2013 RoundUp

Woah. It's the end of a year. That went stupidly fast.

First off...how did my resolution keeping go?

1.  Read at least 25 books on my kindle. Achieved!
2. Read at least 30 books from my physical pile. Achieved!
3. Write reviews quicker.  Achieved through some parts of the year.
4. Read review copies on time.  Achieved a couple of times, mainly failed.
5. Read 200 books as part of the Goodreads Challenge. Review at least half of them. Failed.
6. Read at least one British book a month as part of Feeling Fictional's British Books challenge. No idea-stopped keeping track.
7. Housekeeping round here! Achieved!
8. Change the desktop theme! Achieved! I don't like it though...might have another go.  Edit: said that, then spent the next thirty minutes changing it. Do you like it? I still need to sort out the colours and sidebars and everything, but I think it's a much cleaner look now. Also, let me know if the fonts work or not for you.
9. Comment on blogs more regularly. Completely failed. Sorry.
10. Write at least a first draft of a book.  Failed, kind of. Started two first drafts of completely different things, gave up halfway through both.  However, I'm very nearly finished the first draft of a Les Mis fic, which turned out really well, compared to my other fanfic writing attempts (as in it has a plot and uses characters properly and the actual writing isn't awful either). I'll be polishing that up pretty soon, and hopefully putting it on the web one day!

My resolutions for 2014 will be with you...when I've thought of them!

So, how did I do in terms of reading? Well, I challenged myself to 200 books this year. That was...overly ambitious. I got to 168, which is still pretty good.  I also managed to read lots of giant books (Pillars of the Earth, Fall of Giants, World Without End, Under the Dome and Les Miserables, which I think evens out to two or three books each. I don't know. What I did read, quite a lot of it I enjoyed, so yes. This was a good year for reading!

Blogging...well, my commenting was absolutely awful. My blogging also tailed off sometime in October, probably because Rainbow Reads was only meant to take 3 weeks and the fact that everybody did so much for it meant I had to share it all but that took out all my energy because long projects and me don't mix at all.
I am pleased with some things I did around here. I got a lot of people involved in Rainbow Reads, which was awesome to run.  I wrote a few discussion posts, like the one on beauty in YA, and the one on sex and violence and censorship and age appropriateness.

I met some awesome people, both on the internet and in real life. Bloggers I love include

• Megan-The Book Addicted Girl
• Georgia -Books and Writers Junior
• Lucy-Queen of Contemporary
• Stacey-Pretty Books
• Andrew-The Pewter Wolf
• Liz-Planet Print
• Bella-Cheezyfeet Books
• Ryan-Empire of Books
• Cait-The Cait Files
• Beverly-A Reading Daydreamer
• Charlie-To Another World
• Sophie-A Daydreamer's World

and there's more of you, but my memory is terrible and I can't think of you right now. I love you all!

I went to some great places. Thank you very much to everyone who invited me to events, especially Hot Key Books who publish great things and also supply excellent food. Also, thanks to Megan for the invite to the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize Awards ceremony-it was an excellent night.

Thank you, publishers, who sent me books for review. I'm sorry I take so long with all of them *buries self* These will be dealt with soon, promise!
So, thank you  Random House, Chicken House, Angry Robot, Harper Collins, Hot Key Books, Picadilly Press, Templar Books, and Quercus!

On a more personal note, I think I did ok this year. I made it through the year, I've made a lot more friends in real life, I got 3 GCSEs,  took up a few new things, got more forceful with myself in keeping to writing habits, and went some amazing places.

Goodbye 2013, which was a pretty awesome year, all things considered. Here's hoping next year will be just as good.