On Day 6, I mentioned the PolyWogg Reading Challenge (#MoreJoy – Day 6 of 31 – My Reading Challenge), and it is a bit of a chicken-and-egg dilemma which one I would write about first, as they go hand-in-hand.

I like reading, first and foremost. And after reading pretty much any book, I like writing a review. Some people like doing reviews as it is like a bookmark for them…a milestone that says “I read this”, while others are content merely to add the book name to a spreadsheet or app or website to track what they’ve read. Others are more interested in the next book than keeping track of other books. And others keep a list, but not for any milestone purpose other than to prevent themselves from buying the same book again! I feel all those desires too, but there is something different about my madness.

I like writing reviews because I like organizing my thoughts around the book. Did I like it for the style? The plot? The characters? The diversion?

Did I feel “meh” because it was simply not compelling to me on any level? Did I find myself “forcing” myself to finish it?

Yet my reviews don’t stop at books. I want to do the same with TV episodes even, movies, music, etc. I don’t feel the urge to review telescopes, so it isn’t universal, but I do like the idea of reviewing accessories like smartphone adapters. I don’t review electronics, but I might review an app or two. Or 100.

In a way, it is tightly tied to my curation desire for knowledge. I like pulling a bunch of wayward bits of information together into a framework for a more coherent whole. And so I write multiple types of reviews.

Yet therein lies part of the rub. It is easy to get BEHIND on reviews, except there’s no deadline. I have lots of books that I have read in the last 2 years that I haven’t done a review for yet, as well as movies. Or whole seasons of TV shows. I’m also somewhat unclear if there is an audience for any of the reviews. I don’t promote them widely or anything, I’m not trying to drum up a large following.

Way back when I was first starting my website, I loved the idea of doing NEW movie reviews the same weekend it was released. See it opening day, review it opening night, share my views before the hordes make their decisions. Yet I also like having a life too. Back then, I didn’t have much of one and that was one direction I considered pursuing long-term if I was single. That’s a much more complicated story than I have space or time for right here, but I considered trying to make myself into an amateur reviewer.

The significance of that time though leads directly to two other aspects that continue. First, I take my reviews seriously enough to try to do them respectfully, not some tongue-in-cheek, drive-by review. Second, I created a structure that takes some time to write. I can’t dash off a review in 30s, or even 5m. A book review can take me 20-30m to write, plus I then copy it to multiple sites for sharing, save the review in a couple of places for local backup / tracking, and then move on. I binged 35 books back in June, and that means if I review them normally, I’m looking at a minimum of 20h to review them all. That is NOT happening. I need to come up with a new format to review books that is shorter and punchier, not the full-length review that I normally do.

And I’m EXCITED by the idea of coming up with a new format.

Did I mention I LIKE writing reviews? Thinking about reviews? Thinking about how I communicate about reviews? How I share my reviews?

That I like writing ABOUT reviews, as I’m doing now?

I have a dream that when I die, I’ll be all caught up on my reviews. In the meantime, I’m going to enJOY the writing.

Okay, I admit it. I said MY reading challenge. It is…and it isn’t.

Three years ago, I created a private group on FB and invited only friends to join, if they wanted to do so. I had seen a bunch of online challenges where people read different types of books, some used Bingo cards, some used the alphabet, some only read certain genres, and others were over-the-top complicated or underwhelmingly self-promotion where all the books were by the same publisher. Yawn.

Enter the PolyWogg Reading Challenge. MINE would be different! I’d pull from the best, discard the rest; I’d find some hooks, we’d embrace the same books! Okay, so poetry wasn’t on the list.

Annnnd I made it too complicated. I tried creating a Bingo Card-style exercise, and while it was okay, it wasn’t really creating a “sharing” atmosphere. We were all reading different things at different times. More like people travelling at the same time but to different destinations and with different modes of transport. The only thing we had in common was that we were reading.

Year 2, 2020, I tweaked the setup. I asked for feedback from the handful of people subscribed, we chose some themes/categories, and I added simple badges. It worked, generally, and I tweaked it a bit more for Year 3.

In January, I set the themes for each month of the year, and based on the input from people, I generally have three types of books to read:

a. Reader’s choice — anything they want can fit in here, no one has to listen to me and my choices, they can be REBEL READERS! Embrace their anarchy!

b. Thematic choice — I give a bit of guidance for the theme / category but usually there is a fair bit of room for choice (as people requested); and,

c. Challenge books — these are often a bit denser, and while I sometimes give wide choice, sometimes I pick 2 or 3 books that I want to read and thus putting them on the list helps encourage me to read at least one of them!

Over the last two years, some members have added a few more people, and we have just over 20 or so subscribers. But in any given month, probably only 8 or 9 active posters.

I suspected that we could potentially morph into a traditional book club where in any given month, we might all be reading the same thing. That absolutely hasn’t happened. But what I really like is the sharing and interaction between members. One person will read a book, and recommend it, and then next month or the month after that, the same title shows up on other people’s list for the month, based on the earlier review. People have shared books in physical form too.

But what I love about all of this is that not all of them know each other. They mostly all know me, although a couple are 2 degrees of separation away through another member. And while some of them know each other more than that, most of them primarily interact in the forum. That’s their connection.

Which I didn’t exactly expect, but I should have, probably. When I ran my trivia game by email back in the late 90s, some of the people met through my game and asked to connect to other players who they were competing with regularly. The other person agreed to “match” emails, so they connected. And started talking. Plus I am still friends with someone on FB that I met through that trivia game, a friend of a friend of a friend of someone I barely knew.

I really enjoy reading people’s feedback on the books they are reading, as well as seeing the interactions between people who mainly only know each other through the group. It’s small, it’s intimate, and I would be open to it growing a bit larger, but I would never want it to get above 20-30 active people I don’t think. I like the 2 degrees of separation feel to it.

And interacting with people about books, instead of memes or the news? That always brings me joy.