Thanks to Nicole and Shannon for running this annual challenge, which they’ve been doing for several years now.
My goal for the challenge is to write at least one discussion post a month.
I look forward to reading everyone else’s posts. I expect to come across a whole lot of interesting topics that I haven’t thought of yet but will enjoy thinking about next year!
How are you doing on your reading challenges or goals now that the end of 2018 is quickly approaching? If you still have spots to tick off on your challenge or need to pad your statistics, here are some books that can be read in one day or less.
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote
Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman
Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck
A Separation by Katie Kitamura
Black Olives by Martha Tod Dudman
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
Prozac Diary by Lauren Slater
The Grownup by Gillian Flynn
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World by Donald Antrim
January was all about convincing myself that I could indeed find something to write about and produce a blog post every day.
In February I turned my gaze outward and looked at other blogs and bloggers instead of just my blog/myself as blogger. I found a number of blogs that I learned a lot from. I also began reading more articles online about how and why to blog.
The total of posts here may not equal the number of posts written last month because I occasionally publish the same post on more than one blog. However, I have included each post only once in my total word count.
What I Learned in February
Despite February’s being three days shorter than January, I wrote the same number of posts, 31, this month as last. However, my total word count in February was 1,340 more than in January. My average post length went up, from 617 in January to 660 in February. And my longest post in February was 520 words longer than its counterpart in January.
One thing I was surprised to learn in my reading about blogging is that some people advocate writing posts longer than the 500–750 words I had long ago read was the optimal post length. So instead of trying to limit myself to 500–750 words, I tried to write longer rather than shorter in February. In January I wrote only four posts of 1,000 words or longer, whereas in February I wrote six posts of 1,000 words or more. But I’m still not convinced that more than 1,000 words is an optimal post length. I’m more comfortable with posts of about 800 words. Although there will inevitably be shorter posts, I’m going to work on writing more posts of about 800 words from now on. And I’m going to think of posts of more than 1,000 words as occasional occurrences, when the subject warrants, rather than as ideals to aim for.
Over the last two weeks of February I participated in the WordPress Writing 201: Poetry course. I learned a heck of a lot, even though grinding out a poem that fulfilled three specified criteria didn’t always produce top-quality results. But I’m happy enough with this one to share it.
Most writers are also avid readers, because the only way to learn about good writing is to read a lot of writing by others. This exercise helps writers to discover what their own areas of passion are by analyzing the books that appeal to them the most. I found it an invaluable discovery.
What advice do you have for me about blogging? I’d especially like to hear your thoughts on the best length for a post.
I admit that when I set this challenge up for myself near the end of December, I did so with trepidation:
Would I be able to find something to write about EVERY SINGLE DAY?
Would I be able to do all the research necessary for each post during a single day?
Would I be able to find enough overlap between the three areas of my current life (reading, writing, retirement) to make all three areas interesting?
Would I neglect other areas of my life in order to get a post written and published every day?
I did manage to write a post a day for the first month. Here’s what I’ve learned from the challenge so far:
It was easy to find topics to write about once I began paying attention to what goes on in the world around me.
Not every post needs to be a research project. (Since I tend to approach everything new that I come across as a research project requiring a lot of background investigation, this lesson was perhaps the most difficult but important one for me to learn.)
The various areas of my life do cross-pollinate each other once I begin to think that way.
So far I have not felt that I am neglecting any important parts of my life, probably because I’ve made an effort not to compartmentalize the several aspects of my life but rather to see them as complementary parts of a whole.
One challenge I still have to face is how I’ll keep up with writing and posting when we travel.
But overall, I’ve found this first month of the blog post a day challenge in 2015 to be enlightening and rewarding.
The total of posts here may not equal the number of posts written last month because I occasionally publish the same post on more than one blog. However, I have included each post only once in my total word count.
I’m featuring this post because it resulted from the first time I saw how something in one area of my life (personal experience) applied to another part of my life (my writing). I see posts like this all over the internet and often find them interesting, but in the past I just didn’t think this way. But this one appeared out of nowhere while I was watching college football, an example of how synchronicity happens once you open yourself to the possibility of it.
During the 6 years while I was back in grad school, the practice of reading challenges blossomed. Often I’d see a challenge that looked so interesting, but I just didn’t have time to participate. I guess my doctoral program was itself a 6-year reading challenge.
Anyway, since I finally got my degree this past summer, I’m now ready to undertake a reading challenge. I’ve signed up for What’s in a Name 5, hosted by BethFishReads. Here’s her description of the challenge:
Here’s How It Works
Between January 1 and December 31, 2012, read one book in each of the following categories:
A book with a topographical feature (land formation) in the title: Black Hills, Purgatory Ridge, Emily of Deep Valley
A book with something you’d see in the sky in the title: Moon Called, Seeing Stars, Cloud Atlas
A book with a creepy crawly in the title: Little Bee, Spider Bones, The Witches of Worm
A book with a type of house in the title: The Glass Castle, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Ape House
A book with something you’d carry in your pocket, purse, or backpack in the title: Sarah’s Key, The Scarlet Letter, Devlin Diary
A book with a something you’d find on a calendar in the title: Day of the Jackal, Elegy for April, Freaky Friday, Year of Magical Thinking
The book titles are just suggestions, you can read whatever book you want to fit the category.
Other Things to Know
Books may be any form (audio, print, e-book).
Books may overlap other challenges.
Books may not overlap categories; you need a different book for each category.
Creativity for matching the categories is not only allowed but encouraged.
You do not have to make a list of books before hand.
You do not have to read through the categories in any particular order.
I decided on this challenge because, as I looked at the categories, I realized that I already had at least one book for almost every category on my TBR list.
Although the directions say that making up a list of books before hand is not necessary, I went ahead and did it anyway because it was so much fun to realize that I’ll actually have time to read these books now. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
Topographical feature
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
By the Lake by John McGahern
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine by Ann Hood
Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay
Master of the Delta by Thomas H. Cook
The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates
Something in the sky
The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
Creepy crawly
Bedbugs by Ben H. Winters
The Bumblebee Flies Anyway by Robert Cormier
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King
A Maggot by John Fowles
Type of house
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Asylum by Patrick McGrath
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Room by Emma Donoghue
The Keep by Jennifer Egan
Something you’d carry in your pocket
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally
Something on a calendar
In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
October 1964 by David Halberstam
Solstice by Joyce Carol Oates
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
There are a few titles on this list that I’ve already read, but I’ve left them on in case other people are looking for books to fit a particular category. And some of the books that I have read before could stand a rereading.
I’m pretty well set in all the categories except “something you’d carry in a pocket, purse, or backpack,” so if you have any title suggestions for that one, I’d love to hear them.
