Invitation to Gloat: The Goodreads Challenge

The challenge was to read 300 books and post something about each one on Goodreads in 2019.

I read the 300 books--and more, easily, because Goodreads counts recipe and pattern books. (And doesn't everybody reread the whole pattern book while they're knitting their version of a printed pattern? I knitted a lot of printed stitch patterns into original, one-off blankets in 2019.)

But I made the time to post mini-reviews of only 224.

Because I'm still on Goodreads and I still want to encourage those of the writers who are still alive (and online), I will eventually make the time to post about the other books I read in 2019. Unless I've reread them in 2020, I will list the date read as 2019. Eventually my Goodreads list will show more than 300 books read in 2019.

But the challenge included posting the reviews...therefore, I failed.

If this year's challenge is still open, I plan to enter again. 300 books will be read, whether or not I'm able to publish reviews of them...I am still hoping to get back to the Amazon links and direct sales through this web site, but that'll take a new bank account as well as a new laptop...sigh.

If I fail again, I fail again.

If people want to gloat because they finished their challenge, no problem; I'll be glad they're glad.

People may or may not want to know what happened in the last few online days in December. Norwalk Flu is what happened. I missed some online time in the last week before Christmas when I had it. The cafe was scheduled to be open half the day on Saturday and on Tuesday. I was mulling, "Which day should I use for Goodreads?" The cafe is, technically, the front room of the owners' home. They had relatives visiting. One of these relatives is a fellow celiac. In order to keep any lingering virus I had well away from that person, I took the laptop home early and dug into my holiday projects.

No Internet. Maybe half a dozen phone conversations. No Glyphosate Awareness...will I ever be glad when that's finished! Some visiting with friends and family, and lots of time for writing and knitting and housekeeping. It was like the pre-Internet era, only without the incessant clatter of the manual typewriter and the stacks of wasted paper. I enjoyed every minute of it.

It cost me a writing job to which I was really looking forward, too. Wail! Moan! Whine!

It was a lovely Net-free winter break, even so.

Meanwhile, I have a Goodreads review of a new book to expand and improve for an actual paying magazine.