The Alphabet from n9ve on Vimeo.

I would love to see this in flashcard format, something along the lines of the typographic card game.

Starting today, I’m joining Kathryn in 100 Days of Writing.

Here’s the deal. Out of the next 110 days, I will write for 100 of them (or declare myself a 100 Days of Writing Failure). I can skip any days I want, but starting today, I’ve got to hit 100 out of the next 110.

For a day to count as a Day of Writing, I must do one of the following:

1. write a completed piece (blog posts count, but emails, no matter how lengthy, do not);
2. write (or revise) for a minimum of 30 minutes; or
3. write a minimum of 500 words

I tend to do better with a set goal or deadline, plus it’s great motivation to be writing/talking about writing/struggling with writing with others (see: NaNoWriMo). My current thought is to use this project to write more short-short stories, revise my novel(s), and catch up on my Japan blog (again). My end date: May 9.

When I added “track all the books I read” to my Year 28 list, I was most curious to see if the number of books I imagine myself reading lined up with number of books I actually read during a year. It turns out that the answer is no, not at all. I like to think of myself as a voracious reader, but adding up the books of 2010 made me realize that I don’t read nearly as much as I would like (and that a three-month moratorium on buying books does not help). I’m looking forward to this time next year, when I can compare reading amounts and add e-books to the list.

Total number of books: 35
Tracked on LinkedIn and then Goodreads

Books of 2010
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Paper Towns by John Green
The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History by Jonathan Franzen
The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller *
Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (1-5) by Rick Riordan
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories by Amy Hempel
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman
ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
The Hunger Games series (1-3) by Suzanne Collins
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick *
The Forever War by Joe Halderman
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman by Alice Steinbach
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand *
Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris

* = books on Random House’s Best Novels list, another Year 28 goal
Note: List does not include books started, but not yet finished