Numbers: April 25, 2022

Welcome to another Magic Monday, the last of April, and what a week it was.

My challenge of 52 books in 52 weeks challenge is still way ahead of schedule, starting week number 45 , I finished book number 51, the first volume of the short story collection Legends II. The next anthology on the queue is the Conquering Sword of Conan, the famous Barbarian created by Robert E. Howard. The one short a day challenge suffered some sets backs, but it was for a good cause

On the other hand, which more likely would be the book to close the 52 books challenge, I’m currently on page 478 of the first collection of novels of the famous Black Company, series penned by Glen Cook, my goal is to finish it before my Star Wars marathon begins, on May 4.

It will seem that my reading of the Black Company will come down to the wire, if there’s any chance, I’ll squeeze in a short novel, but that seems highly unlikely.

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 57,348 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s a whopping 3,223 registered pages since the last update.The next step, and the whole focus for the remaining 42 days of reading, is to surpass my 64,000 plus pages goal. 7,594 pages stand in my way to success.

The end of the year projection of total pages had a monumental advance ,currently is at 64,983 pages, 2,294 pages more than the last update. My reading schedule, my Achilles heel, is, to much of my delight, just 1 day behind, this is the first time that my projected total is above the goal of the year, and with a little push, this will get back on track.

I keep on sticking to my mantra, one step at a time, one page at a time.

I start week 45 with a deficit of 660 pages, and a total 1,906 pages to get back to balance, this marks the second week in a row that my total for the week excess by far the quota, by 1,791 pages to be exact. The total for the month of April sits at 7,123 pages, which represent around 134% of the projected total, now there’s the matter of 983 pages to get back on track for the entire year, inching ever closer to a step those reading badges. Consequently, I have in my possession the design of the first one, the phantom wolf, and let me tell you, it’s fucking gorgeous.

For the first 500,000 pages, I have only 92,075 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is May 15, 2025, that’s 39 days earlier than the last projection, my sights are still pointed at March 20, 2023 as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, 330 intense days of reading.The gap narrowed from 828 to 789 days behind schedule.

The second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, my weekly pages needed are now 1,581 with a daily average of 226 pages, a four page a day drop from the last projection.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections puts it 7,179 days away, a 86 day gain from the last projection, making the end date is December 20, 2041, that’s 3,851 days after the original plan, 79 days less that the last projection. This forward momentum in time gained is becoming the standard, the goal is to at least a month of time with each week. I have to keep reminding myself that my goal is to reach my goal by my 50th birthday, right now, I would be 60 years 6 months, and 15 days old.

To summary the numbers from my Journey Back.

• Pages to reach 500,000: 92,075 pages
• Days to reach 1,000,000: 7,179 days
• Days behind schedule: 3,851 days

Now back to work on the final goal of the year.

Off to read.

azr.

Numbers: April 18,2022

Welcome to another Magic Monday, the third of April, to my delight, it is a Monday, so that’s a plus, and on top of this, my reading week was pretty amazing

My challenge of 52 books in 52 weeks challenge is still way ahead of schedule, starting week number 44 , I am working on book number 51 and 52. This will complete my challenge, as I can see it, I’ll probably finish with around 60 books. Right now there’s only one short story left on the Legends II, The Monarch of Glen, by none other that Mr. Neil Gaiman.

The next anthology on the queue is the Conquering Sword of Conan, the second volume of the famous Barbarian created by Robert E. Howard. On the other hand, which more likely would be the book to close the 52 books challenge, I’m currently on page 318 of the first collection of novels of the famous Black Company, series penned by Glen Cook, my goal is to finish it by the weekend.

I’ll probably start with some short novels, for example, there’s the two-book horror novel by Mexican writer Gerardo Lima, Megaloceros: Libro del Ciervo 1 y 2, which will be the perfect bridge to sum-up pages until the start of the May the Fourth be with you reading marathon.

The one short story a day challenge is getting back in sync, right now I have a 5 day streak, not that much, but a good sign that everything is falling into place.

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 54,125 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s a very decent 2,001 registered pages more than last update.The next step, and the whole focus for the remaining 49 days of reading, is to reach those 64,000 plus pages.

The end of the year projection of total pages had a bit of a surge ,currently is at 62,689 pages, 950 pages less than the last update. My reading schedule, my Achilles heel, is still 12 days behind, this means that for the first time in a while there was some forward momentum in the form of 4 days gained since the last update. This this means that I have finally broken the curse, best not get to cocky.

I keep on sticking to my mantra, one step at a time, one page at a time.

I start week 44 with a deficit of 2,451 pages, and a total 3,697 pages to get back to balance, this week was exactly what I needed, with a whopping 1,335 pages over my week’s quota.The total for the month of April sits at 4,086 pages, which represent around 74% of the projected total, exactly where I want to be, a step closer to get those badges .

For the first 500,000 pages, I have only 95,298 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is June 24, 2025, that’s 22 days earlier than the last projection, my sights are still pointed at March 20, 2023 as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, 337 intense days of reading.The gap narrowed from 850 to 828 days behind schedule.

The second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, my weekly pages needed are now 1,610 with a daily average of 230 pages, a two page a day drop from the last projection.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections puts it 7,265 days away, a 50 day gain from the last projection, making the end date is March 9, 2042, that’s 3,930 days after the original plan, 43 days less that the last projection. This forward momentum in time gained is becoming the standard, the goal is to at least a month of time with each week. I have to keep reminding myself that my goal is to reach my goal by my 50th birthday, right now, I would be 60 years 9 months, and 4 days old.

To summary the numbers from my Journey Back.

• Pages to reach 500,000: 95,298 pages
• Days to reach 1,000,000: 7,265 days
• Days behind schedule: 3,930 days

Now back to work on the final goal of the year.

Off to read.

azr.

500,000-page watch: April 17,2022

I still have the crazy idea to reach my first half of the 1,000,000-page challenge by March 20, 2023. This means that I have 338 days to do so.

With the latest update my grand total stands at 404,306 pages, leaving me with 95,694 pages to reach this coveted part of my journey. With the recent success on my daily reading, there’s a real possibility to even get there sooner, leaving a little more time to go after the second half of my goal.

The daily average for getting there is 283, of which, I have surpassed in 8 of the last 9 days of reading. It’s quite the gargantuan task, and to be completely, my main concern is to amass the vast quantity of reading material to get it done.

On queue there’s 48,228 available, that’s doesn’t even scratch the surface of how many pages I have left to read, it represents around 10%, thankfully, there’s a lot of material available in my Kindle Unlimited membership.

Lots of things to cover to get pass the goal, but that’s part of what keeps it fun and fresh, testament to this is that I have been doing it for 1/3 of my life.

Off to read.

azr

50-day trek

This is it, the final leg of my fourteen year of reading.

It has become a tradition for me to intensify my pace when the final days of each year loom over the horizon, and that moment starts right now. So you may ask, how things are shaping up? Well let me paint you a picture.

I have a total of 53,729 of the 64,942 pages of my goal. That leaves 11,213 left to read on this last 50 days, around 220 pages per day. My average right now is around 171 pages per day, so there’s some catching-up to do.

This will coincide with the other self-imposed challenge that has been lurking around for quite some time, read three times the weekly quota, which would be a total for each week of 3,738 pages, and a shiny badge at the end. The design for the badges are been development as we speak, and let me tell you, they are going to be magnificent.

I know that this task pretty doable, my total for this week is 2,185 pages, that’s 312 pages per day, and with maybe a couple of hundred pages more before the day ends, this is shaping up to be a successful outing.

I’ll try to get my first badge next week, and hopefully, with under 8,000 pages left, and a couple of reading marathons fast approaching, the goal will be met.

Off to read.

azr

Spring vacation mode, or, some crazy-stupid goals

I haven’t decided if this next challenge is crazy or stupid, heck, maybe is both, the important part is that I’m definitely doing it.

For the passed few weeks, I have been toying with the idea of reading three times the total weekly page quota for three straight weeks, yeah, I like that kind of thing with numbers.

That means that each week, my total will need to be 3,738, and 11,214 total pages for the three-week expanse. The perfect timing to close-out really early the total projected for the year.

Each week will earn me a badge, more on that later, and the rules are simple, three straight weeks, if I don’t get there, the game restarts, and the badges go away.

This week is shaping-up really good, yesterday, I had a total of 361 pages, and today, my total, with a few hours of reading left, is 337 pages.

Just 3,040 pages left to earn my first badge.

Off to read

azr

Numbers: April 11,2022

Welcome to a Magic Monday, the second one of April, but the first entry in the blog. Must protect those streaks.

My challenge of 52 books in 52 weeks challenge is still way ahead of schedule, starting week number 43 , I am working on book number 51 the first collection of novels of the famous Black Company, series penned by Glen Cook, I must say that this series doesn’t get thrown around as one of the best ever written, but just 150 pages into it, and there’s clear resonance to another newer series, where Mr. Cook’s writing clearly influence them, for example The Malazan Book of the Fallen .

I’m just about to start a new short story collection, Legends II, edited by Robert Silverberg, and containing story by top writers like Robin Hobb, Anne McCaffrey, Tad Williams, and Neil Gaiman.

With my impending end of the year just looming over the horizon, I need to enter into turbo mode, there’s some Hellboy novels on my queue and around 40 graphic novels to fill in the gaps. There’s a supernatural determination from my end not to come up short from this year’s goal.

The one short story a day challenge is finally, and apparently, successfully restarting, today I finished Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane collection, tomorrow, the first story of the new collection will be Robin Hobb’s Homecoming.

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 52,124 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s a very decent 2,306 registered pages more than last update.The next step, and focus from now on, is to reach those 64,000 plus pages.

The end of the year projection of total pages had a small step back ,currently is at 61,739 pages, 69 pages less than the last update. My reading schedule is still 16 days behind,that’s a one day more than the last update, this is one of the things I have been chasing all year.

I keep on sticking to my mantra, one step at a time, one page at a time.

I start week 43 with a deficit of 3,786 pages, and a total 4,951 pages to get back to balance, this week I came short by 67 pages. The total for the month of April sits at 1,505 pages, which represent around 28% of the projected total, not exactly where I want to be, but this doesn’t not deter me, as I said, supernatural determination .

For the first 500,000 pages, I have only 97,299 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is July 16, 2025, that’s 18 days earlier than the last projection, my sights are still pointed at March 20, 2023 as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, 344 intense days of reading.The gap narrowed from 867 to 850 days behind schedule.

The second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, my weekly pages needed are now 1,626 with a daily average of 232 pages, a two page a day drop from the last projection.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections puts it 7,315 days away, a 50 day gain from the last projection, making the end date is April 21, 2042, that’s 3,973 days after the original plan, 36 days less that the last projection. This forward momentum in time gain is becoming the standard, the goal is to at least a month of time with each week. I have to keep reminding myself that my goal is to reach my goal by my 50th birthday, right now, I would be 60 years 10 months, and 16 days old.

In this case 60 is not the new 50.

To summary the numbers from my Journey Back.

• Pages to reach 500,000: 97,299 pages
• Days to reach 1,000,000: 7,315 days
• Days behind schedule: 3,973 days

Now back to work on the final goal of the year.

Off to read.

azr.

March reading report, and the 50,000-page milestone

I think, or at least I hope, that the results of the month of March are an indication of where my reading is going, not only for this dwindling year, but in the broader picture.

I finished with a total of 6,632 pages, that’s 1,114 pages over the projected total of 5,518 pages. This leaves 2,751 surplus pages from passed months, and 8,091 pages to get this year back in balance.

Now for the 50,000-page milestone, I must say that this one is really special, not only is the first time I pass this mark but it’s a benchmark for the upcoming 9 years of reading.

The honor of getting passed this very important milestone was the amazing graphic novel Snow Angels, created by two of my favorite creators, Jeff Lemire and Jock.

Hope is restored, and now to ho get those 64,000 pages.

Off to read.

azr