Can’t talk about books without a shelfie

I’ll get to my writing progress in a bit, but first I want to talk about reading! (You know, that thing I do instead of writing.) I have two bits of news on that front.

On the website: I updated the Book Reviews page so that multiple search options are available. If you know what author you’re looking for, you can go directly to either of the pages organized by the first author’s last name. I broke that list into two separate pages (A to M & N to Z) due to length. If you’re just browsing, I added a tag cloud of all my blog posts. However, since not all of them show up, there is also a handy search function where you can plug in a book or series title, author name, or genre!

On the blog: When I first started this website, I wrote book reviews of every single book I read. I realized this had gotten a bit out of hand when I was 3 or 4 months ahead of schedule. Combining review posts by series helped a bit, as did my decision to only write short-form reviews of some books directly on Goodreads. This past month, I started to analyze how and why I picked certain books for each and came up with the following categories that will continue to get the full blog review treatment here.

  1. Indie-Press Speculative Fiction: I love supporting fellow writers in my particular writing niche.
  2. Cross-Genre Books: Got some romance in my science-fiction? Found some alternate history in my urban fantasy? These will always be the books I specifically gravitate to and have a home here.
  3. Complete Series: I’m a completist at heart, so if I’ve already started reviewing a book series here, I feel compelled to keep doing so until I have collected the full set.
  4. Reader’s Choice: Some books just hit me in such a way that I have more than a few sentences to say about them. Even if they don’t fit one of the above criteria, I reserve the right to shout about it wherever I want.

Have a specific book of any genre you think I’d be interested in? Comment here or tag me on social media (links above) and let me know about it!

March Wrap-Up

  • Did I write 10k words this month? No. But I did write a bit over 5k words, which is more than I’ve written in about the past 6 months combined, so I’ll take it. I’m thrilled by even that small amount of progress and feel like I can only improve from here. (Remember, if your brain can’t create all the necessary chemicals to function, store-bought is fine.)
  • Did season 6 of The Expanse stick the landing? I think so, and I had a blast talking about this with fellow authors on Russ’s Rockin’ Rollercoaster podcast!

April Goals

  1. Shooting for 10k words again on the first draft of Steel Legacy!
  2. Nothing else appears to be on the schedule this month, except a possible day trip to meet up with the besties. I do already have some travel scheduled for May and June that I’m looking forward to!

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Alex thinks his big brother makes a good pillow