#yearly wrap-up

[celestial-sphere-press]

February 28 is my "bindaversary" each year and I like to look at my stats a bit (I'm always late to post it tho rip). I had hoped to reach 100 this year but 1 week into Binderary I realized that wasn't going to happen haha. But! I was very happy to hit 90 books total, for an average of 30 books/year. (Percentages wise this was 41% Star Wars and 18% non-fanfic books. Other 21% is a mixed bag).

I'm particularly excited about my increase in exchange books this year, as I had a goal from the beginning of last year to do more exchanges with other binders. Success! I jumped from 2 exchanges per year to a total of 7 for this year.

A big part of that was the OTHER really exciting thing I did this past year, which was attend that leather bookbinding course in Greece with four other Renegade members, and so of course we exchanged books. It was definitely one of the highlights of my 2024 already!

Goal for this year: finish all the things I've already committed myself to ahaha (at last count this is at least 16 of my 30 average books per year already spoken for, ack)

[orhelponefaintingrobin]

2024

I’ve been in a reflective mood for the last few days, as I’ve been starting to think about this year’s post. The world that is coming to mind is ‘hurtling’. I have been hurtling this year. This year is quite difficult to sum up, because it feels like I haven’t really stopped long enough to be able to catch my breath. Just in terms of world news, it’s been too intense to really be able to touch…

[magnus-sm-writes]

2024 Goals: Did I Reach Them?

2024 was a pretty interesting year for me. I set some goals that… ended up being really unrealistic. It’s like I decide to get my life together and I completely lose my concept of self. 

The big goals I set in my Writing Journal in February were certainly something. I’d had a fantastic writing month in January—two short stories down! And then the rest of the year didn’t go as expected. But I’m still satisfied with what I’ve done. Despite it all, I’ve been emotionally of sound mind, my writing has been improving, and I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

My 2024 goals (I’ve bolded those I achieved):

Publish 5 poems

Publish 2 short stories

Finish 1 novel

Write 3 poems a month

Write 1 short story a month

Subscribe to 2 literary magazines

Read 2 books a month

Read more translated works

Get 2 ARCs

Publish a personal essay

Post regularly to Instagram

Begin hivemind collection

Write outside the home more

Submit 3 things a month

First 3 chapters of Greenest

First 3 chapters of Tsarevna of the Horned Crown

Write 500 words a day

Get 10 rejections (3/10)

Like, why did I think I could write a short story a month? Why did I think I could do that? Doing two in one month was pretty extreme. I had a really good writing month in January 2024, and I thought it would define my entire year. 

Anyways, most of the stuff I’ve done has been personal. I’ve been practicing more mindfulness and doing some cognitive behavioral therapy stuff to regulate myself. I didn’t write down those because most of my goals were writing-based. 

I will say that I believe the quality of my writing has gone up. I’m happy with that this year. I’m happy with the amount that I’ve written (to be revealed tomorrow).

Tomorrow, I’ll post my yearly wrap-up post!

[critter-of-habit]

Another year almost over? 🙃

[asexualbookbird]

Ah, I read some books in 2024, huh? And eight rereads? Who am I. Tried a lot of new things this year which yay! Go me! Branching out! Not all of those were successes, but I did it and therefore no one can criticise me. But we all know what's important here. So here you go, THE BEST AND WORST OF 2024 (in no particular order)!

THE BEST BOOKS OF 2024

The Adventure of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty - yes, I am still thinking about this, thank you for asking! A full entire adult of a person, a mother even, going on adventures? Fighting and killing and fucking and living? Hell yeah! More of this, please! I would also love to see a prequel of Amina's adventures before the book timeline. Everything about this was so great, I look forward to rereading it.

The City We Became by NK Jemisin - I was wary about this because it was so polarizing to readers. On one hand, even my least favorite Jemisin was still fun, on the other hand, I know nothing about New York. HOWEVER. The audiobook was FABULOUS. I wholeheartedly believe the audio is why I enjoyed this so much. This was FUN this is what reading should feel like all the time.

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb -FRIEND TO MY SOUL. Again, beautiful audio performance. Beautiful story. I need my own copy so I can reread this to my hearts content. It's cute, it deals with heavy topics, it's gay, it's the friend to my soul.

WORST BOOKS OF 2024

The Novice by Taran Matharu - Ugh. Bought when released, knowing nothing, which seems to be a Theme with books sitting on my shelf I end up not enjoying. Learning about the history of this book made me more angry than the book itself. What do you mean his entire series was bought and published without an editor? It shows, but. Come on. Wattpad born and it shows.

Last Heir to Blackwood Library by Hester Fox- this was only for a summer reading bingo challenge, but come on. There are ways to pull the memory loss, or altered memory plot line and have it work. This did not do that. Wish a library would eat my memories of this book so I never had to think of it again.

Red Sister by Mark Lawrence - Mark Lawrence is one of those authors who writes long books because he thinks it makes him a Good Writer. Mark Lawrence is one of those writers who is afraid to write adult characters because he thinks they won't sell, but continuously puts them in adult situations to show how Hard their lives are and Isn't This Dark And Gritty And Sad without doing the work to actually get there. It toes the line between fantasy in scifi, but not well. It feels more indecisive than anything else.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace -more like fireBROKE MY HEART!!!! It was on my tbr list for years, and I finally found a copy and I'm glad I own it so I can reread it at my leisure. It's what Ready Player One could have been if it was actually good.

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner - Okay honestly, this and City were fighting for a spot in the main top three. Either could be there. I do honorable mentions for this very reason. I was surprised to learn this was a tiktok book, because yknow. It's actually Good. Witcher vibes, but with more respect towards women. Why isn't book three in my possession right this second.

Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell - I Am Normal About This Book. It was fun to read and annotate it for a friend. It was fun to be around as two friends read it and I loved seeing their reactions to it. Loved cheering on Shesheshen, still think she deserves to eat more people. Friends and I will still share biting goop memes with the caption "Shex3 posting". It's safe to say this has rewritten my brain.

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

Legacy of Ash by Matthew Ward - I was hyped about this book before release. I bought book two before even reading this because I was that sure I'd enjoy it. What a fool. This did NOT have to be 800 pages. It was another example of someone writing many words because they think that's what Good Writers Do, and not stopping to think about what those words even SAY. Which, in this case, was ~Absolutely Nothing~

Ghost Station by SA Barnes - crying sobbing this book was so fucking stupid. Best thing to come out of it was seeing a friend read it and confirming that yes, it was That Fucking Stupid. Learning the author mainly writes YA Paranormal explained why everyone had Too Stupid To Live disease.

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S Beagle - Admittedly only here to make things even and because it's still pretty fresh in my mind. I was soooo excited when this was announced, and now I'm soooo happy I didn't preorder it. More boring than anything else, but I don't wish it was longer because it already felt Too Long.

Once again, ignored rereads because I feel like that's cheating somehow. Let these be for highlighting new and fun books I discovered! I feel like the last few Bricks I've read have been Very Bad so I hope a couple of the bricks I have planned for 2025 are actually good. Considering one of those is Labyrinth's Heart, I think we're okay.

[mahoganyrust]

2024 Wrap-Up (Aka the year Hijack hijacked my life)

HERE’S TO 2024 🍻🍻 (ignore the fact that it’s early December I got too excited and made it a bit early)

Long live the orange hoodie 🤟Just picture me squinting at my screen trying to pick and choose which of my kids get to feature in the wrap up lmao there’s been so many this year. Also the annual predecessors for funsies and progress’ sake. (minus 2021 bc my dumbass forgot back then lmao) (Don’t mind me just having flashbacks to how meticulous and tedious it was to draw 22’s city scape pshshshshs)

Got some FIMT art on there so here’s the linkkk.

[meirimerens]

ART WRAPPED

YOU FARKHADED FOR (4) CONSECUTIVE MONTHS

YOU PUT ANNA ANGEL IN A SITUATION (2) TIMES

YOU CAST AN EVIL SPELL ON A SENSITIVE YOUNG MAN (5) TIMES

YOU BEAT THE PURPLE ALLEGATIONS FOR (9) MONTHS OF THE YEAR

YOUR FAVORITE THEME: GUILT-SHAPED HOLE (TOP 0.003% OF PAINTERS)

[the---hermit]

2025 reading goals

My reading goal for next year is no reading goals! Jokes aside, I have a couple of things I would like to keep in mind, but my main goal for the year is really to avoid goals and challenges at all costs. I don't want to set a number of books goal, I don't want to do tbr challenges, or other types of challenges. I want track my reading as best as I can, but I want to see what a reading year with no external pressures looks like. I kind of what to see what I'll do as a reader naturally. I have never been particularly strict with my reading goals, but they are of course in the back of my mind, so I am really curious to see how the reading is going to be when I have no rules at all. I might do a quartely update on how my reading year is going? But no promises, because I might forget.

There are a couple of things I want to keep in mind anyway. Firstly my habit of trying to read the books I buy right away. I don't see this as a reading challenge personally, it's more of a thing I keep in mind to be more mindful when I am buying books. What this really is is just consider as well as I can how I spend my money in books. At this point it's such a well established habit I don't really have to think about it anymore.

What I really want to focus on instead of goals is to track my reading. I normally do that quite accurately with my storygraph, but I would also like to get back into using my reading journal more. The main things I want to track is which of my unread books I end up reading during the year, and which books I buy during the year and if I read them or not. I already kind of do this, but this year I didn't touch my reading journal for several months, and I'd like to be more consistent. As I have mentioned in my physical tbr post I will be writing a list of my unread books at the beginning of year, and then I will cross out things as I read them, if I do. Same with the books I buy, I will be listing them on a page on my journal and cross them off once I read them. I will approach neither as a challenge, it will only be me logging data in my journal.

Last thing I'd like to do is to start posting again book reviews like I did. It's one of the habits I lost this year, and I kind of miss it. I might not post a review for every single book, but I'd like to bring back the occasional book review/ end of reading rant.

[freckles-and-books]

[angelophanie]

Erasercloud Hanahaki AU 🌸

It’s obviously unfinished so hopefully one day I’ll get back to it…

[hummingbird-games]

Oh, how I *love* being reminded that people hate black women 😍

Oh, how I LOVE forcing my black girls and women agenda in my games!!!

[orhelponefaintingrobin]

2023

Alright. Here we are. 2023. I have been thinking, in some capacity, about this piece of writing since March. Obviously, it’s something I’ve done every year for quite a long time now. In fact, the only year I’ve missed since 2015 is 2016, where a low-point in my mental health meant I just didn’t have the capacity to write anything. Every other year for what I now realise isn’t a million miles…

[magnus-sm-writes]

2024 Writing Year Wrapped

This is just a cute little version of my yearly wrap-up, presented in the typical Spotify format. I'm sure everyone is doing these; I just really love my Wrapped. Even if the cut-off point is before Halloween, and I found some bangers since then. Also, this was 100% written by a human (me, Magnus Singer-McLeod); something that Spotify itself cannot say about their half-baked Wrapped this year.

The cut-off point for this post is 12/7. The word count will be different in my yearly wrap-up, but this joke post won't be relevant then.

Total words written: 253,560

You have written 253,560 words this year; and counting! Your biggest month was November, at 41,397.

You started this year off big!

In February, you finished the month off with 27,748 words! You also began a bullet journal to track your writing journey all year long to keep you motivated.

There was one work that you've been returning to...

You've re-started your novel Lessons in Humanity from a Future Physicist, making this the tenth year you've been working on this project. It might be old, but it's still gold to you.

The world had brat summer, but instead, you had demoncore humanity-fantasy summer

You spent the months of June, July, and August focusing on (Demon) Hunting for Love, Lessons in Humanity from a Future Physicist, and Tsarevna of the Horned Crown.

The top genres of this year were: Fantasy, Romance, and Short Story

With works like Greenest in Fantasy, (Demon) Hunting for Love in Romance, and The Boy & the Hag Stone, My Lover Tastes of Ivy & Wine, and Certain Boundaries in Short Story, your year has been full of a mix of genres. Don't forget the Poetry, like Sage & Sausage Stuffing, and the Literary Fiction, like Body, Lessons in Humanity from a Future Physicist, and Hamish, either!

Speaking of Short Stories...

This year, you wrote 4 short stories. "Communion", "Plastic Fangs", "The Boy & the Hag Stone", and "My Lover Tastes of Ivy & Wine". That's an average of 1 short story per quarter!

Literary festivals attended: 1

This year, you went to BGSU's Winter Wheat festival. You took some good notes, and met a lot of new people. Writers tend to be solitary creatures; that day, you were not!

You finished reading 15 works this year

The first book you finished, The Terror by Dan Simmons, you rated 3 stars. (It was also your longest and least favorite read.)

Your favorite read was The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, at 5 stars.

The shortest work you read was "The Faery Handbag" by Kelly Link, a short story. (Rated 5 stars.)

Your novelette Body got rejected... 2 times!

But you continued working on it despite the rejections. Good for you, you go-getter!

Times spent refreshing Submittable and getting depressed over the lack of updates: too many to count

Whoa! You really get torn apart by the uncertainty of the publishing industry, don't you? Don't worry; we all hate being left in the dark!

Thank you for being with me this year. I'll be seeing you in 2025!

[astoriasigyn]

Can you all imagine if Ao3 did a yearly wrap-up like spotify? Like...

Top Pairings:

Loki x Sigyn

Draco x Hermione

Jess Mariano x Rory Gilmore

Daemon Targaryen x Rhaenyra Targaryen

Top Tags/Tropes:

Arranged Marriage

Incest

Enemies to Lovers

Childhood Friends

[songsaboutgirls]

2024 Reading Wrap Up

I read a lot this year

[meirimerens]

color sorting very soothing activity for the color-inclined