Reading. Last year I read 237 books (give or take); this may seem like a hell of a lot, but a lot of them were comics, and those are fast reads. This year I'm shooting for 100 books (non-comics, to be specific). I'll be focusing on historical fiction (particularly of the ancient and Napoleonic variety) and dabbling in fantasy (who knows? maybe I'll like it!). I have several modern science fiction novels to scope out, and of course I have six books for my 'summer westerns' gauntlet. I love pairing them with chili and cornbread.
Spirituality. This year I'm going to focus on reading the Bible rather than spiritual books. Spiritual books are like cookbooks; the scriptures are actual food. If I time it right I can make it all the way through the Bible, but I plan on going slowly, mulling my way through the gospels and the Pauline epistles, chewing through the minor prophets (and the major ones, too), and drooling over the wisdom literature. The exceptions will be research books geared towards a project I'm working on...
Writing. I haven't finished a book since 2017's 400-page (and ironically named) A Short History of Medieval England. I'm halfway through the next zombie novel of The Procyon Strain Saga, but I've hit a speed-bump of lack of creativity. I may need to hop backwards a bit in the narrative and take the story in a different direction. My main writing goal for 2020, however, is a history of the Divided Kingdom of Israel from 931 to 586 BC. This period of biblical history has always fascinated me, and I've started piecing it together. I've just reached the reign of King Ahab of Israel and it's already clocking in at one hundred pages (and that's without the multiple appendices I plan on weaving through the book). I'd do well not to name this one a 'short history' of anything.
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