July. It was a bad month for me in terms of finishing books. (I only finised one book this month, and it was one I'd started in June.)
On the other hand, I started several books, and spent a lot of time thinking about what appeals to me in books of different genres. I reminded myself that it's okay to abandon a book, and that abandoning it for now does not have to mean forsaking it forever.
I also read more on the web this month--via blogs, Twitter, online magazines, and traditional websites--than probably ever before. This is probably thanks to the smart people I follow on Twitter, as well as the wonderful apps I use on my iPad and computers to keep tabs on what all these smart people are posting to the web--Google Reader, Flipboard, Reeder, and Tweetdeck.
All that thinking about reading has also shored up my thinking about what sort of writer I aspire to be.
I can attribute at least some of that to my brief exchange with T.J. Stiles regarding his most recent book, as well as questions on the literariness of history and nonfiction writing. Though we butted heads to an extent, I give Stiles great credit for engaging with the likes of me. His response to my posts here and my comments on his blog taught me a lot about what I do and don't want to do when interacting with readers of this site.
So I didn't complete a lot of reading or writing this month, but I started a lot of processes both in my mind, on paper, and on the web. Maybe July wasn't such a failure after all.