Category: Blog Of Writing +1

October 6, 2024

155 Books… And Counting

One hundred fifty-five.

In grams of chips, this isn’t a whole lot. In books that I’ve plowed through this year? It’s also not a lot in the grand scheme of things.

There are roughly two million books that get published in english alone every year and the average person reads twelve of those. Twelve. One a month. A few years ago, I was the average man, reading my twelve books and completely oblivious to the numbers, ratios and other statistics around book publishing. Now that I own a secondhand bookshop, I feel I owe it to my customers to read more. I decided to make a scuff mark on that ridiculous two million and set a target of two hundred books for 2024. This is the literary equivalent of saying, “I’m going to do a million push ups.” It feels absolutely ludicrous. That being said, I’m three books ahead of schedule.

Now, you’re probably wondering, “How the hell are you managing that many books?!” Which is an absolutely fair question to ask. I have a three year old, a three month old, a wife, two dogs, a small business, and I also try and write. So, while I still manage to sit down and read twelve to thirty books a year (no, I don’t include the books I read my boys), I began listening to audiobooks. And before you start sharpening your pitchforks or lighting your torches, hear me out, you bloody peasant.

My wife, who is my biggest enabler and supporter, stands firmly on the hill of “audiobooks don’t count” and will happily die on said hill, should we ever go to actual war. Meanwhile, I stand firmly on, “sorry, do you mean the original way stories existed?” hill, and will also happily die here too. While the debate rages on, everywhere (including in my shop), the truth of the matter is… don’t yuck someone else’s yum. Audiobooks are incredible tools for accessibility as not everyone gets the luxury of reading a book, but also, they’re a perfectly fine way to revisit your classics. None of these are why I listen though. Not at all.

I listen to audiobooks while my hands are busy but my brain is simply existing. Sure, sometimes I would think up wonderful things. Scenes. Characters. Problem solve. But, I reckon, a lot of that time used to be an absolute wheel of death moment. A window not responding. Homer from the Simpsons spinning in circles on the floor. A dog chasing its own tail. Now? OH HO, BOY! Yeah, I binge like there’s no tomorrow. I shoehorn books into bathroom breaks. Into commutes. Into doing the laundry, the dishes, cooking, and cleaning. I AM A DOMESTIC GODDESS… all thanks to audiobooks. Also, listening to them as fast as I talk (2x speed) means sixty hours of audiobook (aka a four book series such as The Mirror Visitor Quartet, great books by the way) works out to thirty hours!

Don’t get me wrong. I have the IKEA Strandmon, complete with footrest, warm blanket, and over the shoulder lamp. I love to sit down in that chair and devour a book (but also nap… my back cringes at the thought), but with the three year old in bed by 830, the three month old settled by 9, where does that leave me? In fact, this post is being written at 12:38 AM. I still have to shower. I finished the audiobook of Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon while I took out the bins and went through some more books in the garage and tidied it up so my wife can get in and out of her car easier. Then, I started Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird (20% done) while I tidied up from dinner and put the dishwasher on. My wife and I currently pass like ships in the night, both on our ways to maintaining a productive and somewhat organised household.

So, to sum it all up… sharpen your pitchforks and light the torches, I’m an audiobook addict and can’t devalue the number of books I’ve managed to get through that I never would have otherwise. Also, being able to get through so many books has enabled to me get to books I wouldn’t have normally or books I would likely never have read. I’m looking at you Julia Quinn’s The Duke & I (which I absolutely loved, that Bridgerton TV show is garbage by comparison). They have their place in passing the time, accessibility, learning differently, and most of all, scratching that itch of not missing out. Two million books might as well be infinity, but at least now, I’m making a scuff mark.

-TJ

PS – If you’ve always wanted to try audiobooks and want to also support my tiny little secondhand bookshop, feel free to download the Libro.FM App and choose “annesnowra” as your preferred shop to earn us commission on any books/subscriptions you buy. Alternatively, you can just go here to look into it. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to ask in the comments or contact me through the form!

February 3, 2024

The Annual Update Anniversary

So, last year when I jokingly wrote that I was doing an annual update, little did I know that was prophetic.

Now, here we are in 2024 and I’m doing an update in February! Less than a year since my last post! Incredible!

Well, time to catch you all up on the life and times since May 2023, and away we go!

Family Life:

Things appear to be going well all aside from the bloody budget crunching thanks to the insane interest rates at the moment. I know we’re faring better than most, so I won’t complain about it too much. That being said, my son is a lover of books and his attention span is growing for bigger books. He’s two, but his highest interest is the trio of choose-your-own-adventure novels I brought home. He wasn’t a huge fan of the haunted house one (I do fun voices, but I chose to do spookier ones for that), but the Dino Time Travel and Build Your Own Robot stories have been a big hit. Maybe he’ll be more into sci-fi!

Work Life:

I still have the shop and it’s going great! I am absolutely still loving the job, but I know I have a challenging conversation coming up in regards to renewing the lease. As I don’t want to move it, I’m hoping the landlord comes to the party as she said she prefers long-term tenants as opposed to a revolving door or vacancy. Seriously though, running a bookshop has been a dream of mine and it feels weird to actually be living it!

Reading Life:

For 2023 I managed 156 books through reading and audiobooks. What an incredible year! Some of the highlights I had from last year: Discovered Anthony Horowitz (then interacted with him on Twitter!), read more Indigenous authors than ever before, picked up a physical copy of Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury (SIGNED!), and found myself crying (Before the Coffee Gets Cold), laughing (The Duke & I, romance/biting wit!), confused (The Three Body Problem, first book to make me feel too stupid to read it) and downright concerned for the author (The Eulogy, seriously though, someone go hug her!). I’ve set a LOFTY goal of 200 books this year, and I’m on track halfway through my 21st read!

Writing Life:

The whole reason this blog exists. Writing. Last year, I managed to rack up a few decent things for the old writing CV. In 2023 I managed to get showcased twice on the Australian Writers’ Centre’s #FuriousFiction competition with a long listing earlier in the year too. This follows on from my win in April 2021, and I’ve already managed a longlisting in January this year!

I also placed second in Storyfest’s writing competition which is an excellent win (especially since it was a modified story for a specific publication the year before last). The best part about this is it gives me a bit more confidence that I can write outside the #FuriousFiction competitions and it netted me a gift card for books and a voucher for classes!

In Writing in general, I’m still working on my rewrite of Jefferson (the book now known as The Magician’s Curse). Rewriting for point of view, editing for tense and pronouns, and ensuring the story still holds up has been my biggest challenge yet. Aside from that though I’ve just finished February’s #FuriousFiction, I have a short story about a cat on submission, another story to short édition, and a longer story on sub to Aurealis. So, all in all, I’m putting myself out there and more people are seeing my work than ever.

And that brings us to the end of yet another annual update! If you’re lucky, you may end up with a second post before the end of the year, but don’t count on it! I have some other news I’ll be sitting on for a little bit longer, so we will see how that pans out for the midyear! For now, back to writing/editing!