Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012 (Goals and Things I Learned)

2011 was a great year for books. It was also a great year for my blog. for the first time, I feel completely in control of it and comfortable with the direction I've taken/am taking with it, and with my review pile. It's a wonderful feeling, and one that I hope will stay.

I think part of this great feeling is that I learned a lot about blogging this year. I thought I knew everything in 2010, but I didn't. That's part of the adventure of blogging; you're always learning new stuff. I learned things like:

• How to say, "No thanks, my review pile's just too full."
• When I need to step back and read a book I own.
• Library books are free and buying books is the opposite of free.
• Just because sometimes people don't comment doesn't mean that they don't care.
• If they didn't like your blog they wouldn't be following it.
• Contemporary YA is The Bomb.

All of those things are small but when you put them together they become not-so-small.

I'm very excited for the things 2012 holds for me and this blog. I am deeming it the Year of Shut Up! I'm Reading, in fact. I'm also scared, because I know I'll be very busy, but I'm trying to stay excited because it's much easier.

I want to make a couple of reading and blogging goals for myself. They are:

• More interviews or guest posts (This was a goal for last year that completely failed.)
• Be more consistent with giveaways.
• Read more. (Another goal I set for 2011, and I did. Now I want to top that.)
• Get out of my comfort zone a bit more often.
• Read more classics.
• Try and add some depth to my reviews. (Somebody mentioned this in the survey and I'd love to do it.)
• Try and find some depth.
• Finish the Harry Potter series.

I always set way too many resolutions for myself. Oh well. I like it that way. 

I hope you'll stick around in 2012 and hope you like what you see, and I hope that you have a safe and happy New Years Eve and 2012.

Also, I'll be having a lot of giveaways coming up this week. So stay tuned.