Tuesday, July 18, 2017

The Marathon Has Begun!

I mentioned a couple of months ago I was setting up a reading project for myself, but stayed vague on the details. So, what's the project? I've embarked on a reading marathon. I'm giving myself a year (hopefully that's enough time!) to read the entire Baby-Sitters Club series by Ann M. Martin--plus Super Specials, Mysteries, and spinoffs. Thanks to a user on this BSC board for the complete list, I know that it is 367 books. But they are children's books, so maybe I have to invest an hour and a half to each, including note-taking time.


Why am I doing this? Honestly, I don't entirely know. There was a hankering to do it, so I decided now is the time. I know what it's not--it's not some desperate attempt to recapture my youth, because most of the time I spent reading these stories as a kid I finished each book wishing I was a character in it and totally jealous that I wasn't. Though I can see it being beneficial to me as a writer, because it's a deep study of a successful series that's stood the test of time. And I never got to read them all as a kid, so now I can fill in the gaps.

Originally, this marathon was supposed to be for Sweet Valley High and all of those spinoffs because I only read a few Sweet Valley University titles in middle school (and loved them, of course), but there were a few problems with a SVH marathon--the major problem being the spinoffs are not available for Kindle yet. And I'm a stickler about reading in chronological order, which means there are three or four spinoffs that take place before the original series. The additional problem with a SVH marathon is that there is no single list of every title available like the BSC has, and as far as I can tell while I'm putting one together myself, there has to be close to 600 books. I'm a good reader, but whoa... maybe that marathon needs a little more planning.

Along with this is all that regular, mundane adulting I have to do. Like finishing the third installment for my Kindle Worlds series. It's going slow, but it's going. I still hope to succeed with 10k words before the end of the month. I just need to give myself a little boost to get through that first draft.

2 comments:

K R Smith said...

Good luck with the marathon! I can see how reading a whole series could be helpful as a writer. I wish I had the time! I find it difficult just to read the blogs I follow. Commuting and the day job get in the way.

Terri said...

Thanks!