2019 Wrap-Up: In Which I Stumble, but Don't Fall (and Ultimately Conquer)

Hello my beauties!

Welcome to my last post of the year, where I will wrap my 2019 up. This was another year of scheduling, both my reads and my posts. I had set up a goal of one post a week, like last year (where I was ultimately able to hit 59), but my not-so-secret aspiration was to have a total of 60 posts - 5 per month. This didn't seem like much to achieve in fifty-two weeks - I know people who can drop the same amount of posts in TEN (hello Sam 😉). But for me, it was a huge goal. I decided not to overly stress about that number, but to do my best to reach it IF I could. On top of that, 2019 was the first year where I had to take a blog hiatus...well, two, if you count a couple of weeks in December (though I had both hiatuses covered with scheduled posts). And yet...I was able to go above and beyond! Read the whole story of how I stumbled, but didn't fall, and ultimately conquered my TBP (To Be Posted) list!

Pt. 1: This Year in Blogging

As of today, I've been blogging for 7 years and a couple of months 😃.

This is what happened on Offbeat YA during the year, broken down by number of posts, events I took part in, books I reviewed, authors I interacted with and discussion posts I wrote...plus a brand new off-blog, real-life section!

a) Numbers

Lo and behold - this is my 64th post this year! *does a crazy dance* I was able to surpass my goal, if not by much - but as I said before, it's much for ME. Then again...

...only 16 of my 2019 posts were reviews 😳 (they were 23 last year)...though I also wrote 6 mini-review posts (that is, I posted 18 of my Goodreads pre-reviews on my blog, 3 at a time). I suffered from Curiosity Quills Press shutting up shop at the beginning of the year - no more digital ARCs for me, and I only had a limited supply of backlist books to review (and no urgency to do that, because frankly - what if I review, say, a 4-year-old book yet another year later?). This affected my reviewing performance hard. Then again, I joined NetGalley in August, and I put together my Beat the Halloween Backlist event in October, and they helped me increasing my numbers, if a little. Plus I wrote 4 Rehabilitating YA posts, which were composed by mini-reviews, so I guess those count, too. But more of that in the "Reviews" section below.

Actually, NetGalley was a surprise for me. At first I downloaded a Read Now book (People of the Lake by Nick Scorza), and another one a month or so later (Strange Exit by Parker Peevyhouse), then I tried and requested two more (The Vinyl Underground by Rob Rufus and Reverie by Ryan La Sala) from publishers with an intimidating list of approval requirements, almost none of which I was meeting (plus keep in mind my ratio was still a fat ZERO at the time), just because, why not? and astonishingly, I got APPROVED 😮 💃. I talked to a few friends after that, and no one has a clue how these things work, so I'll just thank my lucky stars and won't look into the horse's mouth! Also, after reviewing 4 books out of 4 (as I said, 2 Read Now and 2 for which I got approved), according to NG I had reviewed 4 books out of 3 (all of them granted by the publishers) and I had a 133% ratio 😮. Again - the horse's mouth...but this is INSANE haha.
On a side note - I requested a 5th book a few days ago, and I immediately got approved?!? on my very birthday, yay! It's an adult one - Planting Wolves by Neda Disney - which my friend Carrie's review got me interested in, but my own review will only be up in January! This put my ratio back at 80%, but at least I'm not falling behind...plus it's just one book - easy to catch up with.

b) Events and memes

I'm not very much inclined to take part in memes and such when they require my weekly attention or are particularly time-consuming, but I do like short events and small memes. As I did last year, I've been participating in Tell Me Something Tuesday, a feature of Heidi's blog Rainy Day Ramblings. As its name suggests, TMST is a weekly meme covering a wide range of bookish related themes, but - unlike Top Ten Tuesday and the like - it isn't limited to lists. Also, without a Linky, it's a laid-back meme with zero pressure. I'm taking part in it only when the topic strikes my fancy and I do have time. It's helped me a lot with blogging content, and I'm having fun with it.

I also started my own monthly event (so to speak), Tooting Your Trumpet, where I spotlight posts or sites or bookish things I find interesting. As usual, my motto with this kind of stuff is "do things you can sustain" 😉.

Speaking of which, I haven't given up on my TV-related article series Screen Time yet. For now, though, it's on hold. It's too much work and too little payback. But I do plan on going back to it one day. And I'm definitely going to revamp my old A Reader's Quirks series...especially now that my friend Lissa designed the cutest logo for it!

c) Reviews

As I said, not many very few of those 😳. But at least I was able to snatch a few ARCs near the end of the year, mainly thanks to NetGalley...

These are the books I reviewed this year, broken down by genres/Reading Rooms:

Christopher Pike: Thirst No.3 (urban fantasy, horror) | Thirst No.4 (urban fantasy, horror) (plus there's another book by him, but I put it in the Adult section)
Supernatural: Reverie by Ryan La Sala (ARC review)

Contemporary: This Side of Salvation by Jeri Smith-Ready --- Contemporary with a Twist: For What It's Worth by Janet Tashjian | I Crawl Through It by A.S. King | The In-Between by Barbara Stewart
Thriller: People of the Lake by Nick Scorza (ARC review) | The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman
Sci-Fi: Fourth World by Lyssa Chiavari | When We Wake by Karen Healey | While We Run by Karen Healey | Strange Exit by Parker Peevyhouse (ARC review)
Unwalled: Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma
Adult: The Blind Mirror by Christopher Pike (thriller/mystery, sci-fi, supernatural, horror) | I Didn't Break the Lamp - Historical Accounts of Imaginary Acquaintances by Dawn Vogel et al. (supernatural)

Also, I posted 6 Review Morsels installments: the first featuring Nova Ren Suma, Seanan McGuire and Parker Peevyhouse; the second featuring Lauren Karcz, Rin Chupeco and Amelinda Bérubé; the third featuring Seanan McGuire, Matthew Green and T.E. Carter; the fourth featuring Rin Chupeco, Charles Yu and 'Nathan Burgoine; the fifth featuring Seanan McGuire, Naomi Hughes and M.E. Kerr; and the sixth featuring Ryan La Sala, Parker Peevyhouse and Rob Rufus (please note: some authors recur, but of course, with different books reviewed).

And finally, I posted 4 Rehabilitating YA installments, which are, for all purposes, mini-reviews batches: the first (with Afterlife books) featuring Christopher Pike, B.C. Johnson, C.W. Snyder and Kali Wallace; the second (with Supernatural/Paranormal/Urban Fantasy and Sci-Fi books) featuring Erin Callahan & Troy H. Gardner, Diana Wynne Jones, Seanan McGuire, Peter Dickinson and Alison Goodman; the third (with Multiverse, Thriller/Mystery and Contemporary books) featuring A.W. Hill & Nathanael Hill, Adrienne Maria Vrettos, Joshua Winning, Erin Callahan, Jeri Smith-Ready and Sara Zarr; and the fourth (with Unwalled books - that is, books you can't label that easily) featuring Edward Aubry, Ilsa J. Bick, B.C. Johnson, Nova Ren Suma and E.S. Wesley.

d) Author interactions

Erin Callahan, Troy H. Gardner, Joshua Winning

REVIEW-WISE

The authors I usually have the privilege to review ARCs from were in writing/subbing/pitching mode this year, so I only got one book for review from them...but The Infernal Machine by C.W. Snyder will only feature on the blog in January. That's all, but hey, I'll have more to read next year LOL (if they still think I'm a valid asset for their work, that is 😉).

BETA-READING

In March, Erin Callahan (author of The Art of Escaping and long-time friend of my blog) asked me to beta-read the first chapters of her third solo YA effort (mock title: Horror Thingy 😂- its current title is Black Dog, White Rabbit though). Since my friend Carrie from Bright, Beautiful Things had read and loved Erin's first book, plus she's sort of a horror expert (despite her blog's name 😂), I advised Erin to enlist her help as well (and me and Carrie got to fangirl about that excerpt lately). In August, both me and Carrie were asked to beta-read the whole thing, and now we're anxiously waiting for deal news anytime, because it sounds like "YA horror" and the slightly bizarre category "YA set in college" (since NA is apparently a disgraced tag) are the things publishers are looking for right now, and this book is both!

In April, Erin's writing partner Troy H. Gardner did a making-the-cover feature on my blog for the revised edition of Tunnelville, the second installment in their collaborative, ongoing series Mad World (you can read my original review here, and the story of how the series came to be in 2012, went on hiatus and was finally slated for republishing, here). Seriously, folks...give this series a chance. It's a high-quality self-published contemporary, with magic, friendship, conspiracies, a dose of running-and-hiding and a lot of heart.

And finally, this is kind of a spoiler, but in November Joshua Winning (author of the Sentinel series and Vicious Rumer) was participating in NaNoWriMo, and I asked him what his new project was about, and he tweeted me back "Superstition prevents me from talking about it 🤐 But you’ll be one of the first people I ask to beta 😂", to which I was like 😮 and then 💃 because I didn't expect it at all LOL.

e) Discussion posts

Last year, apart from the prompts the generous Heidi provided us with in her Tell Me Something Tuesday feature, I barely conjured 4 discussion posts. This year, I posted 4 think-pieces/personal posts which could double as discussion posts. Can you see a pattern here? I didn't put any effort into it (though I did contribute to a handful of TMST prompts). I love discussion posts. I love to read what my friends have to say. But I didn't have the peace of mind, or the patience, or whatever, to come up with discussion prompts myself. Next year, though, I plan on reviving my old A Reader's Quirks series (see above)...so we'll see what happens. Here are this year's posts, in case you missed them (and despite the assertive titles, they do pose questions and are all open to your contribution!):

January: Giving It Our (He)art and Soul: Why Each and Every Blogger Is an Artist in Their Own Way
March: It's a Tough Job: Tales about Your Dream Career and More
June: Welcome to the Madness: Memoirs of an Italian Poll Clerk Pt.1
July: More Madness: Memoirs of an Italian Poll Clerk Pt.2

f) Real life

First off - I'm in awe of those of you who do weekly wrap-ups with all those real-life updates. My life is just about as interesting as watching paint dry. But there's something I want to talk about this time, so yeah...big deal alert LOL.

Twenty-four years ago, when I started to work as a radio host (or basically, a radio all-rounder...the only thing I don't do is clean up the place 😒), my boss told me he couldn't pay all the hours I was working at that stage, but one day soon, yadda yadda. Back then, I thought it would only be a temporary job, and then it would go back to being a hobby (most of us did a couple or four hours a week's worth of programs like that), so I agreed (which was stupid anyway, but I was young, and being a radio personality was a dream come true).

Fast forward a quarter of century, and I was still paid for 15 hours a week instead of 20 - plus, my boss is an asshole in so many ways, I won't even begin to list them here. But since I hate confrontations, even when I have the right ground (or even more so, because when I feel wronged I tend to go mad, and that is used against me as the "you have a temper" card, and things get ugly), I was boiling inside and still doing nothing...until one Friday my boss wronged me one time too many. I decided to take the smart approach then - I didn't immediately react in my usual incensed way, but I went home and spent the whole weekend rehearsing a balanced, clever speech for when I would go back to work on Monday, with which I would let him know that, after 24 years, if he couldn't afford to pay for all my time, I would have to work the time he actually paid me for. That was the longest weekend of my life, I tell you - all the time I was panicking inside. Thank goodness, my speech went better than I expected, maybe ALSO because my boss KNEW he was in the wrong, and given my non-confrontational attitude, he couldn't very well throw a tantrum...which he did a couple of days after for another matter, but I suspect it was more because he had previously been forced to swallow the I'm-going-to-work-the-hours-you-pay-me-for thing. Oh, well. I'm with stupid (and I don't mean it in a jovial way...).

So, since Sep. 30th, I'm only working 3 hours a day, five days a week. I would very much rather work 4 (or even 5) hours a day and get paid more, but at least I finally found the courage to stand my ground and I freed myself. After 24 years...

In other news - on Dec. 5th, the friend I told you about a while ago lost his brief battle with brain cancer (only 6 months long). To be honest, it was never a battle to begin with. The darned thing had probably been at work for years, and when he suddenly collapsed, there wasn't anything the doctors could do (they did try one cycle of chemo, but just because it's the thing you do in these cases - then they gave up, because he was getting worse by the day). He was a nice guy who went out of this way to please people - a rare thing these days. That's how I'll remember him.

Also, 5 days before my birthday, this happened...😭 😡

My molar filling cracked again after barely 10 months (so this time I'll have to cave in and get an implant)...just in time for my birthday and Christmas. Because that's exactly my idea of a self-gift...a dental work. pic.twitter.com/ObQ2xQETYp

— Offbeat Yearly Advent 🎄 (@OffbeatYA) December 9, 2019

Of course, I decided I would get the implant in 2020, because I couldn't be bothered with dental work this time of the year 😣.

(For the record: my one and only tooth decay experience, which brought to the aforementioned filling - already replaced thrice since then - was exactly around these days in 2010...I had my tooth cured two days before my birthday, and went back for the filling the day after. So yeah, yay for celebrations... 😒).

Plus, I'm closing 2019 with my yearly laryngitis (yep, I catch one each and every year...) 😡 😭. Midway through my week off work last Thursday, I started nursing a spectacular cold, that lately evolved into a nasty cough, that in turn brought me to this. (And here I'm taking immune system boosters). Yay for the holidays...

Pt. 2: Goals for 2019

Last year, I closed my wrap-up with this statement:

"So...in 2019, I'll still be here. I'll still be scheduling. I'll still be trying to do my best. I'll still be visiting your blogs and liking your reviews on GR and retweeting your tweets and encouraging those of you who are having it rough, blog-wise or (more importantly) life-wise. Those are the only promises I can make, because I know I can keep them. Whatever happens, I'll be grounded. And ready. And still playing this wonderful blogging game 💗."

Well...I kept my word. I even did more than I thought I would be able to. I kept to my schedule even when I was tired. I made new blogging friends and I commented more consistently. I participated in my peeps' adventure and misadventures on Twitter. It might not sound like much, but to me, in my particular situation, it was. In the new year, I just vouch to be here and to do my best and to talk to you all, again. I might need a little more "me" time, but I'm not going anywhere, and I'll try to be a better friend, and should I be short of a post, so be it. It's thanks to you, and authors, and books of course, that I have an outlet that makes me feel alive and connected in a life that too often gives me lemons. So...where would I go? 😊

Pt. 3: Holidays Hiatus

I'm looking forward to enjoying a bit of relax over the holidays (unless my seasonal illness takes a turn for the worse). Not that I have anything fancy planned, especially since the friend at whose house we used to spend the 31st is the one who died from brain cancer. We'll probably end up going to the place, since it's still his companion house, to cheer her up a little - along with another friend of hers. Anyway, in other news, I'll be back on January 1st with my usual birthday/Christmas book-haul post! As you might know by now, since my birthday and Christmas are close to each other, every year in December I treat myself with a bunch of physical books from this Italian webseller that also sports a rather wide selection of books in English. I'll let you know what I ordered!

In the end...

"Merry Christmas!"

And a Happy New Year of course 😃.

Or Happy Holidays if you prefer!

See you next year! Take care 😘.