. Once we get vaccinated, that is.

I don’t think concerts will in the plan this year either, sadly. Since I started attending shows some years ago, this has been the longest time I went without one and I’m getting antsy about it. Gah. I think my last hope is BristolCon being held in October, but then that’s a very uncertain hope. I do have to believe in something though.

Storytellers On Tour

One of the surprises of 2020 was the fact that Justine and I launched Storytellers On Tour. I definitely didn’t see it coming. We seem to be doing really well so far and we will continue to try to do so. Once the SPFBO craziness is over, I might be able to focus a bit more on it. We already have a lot of awesome tours and events planned, so if you aren’t a Roadie yet, then I recommend signing up!

Find out more about Storytellers On Tour or join our team:

What are your plans for 2021? Share them with us!