The Little Book Owl on the YouTubes made a video about series she won’t
finish. And I have thought about that a bit lately. The reason is that I tend
to start series and then just not finish them, for no good reason, I just
don’t. So I have started a pretty modest project, which is to finish a series I
am currently reading before I am allowed to start reading a new series. This is
what my life has come to, I need to restrict myself in order to get myself to
do things.
The main reason I’m doing this is that I feel silly. I have all these
series, or trilogies or whatever, and the last book is already out and I still
haven’t picked it up. It’s very silly. Another reason is to figure out if I
actually want to finish the series. There are series I have no interest in
finishing, like the House of Night series, and by actually going through the
series I’m reading/haven’t finished, I could sort of analyze whether or not I
actually needed to finish them. Turns out some of them I don’t want to finish,
so I won’t. It feels wrong somehow, but I’m a grown-up, I can do what I want.
The ones that annoy me the most are trilogies where I just didn’t read the last
book, which is annoying, and stupid, really. Why wouldn’t I just finish them?
No one knows, especially not me.
This feels like something I would choose as a new year’s resolution,
which I guess is fine. I can do that, but I’ll just start right away instead of
waiting for some arbitrary day to arrive. So I’m starting this resolution right
now. And as always when I start a new project related to lists and books I make
a spreadsheet, because I’m a nerd.
Another resolution I shall be starting right away is that I’m trying to
reduce the number of books I own that I haven’t read. There have been a couple
of videos about this on YouTube, and I’m blatantly stealing this from them, but
it’s not a wildly original concept, so I figure it will be alright, although, I
didn’t think of it myself, so clearly it’s a bit original. Anyway, credit where
credit is due, videos here. The resolution is that I will not be allowed to buy
another book before I’ve read two of the books I already own. This might not
seem extremely ambitious, but I figured I’d start small and then when I’ve sort
of psyched myself up, and made it into a habit I can force myself to read more
books before I buy new ones, I was thinking five eventually. It’s a sign I have
poor impulse control when I have to psych myself up and give myself time to get
used to this new development. Anyways.
This isn’t really to combat the size of my Goodreads TBR, I’m fine with
there being a mountain of books on that TBR-list. I don’t really use it as a
TBR so much as a collection of books I’ve heard mentioned that I know don’t
want to forget in case I ever want to read them, so I’m not assuming I’ll be
able to read all the books on it. So it’s more of a list of books I find
interesting. My actual TBR is always changing, and involves books I own, books
I’m actually planning on buying, or taking out from the library, or other stuff
like that. And yes, I made a spreadsheet for this too. So much shame.
I
don’t know why I do this. I have an intense need to sort of quantify my life.
It’s weird. I should stop the introspection right about now. One of my biggest
challenges is going to be that this isn’t new, this excessive book buying, I’ve
always done this, I’ve always surrounded myself with mountains of books, so it’s
a long time of lack of impulse control to reign in. One thing that Lindsey, one
of the people who I was inspired by, said, was that she wanted to be more aware
of what she was buying. Which is something I need to be. Because I tend to just
buy books without thinking. That isn’t good. I should be more conscious of what
I’m buying, and why I’m buying them. So there we go.
These are my last quarter resolutions, shut up, it’s a thing. I made it
a thing. I’m going to improve my economy and my habits, because I’m a grown-up,
in theory. And I should be a normal, responsible human, and I will try to be.
So there we go. Whoo.