My Goings-On in November:
- Finally breathing a sigh of relief over politics. I mean, yeah, there are certain people who claim it’s not over yet, but it’s obviously way over. And I couldn’t be happier!
- Quarantining. We’re back to restrictions where you’re only supposed to leave the house if you have to. It’s not quite as strict as it was in the spring, but we haven’t really gone anywhere except to the grocery store.
- Writing. Ever since my basement writing retreat, I’ve been trying to keep up with my writing, and I’ve been pretty successful, writing most days!
- Lots of reading! Since I’m a Round 1 Cybils Awards judge I’ve been reading a ton of books!
- Working on the office and basement. We’re now almost done with the office (still need to put up casements around the windows and doors) and we’re done with making the basement into a room for our oldest daughter Jade, who’s home from college for the foreseeable future. (You can see pics in my Sunday Post of the room divider we put up down there and of the office.)
- Digit! I’ve been sharing pics and updates about our littlest family fluff in my Sunday Posts every week–click the link to see them. But here’s my monthly “before and after” pic, so you can see the first day he came home versus this week:
- What I’ve watched:
- We have watched up to season five of Supernatural (we’re about halfway through that season). Really loving it!
- We also watched Over the Moon, which was pretty good, but I didn’t love it quite as much as I was hoping to. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood?
Features & Discussions:
The Would You Rather Book Tag
Breaking the News from National Geographic: Giveaway and a Fun Quiz!
October 2020 Wrap-Up and Best of the Bunch
November 2020 Discussion Challenge Link-Up & Giveaway
My 2020 Reading Progress:
My reading for the Cybils Awards is definitely keeping me busy!! I read 20 books in November. As of November 30th, I’d read a total of 124 books so far this year, which is 24 over my Goodreads goal. (I’ve actually already read two books in December as well.) Ending the year on a good reading note!
November 2020 Reviews
Now that I’ve read so much, I need to catch up with my reviews! All of the reviews I posted in November were for Cybils Books, but I’m still way behind:
- Paola Santiago and the River of Tears by Tehlor Kay Mejia | Review
- Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan | Review
- The Copycat by Wendy McLeod MacKnight| Review
- Shuri: A Black Panther Novel by Nic Stone | Review
- Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono | Review
- Embassy of the Dead by Will Mabbitt | Review
- The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez by Adrianna Cuevas | Review
November Best of the Bunch:
(Best of the Bunch is hosted over at Cocoon of Books. We link up our favorite reads of the month!)
I’m only doing a MG Best of the Bunch this month, since all of my reading was for the Cybils. The Copycat is my favorite of the books I reviewed in November!
2020 Goals Progress:
Progress: 15/21-30 Discussions (Chatty Kathy)
I only posted one discussion in November (and it was actually a tag). I’m obviously not making my goal this year, but that’s okay—2020 was a challenge all on its own!
The Would You Rather Book Tag
My Successful Sneak Attack Using Fiction
Mid-Year Book Freak-Out Tag
Tales of a Social-Media (and Tech) Failure: What’s the Deal with the WordPress Block Editor?
What Draws Me to a Book Cover?
Black Lives Matter
My Teenagers Are Reading Again and My Heart Has Never Been So Happy!!
I’ve Been Impersonated on Instagram!!
Google Searches Are Weird (AKA: You Found Me HOW?)
All Those Deleted Drafts
Book-Related Anxiety. It’s a Thing (and I Have It).
The Wonders of a Writing Accountability Partner
The Cybils Awards Finalists! Which Books Do You Hope Will Win?
My 2020 Goals & Challenges
2019 End of Year Book Survey (& Year in Graphs!)
HOST/SIGN-UP LINK – Feed Your Fiction Addiction & It Starts at Midnight
My Bookish Goals for 2020:
My Writing Goals
-
- Finish first draft of my Selfish Giant retelling. I’m so close–really trying to get this done in 2020!!
Attend one writing conference and at least one online class.Done
- Read writing craft books and resources. Nope. But at least I’m reading SOMETHING again. (And to be fair, even though I haven’t been reading writing craft books, I have been reading “resources.”)
- Edit A Memory of Magic. I’ve put this off for now. It’s not even on my radar.
My Reading/Reviewing Goals
Basically, I’ve only been reading Cybils books, so this hasn’t really happened (though there has been a tiny bit of overlap with books that I had for review that were also nominated).
- Review (requested) review books within two weeks of publication.
- Review two backlist review books per month.
- Here’s the spreadsheet I created specifically for my backlist ARCs and review copies. (This was adapted from one of the tabs on Val @ Reader Voracious’s 2020 spreadsheet). Hopefully seeing this list here monthly will help keep me on track!
Wrap-Up Round-Up!
Don’t forget to link your November wrap-up posts up to the Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up. And enter the giveaway!
It’s incredible how fast puppies grow up!
The puppy is getting so big! It sounds like you had a productive month. I don’t feel like I did anything except panic over the election and eat too much at Thanksgiving. Happy December!
Glad that you have been able to keep up with your writing, especially in the midst of… all this hah. Also feel you with the feeling of relief about the political landscape. Because now, You-Know-Who can tweet a bunch of nonsense, and I can just open up CNN and see that Biden has hired another qualified scientist and just… ignore the foolishness!
I am glad you are supposed to be quarantining! I am so angry at everyone and everything in my useless state. Like. I don’t know many people, but all the people I DO know have COVID. And you know how seriously I take it all, so it feels extra crappy that like, you try to do everything right, but it doesn’t even matter because no one else bothered.
Also HOW is Digit so big!? He is like, a full grown dog these days! No more pupper. Still a cutie pie though!
Digit is just so stinkin cute!!! Happy December!
Yikes, puppies grow up so fast! It sounds like you had a good month overall (yay!) but especially with the MG reading. Those look like some great picks—I’m off to read the reviews I missed!
It seems like lots of things fell into place for you in November! Have a wonderful December!!!
Oh, Digit. So cute, as always. I’m glad you’ve been able to keep up with your writing. That’s awesome. And great job with your reading too. That’s a lot of MG, but I do love it! I need to read more. I have quite a few books I’d really like to get read in December, so we’ll see how it all goes.
-Lauren
Digit is seriously the cutest puppy ever!! And I’m so jealous of mid-westerns and the ability to have basements! You guys are SO lucky ♥! I wish we could have them out but I get why we don’t, earthquakes. But still, yours sounds AMAZING!
Digit is getting so big! And have I mentioned how much I love that name? My writing just sucks so bad right now. I don’t even seem to have any self motivation even though I think about what I want to do when I sit down and do it. I keep telling myself I need to just set a time, even if it is only a half hour and do some writing every day. But then I make excuses and don’t do it. 🙁
I decided to start finishing up the last two seasons of Supernatural myself this past month, and last night I finished the series. I know there was a lot of controversy about the last episode, but I have to say that I loved it. Thought it was a perfect ending, and cried the last half of it. 🙂
It’s good you’re getting some reading done again too! No matter what it is. Here’s hoping December is a good month for us too! Of course as I finally get around to commenting on this post it’s almost half over.
Your November sounds really productive and well-rounded with reading, house projects, and pets. We are quarantining here in Michigan under restrictions on indoor gatherings and no indoor dining and my exercise classes are still streaming online (I’ve actually enjoyed not having to drive to the center, but just walk to my living room). We only get take out (like for my birthday) and have grocery orders placed in our trunk instead of shopping in person as we are not taking any chances. We go for walks often just to get out of the house. Thankfully, the vaccines have begun. Happy holidays!