Fun With Numbers

I know, I know, some of you might not think numbers are very fun. I suppose I'm sort of an odd kind of writer who gets all excited about the right side of the brain, but I also suspect I'm not all that much of an outlier.

I have always loved writing. Seriously, I cannot remember a time in which I did not write. In parallel, I have always loved math. I was homeschooled until 3rd grade, and I used to work ahead in my math homework because I just thought it was fun. I had a sign on my bedroom door that said "Fractions rule!" when I was in grade school. One of my favorite classes I ever took was Partial Differential Equations (I took it during summer school basically just because I could), and I'm not too humble to admit I kicked that class's ass. I even got a special write up from my professor.

Basically, what I am saying, is that I am a nerd of both the number and letter type. So, numbers!

I joined Goodreads back in 2011. Initially, I made a pretty good effort at adding a lot of books that I had read. I went through both of the bookshelves in my apartment, for example, as well as adding other books that had stuck in my mind. But let's face it, I've read SO many books that there is no way that I got even close to all of them. Which means the overall numbers on my shelves aren't necessarily indicative. But since I joined, I have been meticulous about logging all of my reading. I would be surprised if I've missed more than 2 books I read in that time. So my recent stats are definitely accurate, and I decided to play with my 2013 books.

Total books read: 63
Non-fiction: 0
Fantasy: 37
Science Fiction: 22
General Fiction: 4

Ha! Well I think there is a definite trend here. I even made a pie chart to illustrate this.

For the record, I had way too much fun doing this.

So I find myself thinking a few things. One, I can't believe I didn't read a single non-fiction book last year. Okay, I read half of one, but I haven't touched it in months. Two, clearly I have little interest in non-genre fiction. Although this set of statistics doesn't show quite the whole picture.

I gave 9 5-star ratings during 2013, and the breakdown for those was 1 general fiction, 4 fantasy, and 4 science fiction. I'm not going to bother with a whole pie chart for that, but that's an 11/44/44 percentage breakdown, compared to the overall 6/35/59. So while I'm reading a whole lot more fantasy than anything else, I'm not liking it quite as much. (Also worth pointing out is that those 3 of those fantasy 5-star ratings are to the same author for books in the same series.) And while I may not seek out general fiction, I often like it when I read it.

What this all means for me going forward--besides that I like Excel far more than anyone ought to--is that I should make more of an effort to broaden my horizons. I've done that in other areas before (like trying to read more female authors, but that is definitely for another post), and I know it can only result in more, better reading for me. I'll try to revisit this once 2014 bites the dust and see if I managed to break out of my comfort zone a little bit!

Book Clubs: A Good Thing

I need to start keeping a list of ideas for blog posts. During the week, I find myself thinking "Oh, I should write a blog post about that!" all the time, but then when Saturday rolls around (nominally the day that I blog), I can't think of anything to write about.

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Case in point, I saved the above as a draft last Sunday and have several times since then thought about what I should write about, but when I sat down to finish it this morning, I still had no clue what I was going to write about! As someone who is a pretty meticulous writer in my fiction, perhaps I just need to adopt a similar planning style for blogging.

Anyway, last night I went to a book club meeting for one of the two book clubs I belong to. Both of these book clubs are based from Meet Up and I have been a member of both for years. Yet I didn't actually start going to any of the meet ups until the past couple months.

Partly this was a logistics issue, because it's hard for me to know my schedule very far in advance with duty and underways and such. Probably the lion's share of it was that I am very introverted and getting me to leave my apartment can be like pulling teeth. Seriously.

Now that I've started to go, I'm kicking myself for not going sooner. For one thing, it gets me to read things outside my comfort zone. 99% of the books I read are SFF and that is also what I write. Sometimes I get so immersed in the world of genre fiction that I forget there are a million other fantastic books out there. Case in point, I have had my Kindle for over 3 years. Currently I have 42 books under Sci Fi, 71 under Fantasy, and only 4 under Fiction and 3 Non-Fiction. (Plus 9 Sherlock Holmes and 8 Anne of Green Gables and 15 Classics). Actually, that breakdown is interesting and I'm going to go ahead and stick a pin in it for a later post. So one of my book clubs is SFF and one is not, which helps me widen my horizons.

I also find it helpful for me as a writer. Being able to see how a wide variety of people respond to a book, the things that stick with them, both good and bad, helps me identify weaknesses in my own writing. For example, last night we were discussing Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job. Everyone liked it overall, and found his writing to be funny, but many of us mentioned the abrupt ending as off-putting. The falling action was minuscule and the resolution mostly delegated to an epilogue. His racist caricatures were mostly distasteful rather than funny. His main character was whiny and hard to relate to at times. His writing was hard to stop reading, his tone was delightful.

So. I'm glad that I came out of my shell a little and started to actually attend book events of these book clubs. Good for me as a reader and a writer and a person, so really, it's a shame I can't attend next month because of an underway. Sigh.