2016 New Year's Resolutions: Bookish and Personal

Happy New Year!! It's 2016 and it's time to talk about all those New Year's resolutions. I'm still in Chicago right now visiting family, but as soon as I get home I'll start working on all these resolutions and goals I have for 2016. I have a feeling it's going to be a great year and I'm hoping will become my best blogging year yet. I have a lot of thoughts and ideas for the blog and I really want to put them into effect this year and take things up to the next level. But before we get into my goals for this year, let's see which ones I accomplished from last year. 

Clean My Desk & Keep It Clean

Nope. Not even a little bit. I epically failed on this one. I have this cute little built in desk in my apartment and I thought that if I kept it clean it would motivate me to work on my WIP and my blogging more, but I just couldn't keep it clean. I throw all my junk mail on it and then it just stacks up for months until I finally decide to go through it all. I typically work at my kitchen table or on my couch on the weekends, but I still think that a clean desk would help me stay focused so maybe I'll try to work on this again this year. 

Go to Europe

Holy shit I actually accomplished this one. When I typed this up as a goal last year I didn't think that it would actually happen because planning is HARD. But we did it! Phil and I traveled to London and Paris this year and it was amazing!! 

Blog When I Want To

This goal was about not forcing myself to blog when I didn't feel like it and I think I accomplished that especially towards the end of the year. I've really stopped being so obsessed with having 4-5 posts scheduled a week. If I can get two really good quality posts put together I'm satisfied. And if there's a week where I'm really busy and don't have time I don't stress about it anymore. 

Have More Date Nights

I think this is something that Phil and I still need to work on. Life gets so crazy sometimes and it's hard to slow down and appreciate date nights together. But I think in the last few weeks we've gotten better and we're going to continue to work on this next year. For his birthday I bought him tickets to a magic duel show in DC at the end of January so I'm really excited for that date night. 

See My Dad

This didn't happen this year and it was entirely due to our trip to Europe. So I was able to accomplish one of my travel goals, but not the other. My dad lives in California so it's really difficult for me to find time to fly across the country to see him. It's not exactly a weekend trip. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to see him this year. It sucks that it's literally been about 3 years since I've seen him. 

Less ARCs

For those of you who don't know, an ARC means advanced reader copy. I did so much better with egalleys this year. I really cut back on Edelweiss and Netgalley, but my physical ARCs were still pretty high at BEA and I'm still horribly behind on review copies. But I'm starting to think that just comes with the territory of being a book blogger and I'll never really resolve it. But one can try. 

Finish My WIP

I shelved the WIP I was working on at the beginning of the year last year and started a new project. I didn't finish it, but I did a lot more writing last year and I'm so happy about it. I'm going to continue to push forward on my current project because I'm so excited about it and I think it has a lot of potential if I can fix all the gaping plot holes and other problems it is currently plagued with. 

Go to BEA Again

Check! I made it to BEA again last year and it was so much fun! I can't wait for Chicago this year! I already have a bunch of people I'll be sharing a hotel with and we've determined that it's going to be a giant blogger sleepover. Yay!! 

I think I accomplished a fair amount of my goals from last year. So now let's talk about what I want to work on this year, both blogging and personally. 

Overhaul My Blog

This is my biggest blogging goal this year. I want to migrate to Wordpress, do a complete redesign and find a really solid focus. I have a lot of ideas and now it's time to execute them. So get ready for a new and improved Library Canary this year. 

Write More

Last year I got into a really good weekday writing habit. And when I say writing I mean working on my WIP. But this year I'd like to carve out some weekend time for writing. My writing is really important to me and I need to continue pushing forward and making it a priority if I ever want to get something published. 

Read My Backlist

Every year I try so hard to keep up with my review copies and I let my backlist just sit there and pile up to the ceiling. Well no more. This year I'm going to work really hard to read that backlist. There are so many books I've been meaning to read forever and just haven't gotten around to yet. And so many series that are finished that I have yet to read. Or series that I have yet to finish. Along with this, I also want to do more rereading. I actually did quite a bit of rereading last year and it was so much fun! Definitely something I want to continue this year. 

Audiobooks

I really want to get into audiobooks this year. I don't have a super long commute, but I'd like to try audiobooks when I go running or on my drive home which tends to be somewhat long with traffic. I feel like if I can get into audiobooks I'll be able to get through more of my backlist. 

Photography

My super amazing husband got me a really nice, shiny new camera for Christmas!! So next year I hope to improve my photography skills and come up with really unique and pretty bookish photos to use on my blog and on Instagram. I could sit on Instagram drooling over book photography all day so this is definitely a huge goal of mine for this year. If you know any good photography blogs, send me a link so I can check them out! 

What were your goals from last year? Which ones did you accomplish? What are you hoping to accomplish in 2016?