Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion
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Team Krakatoa Go Go
message 301:
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Erin *Proud Book Hoarder*
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Aug 17, 2019 08:39AM
I'm sitting here wishing my work shift would end - my second Saturday. But I'm getting to read some now, so that works too
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Of considerable interest, here is how the Mods gave “injuries” to other teams during countdown stage:https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
They also explicitly asked at least one other team to please add links in their spreadsheet, so Mods can check stuff more easily and also not make deduction mistakes by looking at the wrong book/edition if they have to do the searches themselves. So, linking not actually optional! We will just keep doin’ what we’re doin’ 🙂
Interesting! And looks like you were right on the linking, that makes sense.
Most of these challenges have required book links so that's not a surprise. The wording on a couple of those penalties makes me concerned that we had to read the safe zones in order. But I know I read that we can read them out of order as long as we don't finish books in multiple zones at once. We just have to finish the first zone we started before finishing any books for another zone.
Hey just a thought: if we think we might run out of certain letters, esp in our planned single 5-letter word, we could split that up into a two-word, 3-letter/2-letter combo for the same point value.Check out the options I put in at the bottom of the planning sheet.
Could be good to give ourselves some more variety instead of blowing more of all the same vowels.
I hope everyone’s been having a good weekend, full of fun and reading!😄
I am going to start the book with the X character today.
I think I will finish 3 books today. I am nearly done with 2 of them and the 3rd is really short. 🙂I put the two-word combo in alongside the five-letter word we had down. Proof of concept. No one has claimed letters yet for either option, so we’ll see what makes more sense as people proceed...
I went through Kindle Unlimited and saved a bunch of words for vowels and the other difficult letters. So I have them for the future.
Cool.We just need to decide soon. I have a book I'll start tomorrow that works for "A" if we do the 5-letter word, and "B" if we do the two shorter words instead.
So I just need to know what to put it in for.
(It also works for "S" in that last three-letter word that Mary started reading for.)
Sorry. I didn’t read as much as I had planned this weekend. My guy was home more for one thing and I went grill shopping with him on Saturday and shoe shopping with my friend yesterday. It was our tax free weekend. Also waited a long time for Becoming to get to me and I won’t be able to renew it.I’ll scope some short books today that I can knock out this week.
I haven't put more books into the spell out yet because I figured I'd see what needs filling in as I go along. Going to try and finish Spider's Revenge and Riot today. I'll probably fill in a couple more short books onto the spreadsheet today too. I have a U book and most likely Y and I too.
I have two more books claimed for the week, but can pick up a couple more if we want to go for more words.
Becoming will probably be one of the last books I finish for the week but I'll get it done in time. I'm going to scope out the shorter audio book selection on Audible Escape.
Really hoping they'll post the new tasks by Friday so we have time to plan a little.
Including the books we're all currently reading, we are still pretty far short of 40, so I don't think we can tell yet whether or not it'll make sense to go for more words/move up to Magma. (Plus, if we decide NOT to move up, but don't wanna get stuck with a weekend of not-reading, we can pad our time by pick long books towards the end of the round.)
Re the slots that are currently empty... Which option do y'all prefer? Like, what books/letters are you more excited about reading? I feel like I picked the words in the beginning, but I don't want to decide on changes now for everybody else without some kind of vote :D
Mary, Mary, Just a bit contrary wrote: "Really hoping they'll post the new tasks by Friday so we have time to plan a little."Ditto. We don't need them yet because it's just now Monday, but by Friday would be good as I have much better access to all my TBR data and print books and such on weekdays than on weekends. It's also harder for me to spend time online on weekends in general.
I had planned to knock out a few short Kindle books this weekend but it didn't happen. I think I'm still feeling some burnout from Wheel.
@Mary: I see you put in a book for "A" but if that's the word we're choosing, I will most likely need to move Black Wings Beating in there [Re message 309]...
I like the stage we are at right now (Magma)I worked again this week on Saturday so another 6 day week. This upcoming weekend will be a full weekend (should be if all goes to plan), so I'm looking forward to 2 days off again.
I played a lot of Sims 3 last night (mood struck) - well, since early afternoon till late at night - but this gave me a chance to start and finish an Audible original Treasure Island. It was 6 hours so it fits the guideline for requirement. They did a good job with the four new narrators, the sound effects.
I also finished a book last night that I was almost done with, I just wasn't able to update until today since I had shut the computer down and headed to bed when it was finished.
I still have plenty to work on reading wise though, hopefully I can pick up speed a little the next few days. My Kindle Paperwhite 4 froze last night and I'm still working on it. I have my Paperwhite 3 for backup thankfully.
Erin *Proud Book Hoarder* wrote: "My Kindle Paperwhite 4 froze last night and I'm still working on it. I have my Paperwhite 3 for backup thankfully."Ugh, don’t you just hate when you’re trying to read and you have ‘technical difficulty”? I was once in the middle of 2 books on an old Kindle, when it fell and the screen cracked. It was my only Kindle at that time, and I couldn’t finish the books until I got a replacement.
Good ol’ print : at least it doesn’t break. Well, unless you drop it in a puddle or set it on fire or something. 😂
We're Crater now. (up to 40 books) Magma is the next level up. I'll hold off on starting that A book or see if it fits in another slot. But why are we changing the word if they are same points? The letters in Audio aren't hard. We already have 3 books in there and the only 2 letters left are D & O which are pretty easy.
( also I only checked out that book in the A slot for that so it's not big deal to me to just not read it at all)
Re changing the word, it was just an idea, based on whatever books people happen to be the most excited about reading. Like, if you suddenly got WOW about a new book that just came out that happens to work for only an “H” or something, we could still have changed the word(s) because no one had claimed anything yet. It was just a chance for some extra letter variety :)
No problem sticking with Audio. I just couldn’t put my book in for A until y’all chimed in over the word choice. I will put it in in place of Mary’s.
I will take the alternate letters out of the spreadsheet.
It looks like if I don’t claim that D or S right now, I will run out of slots and be stuck reading nothing after Tues night/Wed morning if we decide not to move up to Magma. 😯
So when I am done with my current 2 reads, I will just check with everyone and see what I should do. One option like I brainstormed somewhere before is to choose a very long book that I could read between Wed and Sun.
I'm really good with whatever and will go with the flow. But it seems like me might be over complicating things a smidge. I say we revisit going up a category later in the week. If we hit our 40 by Thursday and a couple of us are willing to read more we go up. By then we might able to see what other teams are doing. Maybe-unless they hold off on posting books to their spreadsheets like we're doing. If we go up we have to stay up. So if Erin is unable to bump her reading up, perfectly understandable, and I am going to be a little limited the last round-that means Alysa and Megan might have to really ramp up their reading the last round.
Also I can speed up on Becoming if needed. It's only going slower because I have the discs and have just been listening in the car. I can load them onto Itunes and put them on my phone. Which I plan to do at some point anyway in order to finish on time.
Yes, definitely TBD later in the week (and I too am worried about other teams deciding at the last minute ;D)But I will basically need to know as soon I finish my current 2 reads, else I really won’t know what to read next, if anything.
I guess this means I have been going to fast! 😁
Alysa wrote: "Erin *Proud Book Hoarder* wrote: "My Kindle Paperwhite 4 froze last night and I'm still working on it. I have my Paperwhite 3 for backup thankfully."Ugh, don’t you just hate when you’re trying to..."
Oh, I know. I have a large print collection but nothing I happen to be reading right now as planned :/
People talk about how convenient e-ink readers are because of their battery in case of power outtage, but with how much I read it will only last me a week at most, not the several weeks advertised. That's only for an hour of reading a day without Wi-Fi, browsing, or anything extra.
Mary, Mary, Just a bit contrary wrote: "We're Crater now. (up to 40 books) Magma is the next level up. I'll hold off on starting that A book or see if it fits in another slot. But why are we changing the word if they are same points? T..."
Oops I get the names confused, ya'll know what I mean :p
@Mary - it turns out that my "A" author book has a "D" character! So if you decide to read that A book you had been considering, feel free to move mine out' the way if the "D" slot is open.
Erin *Proud Book Hoarder* wrote: "People talk about how convenient e-ink readers are because of their battery in case of power outtage, but with how much I read it will only last me a week at most, not the several weeks advertised. That's only for an hour of reading a day without Wi-Fi, browsing, or anything extra."Since I have dedicated e-readers (Keyboard and Oasis) and no Kindle Fire, I don't have to worry as much about browsing and eating up the wi-fi and such, so I do get great battery life and the general convenience of light-weight reading. But even so, the "advertised" battery life is definitely meant to cater to people who read, like, a normal amount -- not people who are crazy voracious reading addicts like us ;D
Exactly!I've been tempted on an Oasis but the shape keeps putting me off. I have a PW3, a PW4, and an ancient Kindle Fire.
My Oasis was a birthday present. It was weird at first but I soon grew to love it much more than my ancient K Keyboard.
I'm a Kindle addict. I had an old Kindle Keybaord but I kept leaving it at work. So I got a Kindle Touch which I love because it will read to me. I know the voice is awful and nothing like an audio book but it's so useful sometimes. I would leave the Keyboard at work and the Touch at home. Well the Keyboard finally kicked the bucket. Also when the Kindle Fires first came out,I got my daughter one thinking she'd like it for books and games. Well she didn't and I ended up using that one for games and videos and occassionally reading. (I have eye issues so I really need e-ink). I would mostly read my print books at home.
Well then I met my intended and he had to get up at 4 am every day for work. I found dealing with a book light on print books a pain. So I got a Paperwhite for home.
Then Amazon said my old Fire was worth $10 and 20% off a new Fire. So I send it in and get a new Fire and they reject the old one and send it back.
Now I have 2 Fires, a Touch and a Paperwhite. I'm basically keeping the Old Fire as a back up. I love the new Fire for traveling because I can serf the internet, read and download videos to it and not have a laptop with me (unless traveling for work).
Yes, they're fun and addicting things! I get into the cheap artsy cases for each and named each of the devices. I saw people doing that in e-reader forums, but honestly it makes it much easier to keep them apart in my mind when sending to them from Amazon's drop down list.Kindle Fire- Nostromo
Paperwhite 3 - Moonsliver
Paperwhite 4 - Inis Odyssey
Nostromo is from the large ship in Alien, a favorite series, and to be reading compares with exploring. Before I had the name PhoenixFire since - obviously - fire. If I get another fire (technically need a new one since this old one is too old to support the moving books, sigh), I'll do the Phoenix Fire name.
I have a thing with the moon so Moonsliver served two purposes. Moon name, but also my ex-fiance (who died) had a gaming character named Moonsliver so it's a tribute to him as well
Finally Inis Odyssey was I wanted something with the water/sea for the new waterproof device and I love reading near (or in) water. Inis was the Irish company that means heart of the ocean/Irish sea - have the perfume kit. Odyssey just sounds like a journey.
Not that our group aren't giant reading names of anything, this helps prove it officially lol
I didn't know I could do that. I never remember which one is which. Especially since I had to send back 2 defective Fires this last time and they left them both in my list in addition to apps for all the phones and laptops I've had.
My e-readers are all called "Alysa's Kindle Oasis" or something boring like that, but my laptops for the last 6 years or so have all been named after My Little Pony characters, courtesy of my daughter. I think the current one is RainbowDash.
Mary, Mary, Just a bit contrary wrote: "I didn't know I could do that. I never remember which one is which. Especially since I had to send back 2 defective Fires this last time and they left them both in my list in addition to apps for a..."You do it in your Amazon account under manage devices. If you need more help with it let me know and I can take screenshots later.
Then when you click to send to a device, it goes by the name you chose instead of generics that can be harder to tell apart.
You can remove the old devices you no longer need but be sure you're de-registering the right ones first, can be annoying to register back for some people
Alysa wrote: "My e-readers are all called "Alysa's Kindle Oasis" or something boring like that, but my laptops for the last 6 years or so have all been named after My Little Pony characters, courtesy of my daugh..."How cute. I've never really named my computers, I think my current one is named Erin'sJoy and it was only given a name to differentiate it from the other computers when setting up a home network.
My current devices are Megan’s iPad 3 and Megan’s iPhone 7. I have an iPad case that makes it look like a black and white composition notebook.
So... Spying. There is a team using fancy data to come up with better point values. They might not reach 40 books, but if they do, they are going to beat us. I wonder if we are still able to move our stuff around... but considering how much stuff we have read for, I am thinking it is probably too late. Especially based on the number of O's, I's, and N's that we would need.
*shakes fist at people who are good at spreadsheets and math and have time on their hands to apply those skills*
Hmm. I can’t see what spell outs we missed. Maybe they didn’t do another level and are maximizing spell outs. Skipping zones 1 and 2 fees up 8 books for spell outs. On my phone so I can’t see the letter points. Is there enough 50 point letters in the task to make it worth it?
I m good with books being moved around to maximize spell outs
They skipped zone 1, and did zone 2. For zone 3 they're doing ON, ON, ON, ON, IN, IN, AUDIO, BY, and
So I don't see how we can move our existing stuff around without dropping a bunch of our read books out of consideration (or going to Magma). We would need to add a ton of Os and Ns to steal their idea.
I am having some ideas percolating. I will share tomorrow when I finish my 2 current books...
Did they post this or did you figure it out? I’d feel a little tacky copying someone exactly if we they posted it.
It’s in their spreadsheet in a planning tab. I wouldn’t wanna copy exactly, but we could try using a similar math method of our own in a future round.
I have no problem switching some books out and also doing some word searches in other people's books if they can't remember characters. (if Amazon search cooperates). Neither letter is all that hard. Well O can be if limited to only author name. (I'm doing a challenge that requires like 8 O author books. So I have a few in my arsenal now).
If we did ON 4 times and IN once, we'd have the same number of points as CARNIVOROUS for 1 less book. We already have 2 O's, 1 N and 1 I just from carnivorous. My R book has an N character. Erin 's A book has an N from the description. The others would require more investigation. Of course we can swap an ON out for BY or a 2nd IN.I own the next book in the series of my X book and that works for O it's just not really short. But I've been tempted to read it this round anyway. The X character isn't in the next book, I checked already. But he's back in the one after. In case we can use an X the next round.
They posted that the next round's sheets will be up soon. We may have to fight the urge to start planning that round too early.I think I'll hold off on starting anything else for the time being. I'll make progress on Becoming on my lunch break and this evening. Just in case I want to switch some books up.
Even if we swap our last 8 letters (AUDIO/SIX) with ON/ON/ON/ON, its only like 10 more points I think, and I don't if everyone would be on board for so little return. We would have to drop a bunch of the stuff we've already read, and then try to redo the new spellings between now and Sun night.
Okay so here's where I am at, which may effect our decisions. Sorry for the TL; DR:
By the end of the day (Tues evening), I will have finished my 10th book. That's 10/40 so if everyone has been planning on even-stevens, reading 10 books each x 4 people, I would be done. So I'd either sit around not reading, or pulling stuff that I can't or won't use for the challenge (for at least 5 days!!).
If no one minds my reading just one more book (so someone else get only 9 max) I will read that long 600+ page one that I mentioned and have tentatively on the spreadsheet, and we will stay in Crater, and I will do a better job of pacing myself w/slightly longer books in Round 2.
OR
I will ask a 2-part question here:
A) Does anyone care if I claim more of the unclaimed letters, leaving the rest of the team w/less?
B) Will everyone be able to comfortably finish their current claims?
If the answer to either of those questions is Yes, then I will not claim more letters. If they answer is No, please let me know asap which letter(s) I should take next.
Then we just cross our fingers that the other teams don't reach maximum books/point values.
So!
This brings me to my next "Brilliant Idea":
Instead of my big 600+ page chunkster, I can keep reading short books by doing additional spell-outs more or less on my own (anyone else who finishes their claims in the current 26 early can certainly join me!). If I'm strategic in my choices I can read at least 5 more short books between tonight and late Sun night. I was thinking of doing WHO/BY or WHO/IN.
That way, if we decide to go up to Magma, we have at least 5 extra books with good point value.
If we decide not to go up to Magma -- and it needs to be a team decision of course -- we just won't log those extra books of mine. No harm no foul. I just wouldn't be able to use those books for Round 2. (Just my luck that they'd fit tasks, but it's a risk I'm willing to take ;D)
Note on going up to Magma: if we are the only ones, we would win Magma by default even if we don't reach 41 books and/or high points in future rounds! If we are NOT the only ones, we would just have to do our best against the other team(s), and eventually figure out how much -- if any -- compensating we'd need to do to stay on top, esp. in Round 4 when Mary is less available. But my covering WHO/BY right now certainly gets us in a good position to try.
Thoughts?
I'm good with that and if rearranging a bunch of books and dropping some already finished books only gives us 10 extra points, not worth the work in my opinion. But I'll go with majority rules. I also won't be offended if Alysa grabs some extra spots on the spell out. If you want to read some extra to get us into the next category, I'm ok with that. But you may have to do that every round unless another of us has extra time and manages to churn out more books than normal.
I'll know more about how helpful I can be in the last round when it gets closer. The wedding is pretty simple and not a multiple party, destination event type thing. They're throwing us a Jack and Jill party on 9/7 and we're doing a rehearsal and decorating the hall on 10/4. That's pretty much it.
I have no problem going up to Magma. I can easily read more than the 4 a week I committed. I just like to be cautious in case something comes up at work that I can’t have my earbuds in.
Urgh, conflicting answers. Head hurts.I guess I will just keep claiming short/quick books from our existing unclaimed (or relinquished) letters for a couple more days, or until there are no more — whichever comes first! Then I will check in again on this whole thing.
I will try to pick books that work for lots of extra letters too. Especially ones that work for WHO and BY or IN, in case I end up moving my stuff to the "extra" word list.
Alysa wrote: "They skipped zone 1, and did zone 2. For zone 3 they're doing ON, ON, ON, ON, IN, IN, AUDIO, BY, and WHY SIX. (That's 22 books in zone 3, giving them the option to add up to 4 more and stay in Cra..."
I think this first stage is a learning stage a bit as well since this is new to us all.
My reading should speed up a bit, this has been a rougher start for me. I will have my planned books done this week, about to finish another this morning I just added. My books are kind of all over the place this week or so.
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