2018 Reading Challenge@ Linz the Bookworm

I will be doing as many of the categories on this one as I can. I seriously don't think I'll get all of them and some seem a little hard for me. But the blogger said we can skip around if we wish.  I should have known I'd be able to get them all.

**Challenge completed on November 27**

In 2016 I tried a couple of reading challenges that were floating around the internet, I did okay with them. What I really liked was the idea of challenging myself to read different things. It sort of made me plan out what I had to read. In 2017, I made my own reading challenge. I was pretty proud of it, and it can be seen here. I think that I definitely learned a lot, but ultimately I took on way too much with it and it needed some fine-tuning. Throughout it all, my amazing friend Tress was trying to do the challenge right alongside me. While 2017 is not over yet, I'll be honest and admit I'm not even going to finish half of it. That's okay though because what it did do was give me a lot of ideas for 2018. I started out this list just consulting with Tress on her thoughts on 2017's list. What ended up happening is we ended up collaborating on a massive reading challenge the past couple of weeks. Tress has been talking to a lot of members on a website called Dragonmount that we're both apart of (her far more than I am. I've never been outside the Mafia game thread there) about my previous reading challenge. I think She may have even referenced it on her own blog which can be found here. I'm incredibly proud of the work we put into this, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Before I show off the challenge, I want to explain it a bit.

This challenge is actually several challenges in one. The way it is designed is that you work through one level and then move on to the next. It's comprised of five different challenges of 12 books each, or 60 books total. We tried to arrange it in a way that shows what we thought would be the easiest in the first few levels, and then gradually gets harder. We also wanted to spread it out a bit, so the same types of challenges aren't in each level. Ultimately, I think we both wanted a challenge that's going to really make us have to think ahead and plan to complete it. Tress and I are both really into organization and bullet journaling, so for us, this is just an extension of that. I'm not sure what goals Tress has set for herself within the challenge, but my goals are to work it in order and try to see how far I can get. Last year, I kind of read a book and then tried to fit it into a category on the challenge. This year, I'd like to plan ahead and see if I can read more because of it. I've already got some books in mind for some of the items, so I'm really excited to see what I can accomplish on this list.

2018 Reading Challenge
Number	Challenge	Book	Author
	Level 1: Book of the Month Club
1	A book from Project Gutenberg: Sailing Alone Around the World--Joshua Slocum	X
2	A book that costs less than $5: The Zone of Interest--Martin Amis	X
3	A Cozy Mystery: Mum's the Word--Kate Collins	X
4	A comedy or a satire book: Binge--Tyler Oakley	X
5	Read a book by Nora Roberts: Irish Dreams	X
6	A book that has been turned into a movie or TV show: Lord of the Flies--William Golding	X
7	A book on a best seller list: Born a Crime--Trevor Noah	X
8	A book under 300 pages: The Ice Queen--Alice Hoffman	X
9	A book that takes place around a holiday: Love Walked In--Marisa de los Santos	X
10	A book with a one word title: Loved--P.C. Cast	X
11	A book you first read when you were a teenager: Little Women--Louisa May Alcott	X
12	A children's book: Castle in the Mist--Amy Ephron	X
	level 2: Casual Reader Club
13	A book by a new author: Children of Blood and Bone--Tomi Adeyemi	X
14	Reread a favorite book: Prozac Nation--Elizabeth Wurtzel	X
15	A book with a cover that's in your favorite color: The Last Letter From Your Lover--Jojo Moyes	X
16	A book published in 1993: Girl, Interrupted--Susanna Kaysen	X
17	A book recommended to you on social media or by a friend:The Best of Me--Nicholas Sparks	X
18	A book with a number in the title: 32 Yolks--Eric Ripert	X
19	A book with pictures in it: The Acorn People--Ron Jones	X
20	A retelling of a fairy tale: A Court of Mist and Fury--Sarah J. Maas	X
21	A book that involves a mythical creature: Carmilla--J. Sheridan Le Fanu	X
22	A book about witches: The Alchemyst--Michael Scott	X
23	A book by an author named Chris or Christopher: Charles I--Christopher Hibbert	X
24	A book you got from a used bookshop or site: The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop and Cafe--Mary Simses	X
	Level 3: Dedicated Reader Club
25	A book about space travel, aliens, or other planets: Zita the Spacegirl--Ben Hatke	X
26	A book with an animal in the title: The Red Pony-John Steinbeck	X
27	First in a series you've wanted to start: A Court of Thorns and Roses--Sarah J. Maas	X
28	A book with music or song in the title: She's Come Undone--Wally Lamb	X
29	A book with a purple cover: Jazz--Toni Morrison	X
30	A cult classic: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy--Douglas Adams	X
31	A book about a Teacher: My Teacher is an Alien--Bruce Coville	X
32	An action adventure book: Havana Bay--Martin Cruz Smith	X
33	A book that takes place before 1900: Barnaby Rudge--Charles Dickens	X
34	A book about friendship: Black and White--Paul Volponi	X
35	A book by Michael Crichton: Pirate Latitudes	X
36	A book about a Queen: Victoria--Daisy Goodwin	X
	Level 4: Speed Reader Club
37	A book by Agatha Christie: Murder at the Vicarage	X
38	A book that takes place in Australia: Three Wishes--Lianne Moriarty	X
39	A book that has a title starting with the letter Y: Y is for Yesterday--Sue Grafton	X
40	Read a compilation of short stories: The Last of the Menu Girls--Denise Chavez	X
41	Read a book from the Guardian's 100 greatest Novel list: Mrs. Dalloway--Virginia Woolf	X
42	A book with the word thief in the title: Thief of Words--John Jaffe	X
43	A banned book: The Namesake--Jhumpa Lahiri	X
44	A book published in 1968: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test--Tom Wolfe
45	A book about a doctor: Pandora's Daughter--Iris Johansen	X
46	A book involving food: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant--Anne Tyler	X
47	A book with a male main character: Banana Twist--Florence Parry Heide	X
48	A book by two or more authors: I Hate Everyone But You--Gaby Dunn & Allison Raskin	X
	Level 5: Overachiever Club
49	A book published the year one of your parents was born: The Door in the Wall--Marguerite de Angeli	X
50	A book over 500 pages: Ready Player One--Ernest Cline	X
51	A book about traveling: The Gathering of Zion--Wallace Stegner	X
52	A book with a flower on the cover: Girls in White Dresses--Jennifer Close	X
53	A Non-Fiction book: Hunger of Memory--Richard Rodriguez	X
54	A book that takes place during a war: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas--John Boyne	X
55	A book involving a culture different than your own: Night--Elie Wiesel	X
56	A book that takes place in Canada: Surfacing--Margaret Atwood	X
57	A book that was originally published in a foreign language: Metamorphoses--Ovid	X
58	A book about a character who has your dream job: Small Great Things--Jodi Picoult	X
59	A book with woman or girl in the title: Wintergirls--Laurie Halse Anderson	X
60	A book about a main character that has the same hair color as you: Nightshade--Andrea Cremer	X

2018 Newbery Reading Challenge

I'll be doing this one again, trying for the first level, more if time permits.

Welcome to the fifth year of the Newbery Reading Challenge! (Wow, five years already!) Newbery and Caldecott books are fun to read - whether it's our first time experiencing them, or we're revisiting them from our childhood. If you want to challenge yourself to read more Newbery and Caldecott books this year, then you have found the right place!

Here are the rules:​
Each book you read is worth points. You get:

• 3 points for a Newbery Medal Winner
• 2 points for a Newbery Honor Book
• 1 point for a Caldecott Book (Both Medal winners and Honor books are worth a point.)

In addition to that, you pick a level to aim for:

• L'Engle: 15 - 29 points
• Spinelli: 30 - 44 points
• Avi: 45 - 59 points
• Lowry: 60 - 74 points
• Konigsburg: 75+ points

You can get to this level with any combination of points you want. You can read all Newbery Medal winners. You can throw in a few Honor Books. If you want, you can even read 75 Caldecott Medal winners! How you get to your point level is totally up to you.

Also, anywhere in the point range for your level counts as completing that level. So for example, if you signed up for the Avi level and read 46 points' worth of books, then you have completed that level!

List of Newbery Medal Winners & Honor Books
List of Caldecott Medal Winners & Honor Books

Challenge Guidelines:

• Rereads count (because you were probably a kid when you read it last, and your perspective on the story just might have changed since then).
• Audiobooks and ebooks count.
• And paper books count, too. :)
• All books must be read between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2018. Books begun before January 1 don’t count.
• Books can be used for other challenges as well.
• You don’t have to have a blog to participate. You can link up reviews from Amazon, Goodreads, etc., or just hang out with us in the comments!
• Reviews are encouraged, but not necessary.
• Choose your point level. You can always aim for a higher point level, but you can't move to a lower one.

Here is what I am reading:

1. They All Saw a Cat--Brendan Wenzel (1 point)
2. One Cool Friend--Toni Buzzeo (1 point)
3. Catherine, Called Birdy--Karen Cushman (2 points)
4. If I Ran the Zoo--Dr. Seuss (1 point)
5. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH--Robert C. O'Brien (3 points)
6. The Egg Tree--Katherine Milhous (1 point)
7. Millions of Cats--Wanda Gag (2 points)
8. The Door in the Wall--Marguerite de Angeli (3 points)
9. Roller Girl--Victoria Jamieson (2 points)
10. Amos Fortune Free Man--Elizabeth Yates (3 points)
11. Lily's Crossing--Patricia Reilly Giff (2 points)
12. Island of the Blue Dolphins--Scott O'Dell (3 points)
13. Sarah, Plain and Tall--Patricia MacLachlan (3 points)
14. Smoky Night--Eve Bunting (1 point)
15. The Cat Who Went to Heaven--Elizabeth Coatsworth (3 points)
16. Drummer Hoff--Barbara Eberly (1 point)

Total 32 points

Challenge completed on December 1

Getting Back to Story Editing

After about two weeks away from editing, I got back to editing my memoir last week, doing at least one chapter a day. Someone said staying away from your writing then going back later can give a you a fresh perspective on your work. That appears to have been true for me. From what I have looked over so far, I found errors I had not previously caught and some phrases and details I decided could be deleted.  And some things I wanted to add now that I had not thought of before. This is all part of the process, I have come to see.

I'm beginning to feel I've gotten stronger with writing, as the above graphic states. It sounds like a good idea to believe.

Another statement I can agree with.