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I think I still need clarification on this place rule... if house of night would works for H, would it also work for like S School ?

Hello everyone! I'm back from the wonderfully weird weekend that was BroadwayCon. I'm catching up on messages and starting to plot out my books.


Get pumped!

Yes I know I can read books that don't apply to the challenge, but this time of year I just feel it's a waste of time:) I have other things to do so I don't have a problem with waiting.
I'm just looking forward to the start of the challenge!

Okay y’all, after some painstaking research, I have all of the reverses covered. Someone else is free to do them as well, but I thought it would be good to know we at least have them all done.

Jen wrote: "I think I still need clarification on this place rule... if house of night would works for H, would it also work for like S School ?"

No, it needs to be a specific place. School does not apply, the same thing with Home, Hospital, etc.

Tina wrote: "Yes I know I can read books that don't apply to the challenge, but this time of year I just feel it's a waste of time:) I have other things to do so I don't have a problem with waiting.
I'm just lo..."

Yey. I am doing the same thing. No more new books until February :)

Noel wrote: "Okay y’all, after some painstaking research, I have all of the reverses covered. Someone else is free to do them as well, but I thought it would be good to know we at least have them all done."

Great! I also have some planned. I’m sure those won’t be a problem then :)

I was just coming to see if we should make recommendations of our favorite books to help with the reverse cards, but you all are WAY ahead of me. I'm so glad to be part of a team that is this excited/invested in the challenge. :)

For the vets, what cards have been the most difficult in the past to fill?

In my opinion it's 5 and 7.

Hey 👋🏻 FYI I’m back from my monthlong vacation so I’ll try catching up and add to everyone’s books/ideas, etc.

Tina wrote: "In my opinion it's 5 and 7."

I always start by filling those, then 8 and 9. :)

As most of you have played this challenge before, do you have a spreadsheet or tracker to get a feel for what books you want to read and what might fit where? This might help me pre-plan as im more of a 'grab a book that fits' but it means I might not be fully invested in it when I could read something I really want to and it fits.

I looked through my libby and it seems I have lots of 6 and 2s haha I guess while I'm reading I may run into other characters that would qualify for other numbers. They're books i want to read anyways, i just hope I dont read one that wont yield any points...

If a book is read in Feb but isn't used on any cards, can we carry it over to march? Or does it just stay unused? Like say we get too many 6s can we play that 6 in march?

Also how often will leaders be updating the spreadsheet so we know what regular cards are left?

Ive just done the breakdown of how many cards we have of each type so as long as I'm correct they are:
ZERO - 3
ONE - 5
TWO - 10
THREE - 7
FOUR - 6
FIVE - 8
SIX - 7
SEVEN - 8
EIGHT - 6
NINE - 7
SKIP - 5
DRAW 2 - 9
WILD - 4
REVERSE - 6

7 COLOURED CARDS

Gem ~Zero Shelf Control~ wrote: "As most of you have played this challenge before, do you have a spreadsheet or tracker to get a feel for what books you want to read and what might fit where? This might help me pre-plan as im more..."

This may be more complicated than necessary, but this is what I did (I've never played before so the vets may have a much better system). I used the books on my TBR/what I want to read soon to fill in where they fit under each color heading and used the second tab for any books that don't fit the color qualifications.

Thanks Cyndee, I couldn't work out how best to lay out my own one and was getting so confused :D Thanks so much

Gem ~Zero Shelf Control~ wrote: "Thanks Cyndee, I couldn't work out how best to lay out my own one and was getting so confused :D Thanks so much"

My pleasure! It was a little time consuming but hopefully keeps us reading books we WANT to read. :)

Another question for the vets just to make sure I'm planning correctly...

I am reading the book for the Green 0 card in Hand 10. There is also a Draw 2 card in that hand and my book could also be a 4. So with that one book we would take care of all 3 of those cards, correct?

Only one book can cover a card. So 3 separate reads would need to be complete to cover those 3 cards you've said.

Gem ~Zero Shelf Control~ wrote: "Only one book can cover a card. So 3 separate reads would need to be complete to cover those 3 cards you've said."

But for Draw 2, you have to read one book to cover 2 of the other cards in that hand, right? So a Draw 2 would always technically cover 3 cards with one book?

Ahhhh I see what you mean now..... and I don't know the answer lol. im leaving this to those in the know :)

After reading back through, I can't work out the difference between Wild and Draw 2

Cyndee is correct, with a Draw 2 you can use the same book for two cards (let's say that the Draw 2 is not really a spot, because it does not give points...) By having 9 Draw 2s it means that we lost the points of 9 potential spots. :(

Also the difference between the Draw 2 and the Wild is that the Wild gives you points and it is a different card. It just has to fit another card in the same hand. An example:

Draw 2
6
7
8
6
5

We usually pick the same cards for the Draw 2s whenever possible, in the example it would be:

Draw 2 -- same book for 6 & 6: no points here
6 -- same book here: points!
7
8
6 -- and here: points!
5

It is less messy than using a 6 and a 7, or a 6 and an 8, etc.

For the Wild card, the following example:

1
2
3
4
5
Wild

The wild card is a new book that fits either 1,2,3,4 or 5

So, if we have:

1 Book A: points!
2 Book B: points!
3 Book C: points!
4 Book D: points!
5 Book E: points!
Wild -- Book F - different book! (but that fits either 1,2,3,4,5): points!

In a Draw 2 and a Wild are in the same hand, example

Draw 2
6
Wild
7
8
9

We would more easily fill it as:

Draw 2 -- same book 6 & Wild: no points here
6 -- Book A: points!
Wild -- Book A again (because it has to fit either 6,7,8,9 and we chose 6): points!
7
8
9

Am I being clear or is this a mess? :)

Makes total sense to me! Thanks Diana! :)

Oh! And so rather than trying to assign certain people to certain cards from the beginning, OTHER THAN the color cards we've already determined, Diana, you just want us to fill in the SS with every book we read and thoroughly mark where/how they fit, correct? And you'll put them together how they fit best and let us know if we're lacking somewhere as the month goes on?

Sorry, we'll get this down in no time I'm sure. :)

Makes sense to me too!! thank you!
So I am assuming this challenge really involves a lot of shifting around of books to utilise them the best way?
I only read 4-5 books a month so I've planned those in a spread sheet and highlighted from what I know so far, what cards they could work for. Is there anything more I can do for now?

Jen - if you start reading a book in February but for one reason or another don't finish it until March, then we can play it in March.
But if you finish a book in February and it turns out that all the cards are already filled, then it stays unused.

I'm also curious how often the spreadsheet will be updated, so we know what to focus on:)

I'm on my phone so I can't edit my earlier comment, but it's:
"... and it turns out that all the cards OF THAT MONTH are already filled..."

Does anyone else find it complicated to communicate on here? Is there a way to do a group chat instead of this feed? In the past have teams ever communicated through other forums like facebook messenger? Or maybe by creating a fb group page?

If everyone agrees we could maybe do a discord? That’s easy enough to set up!

I have discord for a book tuber I follow.

What's a discord?

Cyndee wrote: "Oh! And so rather than trying to assign certain people to certain cards from the beginning, OTHER THAN the color cards we've already determined, Diana, you just want us to fill in the SS with every..."

Yes! That is the idea :)

Once we get closer to the end of our cards I'll let everybody know! Also once we're done with the cards of the month, and if someone is close to finishing another book, I always advise to leave a couple of pages and finish on the 1st of the next month, so that we can indeed use the book in the challenge :)

Gem ~Zero Shelf Control~ wrote: "Makes sense to me too!! thank you!
So I am assuming this challenge really involves a lot of shifting around of books to utilise them the best way?
I only read 4-5 books a month so I've planned thos..."

That is perfect! I'm happy that you were able to plan your books and will read things you wanted for a long time :) get ready :)

Tina wrote: "Jen - if you start reading a book in February but for one reason or another don't finish it until March, then we can play it in March.
But if you finish a book in February and it turns out that all..."

Pretty often I would say because, again, I just cannot resist on checking how we're doing :)

Jen wrote: "Does anyone else find it complicated to communicate on here? Is there a way to do a group chat instead of this feed? In the past have teams ever communicated through other forums like facebook mess..."

Are you missing notifications and/or emails about our messages or something like that?

I don't mind using an alternative, but maybe it will be the case that we won't all be used to the same app... and we would always be in different time zones. Nonetheless, I am ok with whatever you decide, and use whatever you feel like it's best. Noel, I am leaving this subject with you, if you don't mind :)

We are roughly 1 day and 8 and a half hours away from the beginning of the challenge :)

I am currently in a conference, and I will be traveling back to the UK (hopefully!) on Sunday, the 2nd. Furthermore, I am teaching and I have a nasty deadline for a paper on the 9th. I will be reading mostly short books this month to compensate for those busy first days. Nonetheless, I'll be able to check on our team everyday, and I'll most definitely update our spreadsheet at most every two days.

I know that I personally would prefer to just keep communicating on this team thread. I already have multiple points of communication that I have to consult daily to keep up with things for work, and messages/information from teachers and schools for multiple kids, plus of course the challenges and spreadsheets for ŷ������. :) The thought of adding yet another location to check regularly is a little daunting but if that's what everyone else needs to do I will join whatever/wherever it is decided. I just may not join in as much on the chatter front and instead just put my completions into the spreadsheet as my way of letting everyone know I'm still around and invested.

Although we don't state it in the rules, we don't encourage team chatter outside of the allocated threads.

There are a few reasons...The main being

*people sign up to the team challenges knowing it is within GR. GR offers more anonymity than other platforms and we respect that choice for some members
*we are unable to monitor if there are issues outside of GR. Not that we read all the team threads, but we certainly check in from time to time to make sure captains are active, teams are on the right track etc. If there are issues with the way members are interacting we can't do anything outside of GR
*we communicate everything through this group. If people have no reason to come here because you are communicating elsewhere, you may miss important information and deadlines.

That totally makes sense!


ŷ������ is pretty clunky and (very) outdated but we can deal with it.

Just over 5.5 hours to go!!!

LET’S GET READY TO RUMBBBBBLLLLLE!

If a book has a place in a series and in the "world" can we use either number?

Happy Day 1!!!

The way we've played in the past is to just read whatever we want, as we normally would, and then as we read just take note of which cards the book will 'satisfy'. There's a lot less pressure that way and tbh most books *are* going to satisfy AT LEAST one card, so it ends up working out pretty well! I think I'll just do it that way again, but I love how organized and prepared you all are!!

Also to make sure you're getting notifications you can click on the option to follow the discussion �� above the comment box and to the right. :)

Hooray! It’s UNO time! Have fun!

Finally! Go, go, go;)

If reading a nonfiction book can a character name be someone from the example stories?