Tag Archives: challenges

2011 TBR Pile Challenge – check in

Posted by melydia on June 22, 2011 None comments

Adam from Roof Beam Reader popped by the other day to remind me about the 2011 TBR Pile Challenge I’d signed up for some 6 months ago. It’s a good thing he did, because I’d forgotten all about it. Let’s check in, shall we?

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer
Adventures by Mike Resnick
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Jennifer Government by Max Barry
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Suburban Safari by Hannah Holmes
As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto
Uncivilized Beasts and Shameless Hellions by John F. Burnett
Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way by Bruce Campbell
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

My alternates:

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

Hmm. Well, I did manage to read The Graveyard Book but nothing else so far. I also did a major sweep of my TBR pile and got rid of Suburban Safari, Uncivilized Beasts and Shameless Hellions, and A Walk in the Woods. I guess that means I’ve failed the challenge already.

The truth is, I’ve been spending so much time reading and reviewing new books that I haven’t been making any progress whatsoever on my existing TBR pile. Perhaps I’ll be able to get caught up (somewhat) during my current hiatus…but no promises.

Thing-a-Day 2011

Posted by melydia on February 2, 2011 4 comments

Thing-a-Day has begun again for 2011. The concept is simple: create one thing each day of the month of February. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to be complete. I tried last year and failed about two weeks in, but I’m trying again. I’m going to attempt to have most of my “things” be drawings, but there will doubtless be days when I opt for something else. Everything will be posted over at posterous, but all new posts will be linked on Twitter too.

I’m feeling confident this year. Gustavo didn’t take very long to draw, and I really enjoyed it. My husband is always after me to do more drawing, so I know he’s thrilled for me to be participating in something like this.

What about you? Are you participating?

Reading Challenges for 2011

Posted by melydia on December 22, 2010 2 comments

The lovely and talented kel_light has inspired me to sign up for some reading challenges for the coming year.

Whisper Stories in my Ear, hosted by Bewitched Bookworms, is an interesting audiobook challenge based on the number of hours you spend listening. This means I’ll have to start paying attention to the length of these books beyond the number of discs.

Speaking of audiobooks…

Teresa’s Reading Corner is also hosting a 2011 Audio Book Challenge. This one is in terms of number of audio books completed. Unless something drastic changes in my commute time, I fully expect to earn the “obsessed” badge on this one.

Last but not least:

MizB is hosting what appears to be a fairly casual Read’n’Review Challenge. I review pretty much every book I read as it is, so I figure I’m a shoo-in for this challenge. :)

Okay, so I admit that these aren’t exactly the most challenging of challenges for me. But to be honest, I am so behind on my reading – especially books sent to me for review – that I am wary to sign up for more, particularly if they require me to accumulate more books just to fit the theme. My TBR pile is already set to topple.

What about you? Are you participating in any reading challenges this year?

The 2011 TBR Pile Challenge

Posted by melydia on December 21, 2010 7 comments

I happened upon this 2011 TBR Pile Challenge over at A Novel Challenge and figured, “12 books is nothing. I can do this.” And so I’ve signed up. Â At worst, it’ll get some oldies off the shelf to make room for newbies.

My list:

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer
Adventures by Mike Resnick
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Jennifer Government by Max Barry
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Suburban Safari by Hannah Holmes
As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto
Uncivilized Beasts and Shameless Hellions by John F. Burnett
Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way by Bruce Campbell
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

My alternates:

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

Thing-a-Day

Posted by melydia on February 3, 2010 None comments

I totally slacked on this and forgot to post this in time for people to actually sign up, and for that I apologize, but I suppose I might as well let y’all know what I’m up to this month: Thing-a-Day. Based on an idea by the incomparable Ze Frank (whose videoblog The Show was simply excellent and I miss it), the challenge is to create something new every day for the entire month of February and post it publicly on the community blog. It doesn’t have to be a big thing – I plan on doing a small drawing each day in a new sketch book I got for free – but it does have to be something and it has to be completed. (At least, I assume it does. You can’t really claim to have created something until it’s finished, right?)

Anyway, I’m participating. This year’s blog format is on posterous, so everything’s going there. I’m uploading them to my gallery as well, because I am just that kind of exhibitionist. The scans aren’t very good but that’s not really the point. The only really irritating part of all this is that I appear to be in a much later (earlier?) timezone than posterous, meaning that my 3am post on February 1st was timestamped the 31st. What do folks in Europe do? Oh well.

If I remember, I might post a month-end wrap-up about the experience, but if this post’s slackitude is any indication, you can expect that it to actually happen sometime around mid-April.

utter randomonium