This Summer on Steph Su Reads

June, I think, really officially marks the start of summer, which means it's time for... summer goals in reading, writing, and blogging! I don't usually set concrete goals, much in the same way I never make New Year's resolutions, but I think it wouldn't hurt to share with you some of what I'm hoping to accomplish in book-related stuff this summer:

Originally I was going to do a month-long reading "theme" for each month of summer ("theme" is in quotes because I am hardly hardcore about it, what with my wildly fluctuating reading tastes and moods), kind of like how March/April was "catch up on review books" month and May was POC month. I hardly have coordinating posts like reviews, interviews, or whatnot, but I did manage to read a decent number of POC books from my review pile (interspersed between books with May pub dates, of course). You'll see some of those books' reviews coming up later this month.

For the summer--which is only June and July for me, as I'll be out of the country (hopefully) for a decent part of August--I'm going to be reading a combination of my BEA books (sooo many of them!) as well as my giant shelf full of mass market paperbacks. (So that means a LOT of urban fantasy, fantasy, steampunk, and romance, whoooo!) There is a ridiculous amount of them (maybe I'll show you a picture some other time), and they all sound so good and I've been dying for the chance to tackle them when I have more time to read and don't feel guilty about picking a TBR-pile book up in place of a review book. I've already read a handful of my MMPBs that I enjoyed greatly--Glass Houses by Rachel Caine, Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews, Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah Maclean (this one kept me up until 4 in the morning last night, darnit!)--as well as weeded out some that I started but couldn't get into. Hooray for weeding! And hooray for reading incredibly addicting books!

Bloggiesta is this weekend, and I think I might actually try to participate. I'm not good at marathon-anythings, especially as, with any luck, I will either be going to the beach or hiking on Saturday, but there's a bunch of stuff I would love to do for my blog, and since this weekend is designated Bloggiesta, I figured, why not? That way I can catch up on reviews, write up some posts that have been tossing and turning in my head for months...etc. I think it should be fun and productive!

As for writing... oh man. I need to get back on that ship. I haven't written since the weekend before BEA--I've just been so busy, busy, busy with organizing, moving, cleaning, sleeping, watch movies (heh). I feel REALLY guilty about it and so am determined to start writing again TONIGHT. I hate making writing goals (cuz I never achieve them, and then I hate myself), buuuut perhaps that's the best way to do it? I know Jennifer Echols always has, like, monthly writing goals going on her blog, so maybe... 20,000 words is not an unrealistic goal by the end of June? That would bring me up to 70,000 words in my WIP, 70,000 killer words that will mostly have to be discarded because I still have to figure out where the heck my story is going (or, uh, how it's starting. Sigh). But! It will happen! Would anyone like to join me in kicking our writing butts in gear this summer? Nothing too serious, but I could do with a Word War every once in a while, or a "hey how ya doing WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T WRITTEN FOR THREE DAYS" kind of email. Yeah. Let me know, lol.

[ETA] TOTALLY forgot to put this really important one in! Well, I don't keep ARCs. So all summer long then I will be hosting giveaways for the many BEA ARCs that I will be hopefully reading and then passing on to you guys! How do you like that? I always like sharing the love. So stick around over the summer for chances to win fabulous and highly desired books--one should be just around the corner!

Well, that should about cover things for now! What about you guys? Do you have any goals related to reading, writing, or blogging for the summer? Any particular reading "themes" you want to work on over the summer? Any flailing WIPs that you really need to kick into obedience and, uh, productivity?