Reading and Writing Plans for 2021
Despite the plans I had last year, by the end of it, I’d barely done any writing.
The amount of reading I did wasn’t too bad. But, looking back, I’m a little surprised that I didn’t read much, considering I wasn’t writing.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, I thought I’d make an effort to come up with a plan for this year.
To avoid spending too much, I’m going to concentrate on the books I already have, which I haven’t read yet.
It’s going to be hard, but the plan is not to get caught up buying whatever book sparks my interest – new releases and older ones, which I haven’t gotten around to buying. God knows when the library is going to open again, so I’m not factoring that into my plans.
I’m also hoping to re-read certain favourites, ones I haven’t read recently.
Starting with the list of ones I haven’t read:
‘Wildwood Dancing’ by Juliet Marillier, a fantasy novel with fairy tale elements.
‘Thirteenth Child’ by Patricia C. Wrede. Although my preference is stand-alone novels, I couldn’t resist this, the first of a trilogy, as it deals with magic in the wild west.
‘I Am Morgan le Fay’ by Nancy Springer. I enjoyed Springer’s ‘I Am Mordred’ very much and am looking forward to reading her take on this part of the Arthurian legend.
‘Shakespeare for Grown-ups’ by E. Foley and B. Coates. As it says on the cover, “everything you need to know about the bard”.
‘My Lord John’ by Georgette Heyer. I love her Regency novels, they’re such fun. But this one, her last novel, is about the Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry V.
‘The Road to Newgate’ by Kate Braithwaite, who also wrote ‘The Girl Puzzle’, published after the Newgate novel. She’s woven a story around the Popish Plot, a fictitious conspiracy about a Catholic plot to assassinate King Charles II. It fuelled anti-Catholic hysteria and led to at least 22 men being executed.
‘Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith’ by Matthew Stover. After reading Berthold Gambrel’s thoughts on the film and the novelisation, I decided to get it for Liam for his birthday last year as ‘Revenge of the Sith’ is his favourite Star Wars film. He’s finally started reading it, so, hopefully, I’ll be getting my mitts on it soon!
A few books by JRR Tolkien – ‘The Monsters and The Critics and Other Essays’; ‘Unfinished Tales’ and ‘The Book of Lost Tales Part I’
And the ones I’ll be re-reading are:
‘The Vagrant’ by Peter Newman. As much as I enjoyed this, the first in a trilogy, I couldn’t get into the second and didn’t continue. Despite there being some unanswered questions, I’m satisfied with only reading this one and not needing to know anymore.
‘Roxanna Britton’ by Shirley Allen who was a great-granddaughter of Roxanna Britton. Britton was born in Ohio in 1833, and the book is a recreation of her life, based on actual places, dates, events and characters. Shirley Allen was the mother of the lovely Anne R. Allen who hosts one of the best writing blogs around.
‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ by CS Lewis.
And more Tolkien – ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
Even though I read it last year, I’ll probably add ‘The Silmarillion’ to that list.
Who knows? By the time I work my way through those, life will have returned to normal, I’ll be earning an income, which means I’ll be back to buying books regularly.
As for writing…
Probably one of the reasons my writing stalled is not being in a position to send my finished manuscript to my editor. Again, money issues, and I refuse to publish a novel which hasn’t been professionally edited.
Instead of starting another story, I think I’ll focus on writing just for the heck of it.
Taking a word or phrase, I’ll use that as a starting point for a short story or a piece of flash fiction.
Who knows? One of those short pieces might actually lead to a story…