As mentioned last week, I was so efficient that I did not need 4 posts in December to explain everything about the January Project. Two seemed to do it. However, I have had some questions and I thought doing a sample entry would make things a little clearer than me just explaining things again.
So, with that in mind, what follows is a good indication of how this process will work. The entry was written last night which is a tradition I will hopefully be able to maintain—so the January 1st entry will be done on December 31st, January 2nd on the 1st and so on. So as not to steal any possible songs from the project, I utilized my Christmas song from last night’s #Xmasmusicalcountdown selection (as seen on my Twitter feed @UnGajje ). You’ll also note a picture below. Since, in general, there will be lots of text on this site, I will try to pair a picture will each entry. No guarantees on that, but that’s my intent.
And, on that note, I give you my December sample of what to expect from the January Project!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
I Am Something of a Failure
So…
Umm…
Ok, funny thing about this whole one post a week leading into January. It turns out I more or less covered everything I needed to in my first two posts. Which is great! I love efficiency! But when you have three more posts to fill? Less stellar.
I was just going to make up some stuff to tell you that you don’t really care about, but…well that seemed kind of a waste. So instead, here’s an excellent video mashing up nearly all the movies from this past year.
Enjoy and I’ll do better next week.
Umm…
Ok, funny thing about this whole one post a week leading into January. It turns out I more or less covered everything I needed to in my first two posts. Which is great! I love efficiency! But when you have three more posts to fill? Less stellar.
I was just going to make up some stuff to tell you that you don’t really care about, but…well that seemed kind of a waste. So instead, here’s an excellent video mashing up nearly all the movies from this past year.
Enjoy and I’ll do better next week.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
And Now, Process Questions
Or, rather, answers.
As mentioned in the last post, the man behind Phonic Phebruary utilized his Ipod to guide his one-a-day journey. I’m more a fan of the physical medium when it comes to music (you know, CDs and such) so my selection process will be a little different. For most of the month, I will utilize a card system. First, I will draw a card labeled “Number,” “Mix,” “Soundtrack,” or a letter of the alphabet. Then, comes the card with numbers one through 30 on them. Then, whatever card is draw is reinserted into the pile, the number card pile is reshuffled, and another number drawn.
The first card tells me where to go in my (and my wife, the Thunder’s) collection. It runs alphabetically by artist from Numbers (your 50 Cents and 10,000 Maniacs, if you will) to Z—in case you did not know how the alphabet went. Then we have soundtracks (alphabetical by film, if you must know) and mixes (chronologically). For the sake of me, holiday mixes are exempt from this process.
The next card is how many I count off in the category to get to the correct CD to use. The last card gives me the track number to use as inspiration.
For most letters and categories, I do not have thirty CDs. For instance, I only own about a dozen by artists whose names start with “K.” In those cases, I just count to the end, rotate back to the front, and continue until I hit my magic number. Say I did get “K” and “15,” I’d actually end up with my 3rd “K” artist because I’d hit twelve then start back at 1 (13), 2 (14), and end on 3 (15). Same process for tracks as there is almost never 30 tracks on an album—maybe They Might be Giants has done it, but even that I doubt.
As I said, that is for most of the month. For four other times in the month, I will be taking your suggestions, one a week from January 2nd- January 29th. So leave your suggestions in the comments below, tweet them to me @UnGajje, or email them to me at tim[dot]g[dot]stevens[at]gmail[dot]com. Wait until January or start today to get a jump on things…the choice is yours!
And now, since this post is a bit dry, a joke (courtesy of Eli Matthew Aroesty-Cohen).
A man is walking around New York City one day and, out of nowhere, encounters a penguin waddling down the sidewalk. No one seems to be paying the penguin any mind, but the man cannot ignore it so he scoops up the arctic bird and brings him over to the first cop he can find.
“I found this penguin just now,” the man says, “What should I do with it?”
The cop, too busy directing traffic to be anything but abrupt waves the man off saying, “Take him to the zoo.”
“Great idea!” the man exclaims and is off without another word.
Hours later, the city has grown dark and the traffic cop is leaving the station, finally done with his shift. As he heads towards the stairs to the subway he sees the man from the afternoon, walking hand in flipper with the penguin down the street.
He jogs over to them and asks, confused, “I thought I told you to bring this fella to the zoo?”
“Oh you did and it was a great idea,” the man responds appreciatively. “But the zoo closed, so now I’m taking him to a movie.”
As mentioned in the last post, the man behind Phonic Phebruary utilized his Ipod to guide his one-a-day journey. I’m more a fan of the physical medium when it comes to music (you know, CDs and such) so my selection process will be a little different. For most of the month, I will utilize a card system. First, I will draw a card labeled “Number,” “Mix,” “Soundtrack,” or a letter of the alphabet. Then, comes the card with numbers one through 30 on them. Then, whatever card is draw is reinserted into the pile, the number card pile is reshuffled, and another number drawn.
The first card tells me where to go in my (and my wife, the Thunder’s) collection. It runs alphabetically by artist from Numbers (your 50 Cents and 10,000 Maniacs, if you will) to Z—in case you did not know how the alphabet went. Then we have soundtracks (alphabetical by film, if you must know) and mixes (chronologically). For the sake of me, holiday mixes are exempt from this process.
The next card is how many I count off in the category to get to the correct CD to use. The last card gives me the track number to use as inspiration.
The collection in question
Thus, if I got “F”, “6”, and “8”, I would have to write something inspired by Fountains of Wayne’s “I Got a Flair,” which can be found on their self titled debut album. For most letters and categories, I do not have thirty CDs. For instance, I only own about a dozen by artists whose names start with “K.” In those cases, I just count to the end, rotate back to the front, and continue until I hit my magic number. Say I did get “K” and “15,” I’d actually end up with my 3rd “K” artist because I’d hit twelve then start back at 1 (13), 2 (14), and end on 3 (15). Same process for tracks as there is almost never 30 tracks on an album—maybe They Might be Giants has done it, but even that I doubt.
As I said, that is for most of the month. For four other times in the month, I will be taking your suggestions, one a week from January 2nd- January 29th. So leave your suggestions in the comments below, tweet them to me @UnGajje, or email them to me at tim[dot]g[dot]stevens[at]gmail[dot]com. Wait until January or start today to get a jump on things…the choice is yours!
And now, since this post is a bit dry, a joke (courtesy of Eli Matthew Aroesty-Cohen).
A man is walking around New York City one day and, out of nowhere, encounters a penguin waddling down the sidewalk. No one seems to be paying the penguin any mind, but the man cannot ignore it so he scoops up the arctic bird and brings him over to the first cop he can find.
“I found this penguin just now,” the man says, “What should I do with it?”
The cop, too busy directing traffic to be anything but abrupt waves the man off saying, “Take him to the zoo.”
“Great idea!” the man exclaims and is off without another word.
Hours later, the city has grown dark and the traffic cop is leaving the station, finally done with his shift. As he heads towards the stairs to the subway he sees the man from the afternoon, walking hand in flipper with the penguin down the street.
He jogs over to them and asks, confused, “I thought I told you to bring this fella to the zoo?”
“Oh you did and it was a great idea,” the man responds appreciatively. “But the zoo closed, so now I’m taking him to a movie.”
While Sir Waddlesworth enjoyed the romance of Love and Other Drugs, he really would have preferred to have seen the adrenaline pumping Unstoppable, given a choice.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
And Now, A Grand(ish) Reveal
Hey! Welcome back. It’s December 1st and, as promised, I am here with an update about the ultra-secret January Project that has set the internet ablaze. Or at least, that’s what my Grandmother says. It is, apparently, all she and her bridge playing friends are talking about.
(Just to let you know how far I went for that joke, I have three grandmothers and I still created a fourth who enjoys the internet and playing bridge. To my knowledge, this would describe none of them. This, however, is the lengths I am willing to go to provide you with a tired, hackneyed joke. Please, no need to thank me.)
In any case, the January Project, despite the somewhat grandiose ring to its title, is actually just a writing exercise. Well, “just” might be a bit of an understatement. It is a writing exercise that challenges me to write a new piece—be it prose, dialogue, monologue, or poem (probably not poem though)—every day for the entirety of January.
The inspiration for this was born of a little think called National Novel Writing Month. For those not familiar with it, here’s the website. And here’s a brief description: write a novel over the course of November. Being a grad student pursuing his Psy D, having to go a practicum on top of course work, and having some other freelance writing work, I did not think that was much in the realm of possibility to me. Nonetheless, I wanted to challenge myself, writing wise, in a similar way. Thus, the idea of doing a different piece every day for a month kind of wormed its way into my head.
(Aside: as you can see this is the January Project, not the November Project. The reason is achingly simple...it was meant to be done in November as well, but a.) I was gone several weekends in October and never got the website built and b.) it turns out November’s a busy month in the life of a grad student.)
In and of itself, however, this was not much of a hook (to keep me interested) or a challenge (to, you know, challenge me beyond my comfort zone). Around the same time, however, I discovered this website, Phonic Phebruary. Here, an artist challenged himself to create a piece a day— often drawing, but he utilized some mixed media as well—for the entire month as inspired by a song that, I believe, was chosen by doing shuffle on his Ipod. And there was my hook! Eureka, I might have said if I had the forethought to add an emotional outburst to the moment. Instead, I probably just nodded in my understated way.
And thus, the January Project!
Except, I can’t draw worth a damn, so writing it is.
While the Project itself starts in January, I will be updating this over the course of December with descriptions of how it will work, pictures of the tools being brought to bear, and other random tidbits of possible interest. I’d say checking back about once a week will keep you fairly in the loop. Or you could, if you’d like, follow me on Twitter ( @UnGajje) for various bon mots and links directing you to the newest updates on this site as well as my other various writing gigs ( Marvel, Complaint of the Week at the Living Room Times, and New Paris Press, set to debut in January although information may be available before then here).
(Just to let you know how far I went for that joke, I have three grandmothers and I still created a fourth who enjoys the internet and playing bridge. To my knowledge, this would describe none of them. This, however, is the lengths I am willing to go to provide you with a tired, hackneyed joke. Please, no need to thank me.)
In any case, the January Project, despite the somewhat grandiose ring to its title, is actually just a writing exercise. Well, “just” might be a bit of an understatement. It is a writing exercise that challenges me to write a new piece—be it prose, dialogue, monologue, or poem (probably not poem though)—every day for the entirety of January.
The inspiration for this was born of a little think called National Novel Writing Month. For those not familiar with it, here’s the website. And here’s a brief description: write a novel over the course of November. Being a grad student pursuing his Psy D, having to go a practicum on top of course work, and having some other freelance writing work, I did not think that was much in the realm of possibility to me. Nonetheless, I wanted to challenge myself, writing wise, in a similar way. Thus, the idea of doing a different piece every day for a month kind of wormed its way into my head.
(Aside: as you can see this is the January Project, not the November Project. The reason is achingly simple...it was meant to be done in November as well, but a.) I was gone several weekends in October and never got the website built and b.) it turns out November’s a busy month in the life of a grad student.)
In and of itself, however, this was not much of a hook (to keep me interested) or a challenge (to, you know, challenge me beyond my comfort zone). Around the same time, however, I discovered this website, Phonic Phebruary. Here, an artist challenged himself to create a piece a day— often drawing, but he utilized some mixed media as well—for the entire month as inspired by a song that, I believe, was chosen by doing shuffle on his Ipod. And there was my hook! Eureka, I might have said if I had the forethought to add an emotional outburst to the moment. Instead, I probably just nodded in my understated way.
And thus, the January Project!
Except, I can’t draw worth a damn, so writing it is.
While the Project itself starts in January, I will be updating this over the course of December with descriptions of how it will work, pictures of the tools being brought to bear, and other random tidbits of possible interest. I’d say checking back about once a week will keep you fairly in the loop. Or you could, if you’d like, follow me on Twitter ( @UnGajje) for various bon mots and links directing you to the newest updates on this site as well as my other various writing gigs ( Marvel, Complaint of the Week at the Living Room Times, and New Paris Press, set to debut in January although information may be available before then here).
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Watch This Space
As you can see, we've only just begun. I think the description above offers a nice little tease for what's coming, but look back on December 1st for a more descriptive post that makes clear exactly what the January Project is and what you can expect.
But because you took the time to come here and I respect and appreciate that, here's a picture of a couple of puppies.
Hope you enjoyed it. See you soon!
But because you took the time to come here and I respect and appreciate that, here's a picture of a couple of puppies.
Hope you enjoyed it. See you soon!
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