How I read 100 books in a year

I call myself an avid reader and writer, but truthfully, I spend a lot more time reading than writing. Last year, I read over 100 books, and I'm on pace to read over 100 books again this year. When I tell people how many books I read, they are often amazed. That may be because the average American adult reads 12 books a year. They ask me how I'm able to read so many books, and I tell them it's because I just love reading. While that's a simplistic answer, there are some things I do that help improve the number of books I read. 

1. Spend a lot of time reading - This may sound obvious, but spending time reading means not spending time doing other things, like going out to parties or watching TV. Fortunately, I'm not the party-going type. I do watch some TV, but I limit the amount of time spent in front of the screen. My main source of entertainment is (no surprise) reading.
2. Read multiple books at once - Most of the time, I have two or three books that I'm in the middle of reading. Reading more than one book at a time helps me because if I get to a slow section in one book or just want something different, I can switch to another book. I also advise reading books that aren't too similar. Not only does it give you a break from what you're reading, but it's less confusing to switch books. Earlier this year, I read two high fantasy books at the same time and had a lot of difficulty remembering which characters belonged to which book!
3. Log the books read - If you're the type who's motivated by seeing the counter increment on the number of book you've read, this is a good strategy to keep you going. I record my books read on Goodreads, and I like seeing how I'm progressing against the yearly goal I set for myself in January.
   
4. Create reading challenges - Since 2015, I've participated in the annual Goodreads reading challenges. Before that, however, I set up my own reading challenges and continue to do so. For example, some of my favorites that I've documented on this blog include the Authors A to Z challenge and the Reading Outside the Box challenge. This year, I embarked on the Goodreads Choice Awards challenge.
   

If you want to read more books, try out some of these strategies. If there are others that you employ to help you read more books, please share in the comments. Happy reading!

Release announcement: Hopeless

I'm proud to announce the release of my latest novel, Hopeless! If you're a fan of zombie apocalypse stories (with a PG-13 rating), this book is for you.

Hopeless is currently available on Amazon. If you're a member of the Kindle Unlimited program, you can read it for free!

Description:

The zombie apocalypse happened faster than anyone could’ve imagined. 

On what she believes is a normal Friday night, seventeen-year-old Sara goes to bed believing that she’ll see her parents and her brother the next morning. Instead, she wakes up to a new world where zombies are taking over. Worse yet, she is alone. The rest of her family isn’t home from their outings the night before, and she can’t contact them. 

Slowly, Sara learns how dire the zombie situation is. With only herself to rely on, she must figure out what’s happening and how to survive. But more than anything, she hopes she’ll be reunited with her family again. Even if she has to risk her own life to make it happen. 

Returning to normal?

It's been a difficult past fourteen months for everyone, no matter where you live. Who knew back in March 2020 that the specter of COVID would still loom large in May 2021? Fortunately, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the pandemic situation is under control more so than in many other parts of the world. With the initial rush over, vaccines are becoming easier to get, and our state continues to take precautions that make me feel safe.

I still haven't dined inside a restaurant or gone to a movie theater since before the pandemic, but there are definitely signs that we're slowly returning to normal. A couple of months ago, my gym reopened, for example. However, nothing has been a bigger sign of hope for me than our local public library opening again. 

The library isn't offering all of the programs it used to yet, but that doesn't matter. I'm finally able to walk among shelves of books again! You don't know how much I've missed that. I was also glad to return the books that I had checked out before the pandemic, books that I've hung onto for over a year! Who would've thought I'd be able to keep library books for so long without a late fee? :-)

I'm looking forward to resuming other activities I enjoyed before the pandemic, but the library was a big step forward.

May the COVID situation where you live improve as well. Stay safe!

Cover reveal: Hopeless

It's been almost three years since I published my last book, so I'm very happy to announce that I'll have a new book coming out in a month or two (fingers crossed)! In the meantime, I want to share the cover for the book, titled Hopeless. If things go according to my plans, Hopeless will be the first book in a new YA zombie series. I love YA, and I love zombie books, so it makes sense that I'd want to write a YA zombie series, right?

 

Description:

The zombie apocalypse happened faster than anyone could’ve imagined. 

On what she believes is a normal Friday night, seventeen-year-old Sara goes to bed believing that she’ll see her parents and her brother the next morning. Instead, she wakes up to a new world where zombies are taking over. Worse yet, she is alone. The rest of her family isn’t home from their outings the night before, and she can’t contact them. 

Slowly, Sara learns how dire the zombie situation is. With only herself to rely on, she must figure out what’s happening and how to survive. But more than anything, she hopes she’ll be reunited with her family again. Even if she has to risk her own life to make it happen.

The Type of Monster Matters?

Some of my favorite books have featured monsters. By that, I don't mean serial killers (which some of my favorite books also have) but rather non-human monsters like zombies, aliens, and mythological creatures. The monsters can be the primary antagonists, such as the zombies in World War Z or the Rot & Ruin series, or they may be creatures that populate the book's fictional world, like the ones in the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson books.

All along, I thought that I would like reading books with any kind of monster in them, but I read two books this year that made me reconsider. One of the books was about Bigfoot and the other was about mermaids. They were books by authors who have written other books (books involving monsters, no less) that I really enjoyed, so my hypothesis is that it's Bigfoot and killer mermaids I don't like. I couldn't think of any other books I've read that featured Bigfoot or killer mermaids to refute my theory, which is evidence in itself that the type of monster contributed to my not liking the two books.

 

When it comes to monsters that I enjoy reading about, based on my reading history, zombies are at the top of the list. In addition to the aforementioned World War Z and Rot & Ruin series, some of my favorite zombie books include the Newsflesh series and Warm Bodies.

Is it any wonder that the book I'm currently working on is about zombies?

 

A writing update (Feb 2021)

It's been a while since I gave an update on my writing progress. The last time I mentioned what I was working on in July 2020, I had just given up on a novel in the thriller genre. While that was disappointing, I didn't let that setback stop me. I started writing a new story back in the YA genre that I'm more comfortable with. 

The good news is that I finished the first draft of the YA novel in December! Since then, I've been revising the manuscript. I completed my first editing pass already, focusing on the big picture, whether the story makes sense and fixing major plot holes. I'm currently wrapping up my second editing pass to improve the writing itself. I never know up front how many passes it will take before I'm satisfied with the quality of a manuscript. I could be done after a third pass (although that's highly unlikely), or it could take fifty more (I hope not).

My current goal is to release this book some time in the summer. As I make more progress, I'll post additional updates. After not publishing a new novel in nearly three years, I'm excited to have another book on the horizon to share with everyone!

Goodreads Choice Awards Reading Challenge

Every year, I try to come up with a reading challenge that I hope I will enjoy and that will expose me to new books that I wouldn't ordinarily read. Last year, my goal was to read a book a month from the top of the NY Times Bestseller list. While that didn't go as well as I had planned, I learned my lessons, and as a result, this year, I'm going with the Goodreads Choice Awards reading challenge.

Every year, Goodreads asks its members to vote on their favorite books in various categories, culminating in the Goodreads Choice awards winners. My goal this year is to read at least twenty books that made the finalists cut for the 2020 awards. Looking at some of the finalists, I already feel better about this challenge than last year's because there are several books that sound interesting. 

Unlike last year, I won't constrain myself to reading books only by authors I haven't read before, but I'll try to read as many books from new authors as I can. I'm also not limiting myself to the winners in each category. One reason is that there are only twenty categories, so I would only be reading the winners to fulfill my goal of twenty books. The other reason is that I already read three of the winners last year, and honestly, they were not my favorite books in their respective categories. I'm sure that I will be reading some of the winners this year, but for the sake of a better reading experience, I want to expand my pool of books to all finalists.

As with previous reading challenges, I will provide an update on this one at the end of the year. Happy reading in 2021!