Friday Forays in Fiction: 12 X 12 Reading Challenge

I wish I had discovered this challenge earlier in the year or even before January 1st so I could have gotten on board sooner. I was already making a serious personal commitment to reading more fiction last fall as I believe my own writing has been suffering because the balance of my reading shifted from mostly fiction to mostly NF while I was in college in the late 1980s.

This challenge is a spin off the NaJuReMoNoMo held in January at Foma. But it is designed to go all year with 12 different bloggers each hosting one month.

Even though May is nearly over I'm going to consider myself as entered for May, counting the three novels I began and finished since May 1:

• The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
• The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker
• Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (well, still got 50 pages or so to go but will finish well before Monday midnight. Might even get in a fourth short novel. I will update this post to with the results including removing Bonehaker if I somehow fail to finish in time.) I did finish Boneshaker but as soon as I realized I could not finish a fourth in time to count for this month I put off starting it until after midnight on Monday the 31st.

May's 12 X 12 is being hosted by Page Turner
June's 12 X 12 is to be hosted by Misfit Salon

click the button top right to see the whole list of the twelve hosts for the year.

Anyone watching closely will note this is not the first challenge I've entered this week. It won't be the last for the year either. I have lined up several more to join soon. I'm hoping to motivate myself to increase the amount of reading. I fear that it has slacked off considerably as blogging and other web activities increased. Which is ironic in that the blogging (both writing posts and surfing) focuses on reading and writing and the more of it I do the longer my wish lists grow. And grow. And grow.

So I've been doing a whole lot of reading about reading books and reading about writing books but less and less reading or writing of the books. A writer needs to read. And not just reviews.

And of course a writer needs to write. I seem to be in a slump on that front and anxiety about it has eaten up the joy I usually take in it so I have decided to give myself a few weeks break from feeling pressured (or guilty) about it and throw my efforts and time into reading and watching DVD. In other words binging on story.

You can follow my progress in these and other 2010 challenges in the Reading Challenges Portal.