Looking back at October, it wasn’t a bust but it wasn’t a great success either. I read a little, wrote a little, worked out a little, paid a little better attention to my diet, saved a little, made some new friends. Nothing extraordinary. Not that my new friends aren’t extraordinary because most of them are. I participated in a blog hop last week that brought a lot of new visitors to my blog and me to theirs. I met some very inspirational people that I look forward to sharing ideas with for a long time to come. 
Other than that, my best accomplishments in October was that I focused on resuming our youth group at the church. That took a lot of my attention to get things off the ground and establish a routine and I’m proud of where we are in just one month. And that I participated in a leadership mastermind class.
Looking forward, November is NaNoWriMo. Today is the first day of the challenge and I have yet to start my novel. But I will get it together. Since 2011, I have participated every year. Some years are way more successful than others but the process is very beneficial and the community is such a big inspiration so I will continue to participate every year if I can.
My November reading goals are:
- To continue working on my Pulitzer Prize reading challenge
- To do the Non Fiction November challenge by reading something that is
- To complete the BorrowAThon readathon by reading books that I have borrowed (most of the books I read come from the library)
- I am also a little behind in my year reading goals – I have only finished 80 books so far this year which means I am 2 books behind schedule and I have to read 10 books per month for November and December in order to meet my goal of 100 books.
Also, the creator of the #NonFictionNovember challenge encouraged participants to include books that are:
1. New
2. Controversial
3. Important
4. Fascinating
To fulfill all these challenges, I have a whopping 11 books on my November reading plan:
Non Fiction
- The 4 Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris – Controversial
- Thou Shalt Prosper by Daniel Lappin – Important
- The Curated Closet by Anuschka Rees – New
- Far Afield by Shane Mitchell – New
- Radical Beauty by Deepak Chopra – New
- Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer – Fascinating
Fiction
- The Other Einstein (eARC)
- Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
- Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
- The Vegetarian by Han Kang
- Wallflower Blooming by Amy Rivers
Other posts you might like:
What are your November goals? What are you focusing on this month to help you reach your 2016 goals? Can you believe there are only 61 days left in this year!
RUN WRIGHT 
Wow, that’s a lot of books by the end of the year! It looks like you’ve got some really interesting ones on your list. I’m about to start Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee. Good luck with NaNoWriMo, my husband is doing it as well 🙂 That’s impressive you’ve been doing it since 2011.
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Oh you have a writing hubby. I think that’s the best kind 😉 all the best to him too. If this is his first time, may I just caution you to tread softly with him from around Nov 20th onwards. That’s when a lot of participants have angst trying to catch up and meet the deadline… or maybe that’s just me.
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That’s a good tip I’ll have to remember 🙂
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Good luck with NaNOWriMo! I hope it’s a winner! 🙂
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Thanks, Simon. I’ll do my best. Are you doing it? You should.
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I know i should but i have less time than I did last year. Blogging is a struggle… Boo!
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I understand. The good thing, though, is that you still make time to write your Titan Mystery so you’re doing it on your own schedule. I hope you have a great evening, Simon.
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I hope you’ve had a great day. That story id’s nearly over so i can work on new projects now. ☺
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I am impressed that you have made it through 80 books so far this year! I think I will add some books from your list to my “to-read” list. They look like some good ones! Thank you!
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Awesome. Let me know what you think when you read them. I don’t have a lot of in-real-life reader friends so I depend on my blogging community to discuss books with. I’m so happy you’re part of that.
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I like to look at it as 61 days until my birthday 🙂
Your reading and writing is so impressive to me!
Good luck on your Nov goals.
My goal is to get back on my fitness track ; )
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You’re a New Years baby? That’s exciting!
Reading is my passion but I don’t know if I’ve ever read as much as I have this year, mainly because I’ve only ever tracked one other year and that was last year. It does make me feel good to have that going well. So many other goals are a bust but overall, I’m happy.
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Yup 1/1…;)
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I’ve read part of 4-hour work week and loved what I’ve read so far. I didn’t know it was controversial, though, and don’t really see why?
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I think most agree that Ferris offers good tips on delegation, outsourcing and time management in general but the reviews of the book are mixed in how he comes off as, whether the title is just an attention grabber or a realistic idea and that he wasn’t successful in business and only made money from selling the book. The criticisms aren’t really things that matter to me though so I’ll be reading the book for the lessons. 🙂
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