Last year I put a lot of pressure on myself to do the bingo. I printed out the grid, I had little star stickers to put on it, I wrote down all the prompts in my journal with what book I read for it… I also noticed that as the year went on, I read more books by the same authors that fit different prompts and I wanted to shuffle things around and it was a bit messy.
I also read what I’m in the mood for and rarely stick to a specific TBR for a specific month so it was kind of hard to finish it… and I’m struggling to read paper books let alone ebooks at the moment, which puts limits on what I can do.
So there’s what I want to do ideally, and then what I do mean to be doing. First off, here’s the bingo card and all the details are here:
One of my 2022 goals is to read books I own, and especially ebooks, so I’m gonna have a look at the prompts that require taking a book from a specific list, and see if I’ve anything in my TBR already. I’ll leave the other prompts for a while and see from what I’m choosing to read, if they actually fit any prompts. In a few months I can look back at what’s missing and go from there.
Ideally I want a full card, and of course I want to write as many reviews as possible. I’d also like to complete hard mode but you know what, I’m going to forget about it for now, and just do regular mode for everything. If I end up filling Hard Mode prompts while I’m at it, grand. If not, that’s fine too.
I want to reward myself for reading more ebooks, but I also don’t want to limit myself to ebooks so… I’m not quite sure how I’ll do that. I’ve been thinking of a system of credit for bookbuying, like Cleo from Bemused Bookworm has. So if I implement that, I might give myself extra points for reading ebooks… but this would not tie in to the bingo at all. And since this is the biggest challenge I do all year, I do feel like it should tie in somehow. Maybe if a certain % of the card is ebooks I get a reward? But I’m bad at holding out on self-rewards so, we’ll see. To Be Determined, I suppose. Using ARCs for the prompts would also be neat, since they’re always ebooks and I struggle to read them too.
Oh, and I’ll also probably print it out and stick it in my notebook, just so i can keep track of what fills what prompts where, but I’m not in a hurry, and it won’t be fancy.
The books to pick from a list prompts:
- from the Top LGBTQIA+ list: There’s a lot on this list that’s on my TBR/Owned books, including The Tensorate by Neon Yang, and Memory called Empire (I’ve yet to read book 2 – a Desolation Called Peace) by Arkady Martine, and the rest of the Locked Tomb trilogy by Tamsyn Muir… I could go on! But I’ve decided to read Priory of the Orange Tree this week, so it’ll likely be that. Unless it fits better elsewhere.
- Book Club or Readalong: I’m seeing now that it only counts r/fantasy book clubs… I picked something from BookSirens last year but anyways. It has to be from this list apparently. Both Iron Widow and A Marvellous Light are on that list and I own both. Also Black Water Sister. So, likely one of these.
- Award Finalist, but not won: hmmmm. Ok, so there is a list for this technically. But like last year, I plan to read most of what’s on the Hugo ballot, so once the Hugos are announced there will definitely be something I’ve read between now and then that hasn’t won.
- BIPOC author – hard mode: indigenous writer: I really want to do the hard mode for this one because I don’t read nearly enough Indigenous writers. if I can find Walking in the Clouds, I’ll likely read that, because an anthology will give me more authors to discover. Or one of the LGBTQIA+ anthos also listed. Otherwise either Riding the Trail of Tears, or Moon of the Crusted Snow.
For the other squares I’ll see as I go!
