What I read in 2017

It's the end of the year and time to review the books I read in 2017. This year, I read 84 books, slightly up from the 82 books last year.

The average rating for the books I read was 4.05 stars per book, broken down as follows:

• 5 stars - 26 books
• 4 stars - 36 books 
• 3 stars - 22 books 

The 4.05 stars average was an increase from the 3.93 stars per book in 2016.

In January, I said that I would make a conscious effort to tackle the books I already own on my TBR list. My goal was to read at least two books that I already own each month for a total of 24 this year, and I surpassed that goal with 33 books read.

The ratings for these books were distributed as follows:

• 5 stars - 7 books 
• 4 stars - 16 books 
• 3 stars - 10 books 

The average rating for my TBR books was 3.91, a bit lower than the ratings for the other books I read this year. Perhaps there was a good reason I had put off reading them. :-) Nevertheless, I need to continue chipping away at my TBR, so I plan to continue reading at least two books that I already own each month throughout 2018 as well.

In my next post, I’ll list my top ten favorite books of 2017. Stay tuned!

2017 holiday sale

Christmas is just around the corner, which means it's time to have a holiday sale! Between now and the New Year, every one of my e-books will be on sale for 99 cents or FREE on Amazon! There's no better stocking stuffer than the gift of reading. Get them before prices go back up!

99 CENTS:

All That Remains of Me	Beyond New Eden	Gifted	Believe Me

Transmissions	In the Hands of Children	Keep Your Enemies Close	George and the Galactic Games

A House in the Woods	Protect	Search	Rescue

FREE:

Drive	Through a Tangled Wood	Celestial	Spectral Tales

Happy holidays, and happy reading!

NaNoWriMo 2017 recap

After debating whether to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, I decided to take the plunge. Unlike the past three years, however, I didn't win this year. From the outset, I wasn't on pace to write 50,000 words in the month of November.

Here's my daily chart from this year.

I ended up with only about 30,000 words written. Was I disappointed not to have won? Yes, a little bit. Keeping my NaNoWriMo winning streak intact would've been nice, but I'm definitely glad I participated this year. Here are some reasons why:

1. November was still the most productive writing month I've had by far this year. 
2. I re-established a writing habit, which I had lost at the beginning of the year when my day job became too hectic. (I can only hope I'll be able to continue it now that November is over.)
3. I'm halfway through the first draft of a promising new novel.

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, I want to finish drafting my WIP because the story holds a lot of potential so far. Also, it'd be nice to publish something again. And looking ahead, I know that even if I get deluged with work after this novel is completed, I have next year's NaNoWriMo to kick me back into gear.