I always set myself more than one reading challenge per year. Some carry over from year to year, and some are new. Some are broad and some are themed. And in many cases, books read will help me meet more than one challenge. Last year I also started making some formal movie, television, and live theatre viewing challenges.
On the reading side of things, in 2024, I hit my overall book and short story goals and blew past my non-fiction reading sub-goal, but didn’t complete any of the other reading challenges I set myself. On the watching side of things, I exceeded my goal for live theater, but only hit about 70% of my television goal and slightly less than 50% of my movie-watching goal.
So I decided this year, I’m sticking to the basics:
365 SHORT STORIES CHALLENGE
Every year, I challenge myself to read one short story per day. Some years I keep the pace well, and some years I fall behind and then scramble to catch up (and some years, I catch up and fall behind again, and some years I blow past the goal handily). I’m defining “short story” as anything from flash fiction to novella-length. I am going to once again make an effort to review one or two stories every Sunday in my “Sunday Shorts” feature.
GOODREADS CHALLENGE
Goodreads allows members to set a challenge. In previous years, I’ve set goals ranging from 125 to 150 books. For 2024, I’m setting a goal of 120 to start with (10 books per month), and we’ll see what happens.
MOVIE CHALLENGE
I own a lot of DVDs. (I know, you’re shocked. Shocked!) Every year I say, “This is the year I’m going to make an effort to watch them!” And then, somehow, I … don’t. One year, I did a list of 12 and two alternates as I do for the TBR Challenge, called it the TBW Challenge … and failed it miserably. Last year, I got about halfway to the goal of 52 movies, an average of one per week. So this year, I’m setting myself the same challenge. This includes movies on DVD, streaming services, and any trips to an actual movie theater (which have become rare for me).
TELEVISION CHALLENGE
Did I mention I own a lot of DVDs? And that I’m subscribed to a lot of streaming services? I did? Well, you won’t be shocked to know that it’s not all about the movies. So I’m setting myself a “TV Series Watch” challenge akin to my Short Story Challenge: an average of one full episode of a television series (regardless of length) for each day in the year, which this year means 365 episodes.
LIVE THEATRE CHALLENGE
I did pretty well with this one in 2023, even though I never posted about it (because I posted extraordinarily little here in 2023, but that’s a subject for another post), so I’m making it official for 2024: I want to see at least 1 live theatrical performance per month. Most of them will be in New York City, but I’ll count any play, musical, opera, ballet, or staged reading I see anywhere, regardless of whether it’s fully professional productions, college, community theatre, whatever. (Music concerts, author signings, and conferences/conventions do not count towards this.)
ACCOUNTABILITY
So how am I going to hold myself accountable? I’m planning to bring back my monthly Reading RoundUps. I’m not going to rename/rebrand because I like the alliterative title (which falls well in line with Series Saturday, Sunday Shorts, and a few other blog series I’m hoping to make regular features in 2025), but those posts will also track the Viewing challenges.
I would love to hear what YOUR Reading, Writing, or Viewing Challenges are for 2024. Let me know in the comments!