Writing/Reading Project
Mar. 1st, 2011 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drownedinlightI've been thinking about a way to increase my writing output and my reading input, for no other reason that I want to better myself and and my writing. Of course, I am a busy college student, so I am carefully considering these goals, and thinking about how and if they will affect my schedule.
Friend A, a dear friend I have made at my collegiate institution recently told me she began a project for herself to write 1000 words of poetry everyday for a year (specifically, Ekphrastic poetry) and I thought that sounded like a fantastic idea: sort of like Julie/Julia, but without the cookbook, weight gain, and strange, not-quite as peppy sequel and for writers. The only thing is I'm much more of a prose writer than a verse writer. I mean, Ii like poetry and I certain enjoy the mechanics and writing of poetry (most of the time), but prose really is where my heart is. So, 1000 words really did not seem like enough.
So, I thought back to the dear month of November, aka time of great literary abandon, aka NaNoWriMo, and remembered the word goal of 1667 words a day, and thought, hey, let's just round up--2000 words seemed like a good goal for me to put forth everyday. I also thought that this goal could put to good use something else I don't use much of: my livejournal. After all, I signed up for LJ in 2007, I believe. That means I've possibly gone four years and what, I have like 7 posts? I don't even know what year I got this thing, or how many times I've posted (even though it's under ten), so it's time to dust off the livejournal and take a look.
So the challege is this: write 2000 words in prose format of anything really (preferably actual prose, but I decided to extend the word count to prose related things like story planning and journaling, because I don't think it will take up much of a word count, and because I do like to plan things and occasionally rant) a day for the next year. So, by March1, 2012, I will have feasibly written 730,000 words detailing my life and various story ideas I have rolling around in my head.
Then my eyes drew to a pile atop my desk shelves just waiting to collect dust: my library books. Currently I have checked out from my school library: Kingdom Come by Alex Ross and Mark Waid, Girl Power by Hillary Camp, Gender Dilemmas in Children's Fiction by Kerry Mallan, Push Comes to Shove by Maud Lavin, Tricksters complied by Matt Dembicki, and the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri translated by Burton Raffel. At dinner I was also reminded of the books on my shelf, and my kindle, that I have yet to read or finish. This also got me thinking: since the eighth grade or so, I have not been reading that much for my own personal self enrichment or simply for pleasure. I read a lot for class, but my pleasure reading kind of became relegated to fanfiction, which is not really a bad thing. But I have some amazing books checked out from the library, I have started reading most of them, and they look fascinating. I just have a finishing problem.
So I started to think about adding the books to my list of goals (since I am a rather goal oriented person), and I thought about how much I should really read a day. I do best with books when I can just sit down and read them all the way through, but I think I retain them better when I actually split up the reading, and trying to read a book ever night (especially something as long as The Divine Comedy, which is really three books of poems) seems a little hard. After a little bit of thinking about it, I decided this: 50 pages of pleasure reading a day should be enough to keep a story, and not to overwhelming.
Woo, that was a lot...what's my word count so far? 681 words. All right, that's okay, I did right something in mind of starting this whole craziness, so no worries. Is that all I have to say for this madness? Well, I suppose I should keep track of it, besides I like using Excel to add things. Yes, yes, I'm a geek, no worries, I'm well aware of it. Well, signing off for now. Hopefully this does not go ker-plop tomorrow, and I regret the whole failed thing.
Wish me luck,
Drowned.
Current 3/1/11 WC: 761
Total Running WC: 761
Friend A, a dear friend I have made at my collegiate institution recently told me she began a project for herself to write 1000 words of poetry everyday for a year (specifically, Ekphrastic poetry) and I thought that sounded like a fantastic idea: sort of like Julie/Julia, but without the cookbook, weight gain, and strange, not-quite as peppy sequel and for writers. The only thing is I'm much more of a prose writer than a verse writer. I mean, Ii like poetry and I certain enjoy the mechanics and writing of poetry (most of the time), but prose really is where my heart is. So, 1000 words really did not seem like enough.
So, I thought back to the dear month of November, aka time of great literary abandon, aka NaNoWriMo, and remembered the word goal of 1667 words a day, and thought, hey, let's just round up--2000 words seemed like a good goal for me to put forth everyday. I also thought that this goal could put to good use something else I don't use much of: my livejournal. After all, I signed up for LJ in 2007, I believe. That means I've possibly gone four years and what, I have like 7 posts? I don't even know what year I got this thing, or how many times I've posted (even though it's under ten), so it's time to dust off the livejournal and take a look.
So the challege is this: write 2000 words in prose format of anything really (preferably actual prose, but I decided to extend the word count to prose related things like story planning and journaling, because I don't think it will take up much of a word count, and because I do like to plan things and occasionally rant) a day for the next year. So, by March1, 2012, I will have feasibly written 730,000 words detailing my life and various story ideas I have rolling around in my head.
Then my eyes drew to a pile atop my desk shelves just waiting to collect dust: my library books. Currently I have checked out from my school library: Kingdom Come by Alex Ross and Mark Waid, Girl Power by Hillary Camp, Gender Dilemmas in Children's Fiction by Kerry Mallan, Push Comes to Shove by Maud Lavin, Tricksters complied by Matt Dembicki, and the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri translated by Burton Raffel. At dinner I was also reminded of the books on my shelf, and my kindle, that I have yet to read or finish. This also got me thinking: since the eighth grade or so, I have not been reading that much for my own personal self enrichment or simply for pleasure. I read a lot for class, but my pleasure reading kind of became relegated to fanfiction, which is not really a bad thing. But I have some amazing books checked out from the library, I have started reading most of them, and they look fascinating. I just have a finishing problem.
So I started to think about adding the books to my list of goals (since I am a rather goal oriented person), and I thought about how much I should really read a day. I do best with books when I can just sit down and read them all the way through, but I think I retain them better when I actually split up the reading, and trying to read a book ever night (especially something as long as The Divine Comedy, which is really three books of poems) seems a little hard. After a little bit of thinking about it, I decided this: 50 pages of pleasure reading a day should be enough to keep a story, and not to overwhelming.
Woo, that was a lot...what's my word count so far? 681 words. All right, that's okay, I did right something in mind of starting this whole craziness, so no worries. Is that all I have to say for this madness? Well, I suppose I should keep track of it, besides I like using Excel to add things. Yes, yes, I'm a geek, no worries, I'm well aware of it. Well, signing off for now. Hopefully this does not go ker-plop tomorrow, and I regret the whole failed thing.
Wish me luck,
Drowned.
Current 3/1/11 WC: 761
Total Running WC: 761
