12 Books, 12 Months

I love books. 

I love the smell, feel and look of them. 

I like to see shelves bulging with beautiful books... but, actually getting around to reading them?

That's a whole other matter!

I've never been diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure I'm mildly dyslexic, because reading for me is an exhausting process. I have to read and absorb every single word to digest a book, I can't speed read and when I've tried to, the letters and words get jumbled up (yep, sounds like dyslexia doesn't it?).

My genetic Fitzjohn predisposition towards stubbornness, however, has driven me to pursue a career in wordsmithery, just to spite myself!  

One thing I keep saying to myself is; I should read more books. 

It's common sense that to be a good writer you need to be a voracious reader, how else will you improve your craft if you don't learn from the masters of it?

I read non-fiction all the time - blogs, social media etc. and write it too on a daily basis for my Amy Morse, Authorpreneur business. 

I'm also rarely without a book, but I'm lucky if I snatch a few paragraphs of book reading every day. Perhaps a quick dip into a book while I'm on the bus, or in a waiting room and most nights before I go to bed but at that rate, it can take me a couple of months to read an entire book.

I'm a fan of goal setting because I need to impose some structure to my life, otherwise the crazy creative takes me meandering aimlessly into unproductive oblivion. 

It's that ability to tame the creative beast and hone it into something productive by imposing order, structure, systems and processes that make me an effective coach when working with other creative entrepreneurs.

I've set myself a reading target for 2016: read 12 entire books in 12 months. 

But I need more parameters than that, so I've come up with a list of types of books to read to choose my 12 from:

Goodreads also have an annual book challenge to help readers be accountable for their goal.

I've stared the challenge with An American Classic.

I'm reading 'The Grapes of Wrath', by John Steinbeck.

I'm about halfway through it, which isn't bad (for me) considering I only started it a week ago.

I'm enjoying it much more than I expected.

I must admit, I almost gave up at the first chapter. It opens with a narrator's viewpoint of the Oklahoma dust bowl, with endless rambling and repetitive descriptions of the harsh climate and difficult lives of those working the depleted land. Happily, it picks up from chapter 2 where we meet Tommy Joad for the first time.

Personally, I'd have opened the book with Tommy being picked up by the trucker then described the landscape from his point of view as it flashes past the window (but what do I know compared to one of America's greatest 20th century wordsmiths?).

Other books on the shelf, some of which I had for Christmas are:

A Business Book: 

'Business Model You', by Timothy Clark,  Alexander Osterwalder,  Yves Pigneur
 



Alternatively, I also had 'The 4-Hour Work Week', by Timothy Ferriss for Christmas



 A Book of Short Stories

I've had 'Metamorphosis and other stories', by Franz Kafka on my bookshelf for years




Crime Novel

I picked up a signed copy of 'Someone Else's Skin' by my lovely local writer buddy 'Sarah Hilary' at Bristol Festival of Literature a couple of years back and still haven't read it (sorry Sarah!). 

She's had amazing success with this award winning book. 

Look out for Sarah, she's really going places!


I'll keep you posted on my progress, but right now, I have a book to read!

Can you recommend a book for me that would fit in the list?

40 Things to do before I reach 40

This week I've had my 39th birthday.

I'm a great believer in the power of setting goals and have written about this in the past:

In January 2015 I published a post Ten Reasons to Train Yourself to be Goal Orientated

and followed it up with a blog on How Do You Decide What Goals to Set.

I'm also a big fan of lists.

Anyone who regularly followers this blog on Tom Cat's Mewsings or my Authorpreneur Blog will know I'm fond of writing list posts.

I've completed 3 consecutive 365 projects in the past 3 years, the first being Project Book 365, the second being Operation Author and the third, this year, was less prescriptive but nevertheless I have completed 'Authorpreneur Almanac 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship'.

I talk about my 365 projects on this blog entry: Ideas Are Powerful, Ideas Change Your World

The culmination of this project will be the publication of my first non fiction book 'Authorpreneur Almanac' next year in which I'll share 26 features on writing and 26 features on entrepreneurship.

This year, I'm not doing a 365 project, as such. I have 2 projects planned instead:

1. Read 12 books in 12 months - I'll leave that for next week...

2. 40 things to do before I'm 40

I put a call out on Facebook and with the help of Pinterest I've compiled a list of 40 things to do before my 40th birthday on December 29th 2016.

It was challenging to come up with 40 things. There is so much I'd like to do, in fact, I started a 'Bucket List' Pinterest board as I was finding ideas for my 40 things.

  Follow Amy Morse - Authorpreneur's board My Bucket List on Pinterest. 

Most of the things on the bucket list involve lots of money or being in another country - so choosing small, inexpensive, achievable yet worthwhile things to do - was harder than I expected.

Here are a couple of examples:

I lived up trees as a kid, but haven't done this for years. I think I'll head to Victoria Park in the summer, take a notebook and pen, select a suitable tree then sit up there and write.

I like the idea of going out with some pre-written post it notes of inspiring quotes or messages then randomly leaving them for people to find.

Any excuse to catch some rays this summer...



Here goes, these are my 40 things: