Seasonal Plume

I’m moving along well with the challenges I’ve taken on. As it stands, I’m right on target with 50 Books for 2008, ahead of myself with New Reads for 2008, and on time with What’s in a Name. I have to thank Carrefour for the book sale they had a week or two back… I ended up picking up a few titles (at just S$5!) which fit the latter’s requirements.

I have to admit, being on challenges adds a bit of motivation for me personally, mostly because I love seeing that progress bar fill up slowly. It tells me where I am, and how I’m doing… not to mention it’s forcing me to keep reading a book even if before I’d have decided to leave it “for a while”… and then I invariably end up not reading for a while, because I keep thinking, “but I’m reading something else right now!”

I have this… compulsion to finish books.

A happy, hopeful new year to all!…even though it’s past mid-January already.

I pretty much disappeared after mid-November–from my writing log, anyway–mostly due to a lot of things happening at the same time. Some of them are personal, but most of them were work-related and season-related. I flew home to the Philippines on December 20, flew back to Singapore on the 27th with family in tow, and took them around until January 2, when they went back to the Philippines.

Even with all of that, however, I was able to finish my 50 Books for 2007 challenge. Just barely made it! The above link also goes to the full list, which admittedly still needs a bit of sprucing up: one more thing that I haven’t gotten around to doing. I am starting a new 50-book challenge this year, and have so far read two books. In time I’ll put up my challenges page, which will link to all the challenges I’ll be doing that are reading- and writing-related.

I also got to 50,000 words for my NaNoWriMo novel this year, but I wasn’t able to finish the memoir; there are still a lot of events to go through and a ton of editing to do once that’s over. I’m not abandoning it, however — I’ll continue to work on it as I go along. The exercise has definitely been one of the longest-running writing exercises I’ve ever done since I graduated high school almost eight years ago. I’ll have to make sure this keeps up.

Courtney posted on her reading blog a few days ago about What’s in a Name?, an interesting reading challenge that spans one year, and requires one to read at least six books in that span of time. Seeing as this merges well with my 50 book challenge practice, I’ve decided I’ll join.

Basically, one has to read six books whose title match a certain, predefined criteria (see the challenge post for more information), and post the list somewhere. And then one just has to read the six (or more, I suppose!) books between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008.

Sounds interesting. I took a bit from my to-read list, since that makes a lot of sense!

Last updated: 11 August 2008
Note: books read are emphasized!

My Challenge List

I listed a few possible books for each criteria, and some still don’t have a set book for them. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to comment! :)

1. A book with a color in its title.

   The Golden Bowl by Henry James
   Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
   Little Black Book of Stories by A.S. Byatt
   Red Azalea by Anchee Min

2. A book with an animal in its title.

   The Kestrel by Lloyd Alexander
   And Condors Danced by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
   Zorro by Isabel Allende

3. A book with a first name in its title.

   Guenevere, Queen of the Summer Country by Rosalind Miles
   Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
   Katherine by Anya Seton
   Empress Orchid by Anchee Min

4. A book with a place in its title.

   The Knight of the Sacred Lake by Rosalind Miles
   Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
   Petersburg by Andrei Bely
   Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
   Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho
   Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

5. A book with a weather event in its title.

   The Silent Storm by Sherri Garland

6. A book with a plant in its title.

   Juniper by Monica Furlong
   Frangipani by Celestine Hitiura Vaite