The new year is moving ahead, and I wanted to take some time to share what my reading and writing plans are for 2013.

Reading

Below is a list of the ten books that I’m planning on reading this year. Most of them are non-fiction, which will be a challenge since I have a hard time reading books without a plot. Nonetheless, I’m going to give it my best effort, and I might end up writing about them if they’re any good.

• Lessons Learned: Leading by Example—This book was sent to me by my reddit Secret Santa, and it contains fourteen essays from various business and academic leaders.
• Altared—This books was written by a guy I met at Calvin’s Festival of Faith & Writing last year, and it’s been sitting on my bookshelf for four or five months. It’s written from the perspective of an engaged couple exploring how Christians can get caught up in preparing for marriage and lose focus on their faith.
• And Then There’s This—I’ve had this book for about three months now, on loan from my boss. It’s about the transfer of information in an increasingly viral world.
• It Worked for Me—I’ll be reading this book because the author, Colin Powell, is speaking at this year’s Global Leadership Summit (GLS). Usually GLS speakers talk about their latest book when they speak, so I’m hoping to get ahead of that curve with this one.
• Love Does—This books seems to be making its way through Christian circles lately, and the author, Bob Goff, is speaking at the GLS this year. Two birds, one stone.
• Reverse Innovation—This is another book from an upcoming GLS speaker and the last I will put on this list.
• Les Misérables—My mom gave me three volumes of this book for Christmas a few years ago. They were printed around 1900, so I’ll be downloading a digital copy and reading from it.
• Kingdom Come—This graphic novel covers the death of Superman, and I’ve owned it for three years now. It’s about time I sat down and read it.
• Platform—I’ve heard too much about how helpful this book can be that I can’t not read it.

Writing

Yes, writers are much better at talking about writing than actually writing. Fortunately for me, I’m technically I’m talking about writing by writing, so there’s something good that’s accomplished in that, right?

• Alan Staph—Last year I mentioned that I’m working on a series of short stories about Alan. My goal is to have 15 stories by the end of the year with at least one of them submitted for publication.
• One Page Plays—I had an idea, just after Christmas, that I should write a series of plays where the entirety of the action fits on one page. They will fit into different categories (monologues, meet-cutes, relational, etc.), and I will post them to a Tumblr on a regular basis. My goal is to write 50 plays by the end of the year, and then figure out what to do with them.
• NaNoWriMo—For four years, I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month, and I haven’t completed the fifty-thousand word challenge yet. My goal is to try again.
• Blog—Keep updating. I try to write at least one blog post a week. My goal is to just stay consistent with it.

Well, that’s it for my goals in reading and writing this year. I’ll be sure to post updates as I get through those books and writing projects.