101 tasks in 1001 days
Back in January I saw arachne posting a list of 101 things she pledged to do within the next 1001 days. Like an alternative to New Year's Resolutions, and a more fun one in several ways, I think. You have longer than a year to think about the big things and the ones that involve lots of planning, but also it's not a case of having to keep something up for a whole year before you can say you've succeeded; when you've done one you can cross it off.
It's surprisingly hard to come up with 101 things to do, but finally my list is done. So here it is. It's in no particular order, wildly overambitious, not to mention impractical (I did try to put some practical things in there!) and reflects the amount of time I have on my hands at the moment, though I'm sure I won't always have this much. It's got small, trivial tasks and big scary tasks, things I can start on right now and things for which I've no idea where I'll get the money as yet, things I might no longer want to do in nearly three years' time - who knows? But at least it gives me something to aim for.
I tried to give measurable success conditions for them all (hence the weird "for at least three months" thing attached to some of them where it should just be "for ever". I want to cross things off as I go along, not just cross a lot of them off at the end.) I was careful not to include any new novel projects, just ones I need to finish. Starting books is easy, I do it all the time.
This post will go in my Memories and I plan to refer back to it every so often and gloat. Or weep. The deadline is Friday November 14th, 2008. (2008!)
And no, I'm not going to tell you what 93-100 are. Unless you get me very, very drunk, and maybe not even then.
Edit: Last stock-take was December 7th 2006. Bolded numbers are tasks done, in progress or which I've done a significant amount of planning for.
Edit: another stock-take on April 16th 2007, a year and two months in. 30 tasks in progress, 11 of which done. Eep! But a lot of them are big slow tasks anyway.
1. Self-publish book about Trans-Siberian trip (on hold, trying for trad publication first)
2. Finish Dangerous Waste to submission standard
3. Finish Fish in the Sky (ditto) (maybe three-quarters finished)
4. Read 10 books on sociological theory/research, preferably recent, and keep a list of them below (does not count towards 6) (3/10)
5. Read 50 fiction books and list (12/50)
6. Read 50 non-fiction books and list (5/50)
7. See ten bands I haven't seen before (14/10!)
8. See 50 films, ditto (17/50)
9. Do a painting or series of paintings on canvas - photos pending!
10. Dye all my hair blue, not just the front (not yet, but dyed most of my hair bright red for no. 80)
11. Publish at least 15 stories/articles (10/15) 8 pieces so far in Daily Info - 7 of them I even got paid for after a fashion
12. Sing in public (pub karaoke counts)
13. Hold a Chinese Park Party
14. Go to Hay Festival
15. Go over land and sea to the Arctic Circle
16. Get a poem published for money
17. Write a song that gets sung in public (in progress, kinda) (hmm, band who'd written music for my lyrics have now folded, so I guess I'll write another one and try to pimp it somewhere else)
18. Travel through Amazonian rainforest
19. Sell craft stuff at a market
20. Get (smallish) guitar and learn to play 5 songs well on it (0/5)
21. Acquire glow-poi
22. …and learn backwards weave
23. Hold a conversation of at least 5 minutes in Japanese
24. Go back to Japan (and get to Ghibli Museum this time)
25. Join the BSFA
26. Be in a position to join the Society of Authors :)
27. Re-do properly, collate and publish results of the Wodehouse Experiment
28. Do Random Tube-Travelling Day and write up the results
29. Get published in an anthology
30. Get a serious formal dress that I feel confident in
31. Finally replace Big Stompy Boots (dunno if I'm a Big Stompy Boots person any more really)
32. Get self-pimping website up and running (in progress)
33. Meet ten people I only know online (6/10)
34. Write and program London Choose-Your-Own-Adventure and get it running on said website (some new material written in November 06)
35. Publish LCYOA in print form (self-published counts)
36. Go to 5 art exhibitions (4/5)
37. Offset all carbon emissions for this time period w/Climate Care
38. Volunteer for a charity for at least a month
39. Go somewhere in the southern hemisphere
40. Make another batch of candles
41. Learn to drive
42. Turn my five favourite photos into posters
43. Bookcross 20 books (0/20)
44. Get teeth checked up and fixed if necessary
45. Get signed up with a local GP
46. Spend a week completely off the internet, contacting people by phone if necessary (on holidays doesn't count)
47. Pay off credit cards
48. Make a short film (5min plus)
49. Finish the Christmas presents project
50. Road-trip round west of Ireland with friends
51. Spend a week going around England in a canal boat
52. Host a dinner party (4+ people, 3+ courses)
53. Redecorate the bathroom (in progress) Repainted as of 27 May '06
54. Go horse-riding (doesn't count if just walk/trot)
55. Do a skydive
56. Go to a real outdoor all-night rave I think dancing the sun up at BM probably counts...
57. Belly-dance somewhere where non-classmates can see me (in progress)
58. Have week-long 'writing holiday' by myself away from home (like week in Cambridge last summer)
59. Host/organise a poetry-reading/storytelling evening
60. Organise a successful gathering for one of the pagan festivals
61. Draw a 28?-page comic or set of comics Even though it was only 12 pages in the end, I've got another issue in the works so I'm going to arbitrarily declare this one done. - Edit: Two 12-pagers done as of April 2007.
62. Illustrate, bind and sell a short story in handmade book form
63. Have at least 1000 quid in savings account for at least three months
64. Go ice skating
65. Bake a loaf of bread (several, to date)
66. Learn to enjoy regularly eating three vegetables I don't enjoy now (so far, regularly eating peas and peppers, the latter thanks to Dan. And I sort of like spinach now, but can't quite claim it as a regular since I only eat it occasionally with huge amounts of blue cheese.)
67. Lose a stone and stay that way for at least 3 months (tbh, I don't know if I still want to do this one. Instead, quite suddenly, I've become very happy with myself the way I am, and I'm considering that an achievement.)
68. Give blood (obviously before nose-piercing etc)
69. Get rid of all clothes I feel ugly in (Had massive clearout in early April 2007)
70. Paint landing & stairs
71. Get a piece of original art
72. Decide once and for all if I actually want that tattoo, and if yes, get it
73. Do a large piece of calligraphy/typographical art/collage based on something I've written (in progress - commissioned!)
74. Resubscribe to Mslexia
75. Read 5 books in foreign languages (0/5)
76. Read 3 books in Irish (poetry counts, if I Get It) (0/3)
77. Go to the Rollright Stones
78. Frame and hang pictures
79. Print out and frame pictures of Important People
80. Go to Burning Man done!
81. Revise and finish The End Of Words
82. Get violin back and learn a new piece on it
83. Make that half-hour DJ set with mixing software
84. Complete Wheel of the Year photo project (Photos taken over a whole year. Still have to compile them into a poster.)
85. (was Wild Card) Give a reading of something I've written in public (Read part of Lost Things, We Are The Genes and part of my Thames Barrier article at Oxfringe 2007)
86. WILD CARD 2!
87. WILD CARD 3!
88. Give up smileys and Random Capitalisation for a month and see what happens
89. Learn by heart the meanings of all the tarot cards (doing well - only doubtful about a few now)
90. Knit something and finish it
91. Spend two weeks answering all personal email on the day I get it
92. Spend two weeks answering all texts within the hour
93 to 100 are personal/censored
(One done so far, and surprisingly good it was too. A bunch of the others I can't do because of changes in my life circumstances since I made the list. But they are pleasant and worthwhile changes.)
101. Obligatory self-referential task: make another list of 101 tasks to start once this 1001 days are over
Lists:
Bands seen (15, if you count support acts)
Katy Carr, ICA, London, 13th May 2006
Sleater-Kinney, Zodiac, Oxford, 19th May 2006
Glade: Vitalic, 65daysofstatic, Alabama 3, Hybrid (restricting it to acts that actually behaved like "bands" on stage, so not (eg) Knifehandchop, Rennie Pilgrem or Protoculture)
Port Mahon, Oxford, sometime in October: Nervous Testpilot, Sunnyvale Noise Subelement
The Zodiac, Halloween 2006: Suitable Case for Treatment, The Mules, Mary Bendytoy
The Wheatsheaf, Oxford, again Octoberish: Meet Me In St Louis, Andnostar, Mugstar
Bangface, London, 8 February 2007: Plaid
The books and films lists are still tiny. This is because for the past year or so I've mostly been rereading and rewatching. Not piling new stuff into my head so much as assimilating what's already in there. But...
Books read (fiction) (15/50) (yes, comics count)
Kim Newman - Life's Lottery
Various - Put The Book Back On The Shelf (Belle & Sebastian graphic novel)
Kate Atkinson - Case Histories
Margaret Atwood - The Penelopiad
Grant Morrison - Steed & Mrs Peel (miniseries)
and two years' worth of The Invisibles
Warren Ellis - Planetary (first two trade paperbacks)
Transmetropolitan (first two trade paperbacks)
Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Ali Smith - The Accidental
Gwyneth Jones - Bold As Love
Carla Speed McNeil - Finder book 1
Gideon Defoe - The Pirates! In An Adventure with Communists
Joanna Russ - The Female Man
Eddie Campbell - Alec, or How To Be An Artist
Books read (non-fiction) (5/?)
Daniel Pinchbeck - Breaking Open The Head
Jan Morris - Oxford
Matt Madden - 99 Ways To Tell A Story
Scott McCloud - Understanding Comics
Chris Anderson - The Long Tail
Books read (social theory/research) (3/10)
Barbara Ehrenreich - Bait & Switch: The Futile Pursuit of the Corporate Dream
Roz Kaveney - Teen Dreams
Martin Torgoff - Can't Find My Way Home
Books read (other languages)
Books bookcrossed
Films seen (13/50) (god, what a lot of sequels)
The Omen 2
How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days
The Sixth Sense
American Psycho
Monsoon Wedding
V for Vendetta
Serenity
Confetti
X-Men: The Last Stand
Howl's Moving Castle
The Goat, with Buster Keaton
Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Superman Returns
Snakes On A Plane
Casino Royale
Little Miss Sunshine
Princess Raccoon
Art seen (2/5)
Beck's Futures 2006, ICA, 13th May
Exhibition at Ovada in Oxford, late August 2006 - name and exact date forgotten, but it involved chastity belts made of tissue paper, shopping trolleys and a rather fun light show.
Carsten Holler's slides, Tate Modern, 13 January. Wheeeeeeee! (with Dan, who also went wheeeee!)
New surrealist rooms at the Tate Modern, same day.
Online people met
p_dan_tic and shewho, 13th May 2006
annifa, 19th May 2006
coalescent, at Caption 2006
parallelgirl, at the Blue Posts in London, I think December 15 2006
burkesworks, Eagle and Child/j4 and addedentry's party, er sometime in late January 2007
Pieces published
8 reviews in Daily Info so far (1 unpaid, 7 paid in tickets)
Article in Backpacker magazine, January 2007, about capsule hotels in Tokyo
Cartoon in the next Smoke (How To Fly A Bus)
See the list of the blogger who started the whole thing (and hundreds of other lists) here.
It's surprisingly hard to come up with 101 things to do, but finally my list is done. So here it is. It's in no particular order, wildly overambitious, not to mention impractical (I did try to put some practical things in there!) and reflects the amount of time I have on my hands at the moment, though I'm sure I won't always have this much. It's got small, trivial tasks and big scary tasks, things I can start on right now and things for which I've no idea where I'll get the money as yet, things I might no longer want to do in nearly three years' time - who knows? But at least it gives me something to aim for.
I tried to give measurable success conditions for them all (hence the weird "for at least three months" thing attached to some of them where it should just be "for ever". I want to cross things off as I go along, not just cross a lot of them off at the end.) I was careful not to include any new novel projects, just ones I need to finish. Starting books is easy, I do it all the time.
This post will go in my Memories and I plan to refer back to it every so often and gloat. Or weep. The deadline is Friday November 14th, 2008. (2008!)
And no, I'm not going to tell you what 93-100 are. Unless you get me very, very drunk, and maybe not even then.
Edit: Last stock-take was December 7th 2006. Bolded numbers are tasks done, in progress or which I've done a significant amount of planning for.
Edit: another stock-take on April 16th 2007, a year and two months in. 30 tasks in progress, 11 of which done. Eep! But a lot of them are big slow tasks anyway.
1. Self-publish book about Trans-Siberian trip (on hold, trying for trad publication first)
2. Finish Dangerous Waste to submission standard
3. Finish Fish in the Sky (ditto) (maybe three-quarters finished)
4. Read 10 books on sociological theory/research, preferably recent, and keep a list of them below (does not count towards 6) (3/10)
5. Read 50 fiction books and list (12/50)
6. Read 50 non-fiction books and list (5/50)
7. See ten bands I haven't seen before (14/10!)
8. See 50 films, ditto (17/50)
9. Do a painting or series of paintings on canvas - photos pending!
10. Dye all my hair blue, not just the front (not yet, but dyed most of my hair bright red for no. 80)
11. Publish at least 15 stories/articles (10/15) 8 pieces so far in Daily Info - 7 of them I even got paid for after a fashion
12. Sing in public (pub karaoke counts)
13. Hold a Chinese Park Party
14. Go to Hay Festival
15. Go over land and sea to the Arctic Circle
16. Get a poem published for money
17. Write a song that gets sung in public (in progress, kinda) (hmm, band who'd written music for my lyrics have now folded, so I guess I'll write another one and try to pimp it somewhere else)
18. Travel through Amazonian rainforest
19. Sell craft stuff at a market
20. Get (smallish) guitar and learn to play 5 songs well on it (0/5)
21. Acquire glow-poi
22. …and learn backwards weave
23. Hold a conversation of at least 5 minutes in Japanese
24. Go back to Japan (and get to Ghibli Museum this time)
25. Join the BSFA
26. Be in a position to join the Society of Authors :)
27. Re-do properly, collate and publish results of the Wodehouse Experiment
28. Do Random Tube-Travelling Day and write up the results
29. Get published in an anthology
30. Get a serious formal dress that I feel confident in
31. Finally replace Big Stompy Boots (dunno if I'm a Big Stompy Boots person any more really)
32. Get self-pimping website up and running (in progress)
33. Meet ten people I only know online (6/10)
34. Write and program London Choose-Your-Own-Adventure and get it running on said website (some new material written in November 06)
35. Publish LCYOA in print form (self-published counts)
36. Go to 5 art exhibitions (4/5)
37. Offset all carbon emissions for this time period w/Climate Care
38. Volunteer for a charity for at least a month
39. Go somewhere in the southern hemisphere
40. Make another batch of candles
41. Learn to drive
42. Turn my five favourite photos into posters
43. Bookcross 20 books (0/20)
44. Get teeth checked up and fixed if necessary
45. Get signed up with a local GP
46. Spend a week completely off the internet, contacting people by phone if necessary (on holidays doesn't count)
47. Pay off credit cards
48. Make a short film (5min plus)
49. Finish the Christmas presents project
50. Road-trip round west of Ireland with friends
51. Spend a week going around England in a canal boat
52. Host a dinner party (4+ people, 3+ courses)
53. Redecorate the bathroom (in progress) Repainted as of 27 May '06
54. Go horse-riding (doesn't count if just walk/trot)
55. Do a skydive
56. Go to a real outdoor all-night rave I think dancing the sun up at BM probably counts...
57. Belly-dance somewhere where non-classmates can see me (in progress)
58. Have week-long 'writing holiday' by myself away from home (like week in Cambridge last summer)
59. Host/organise a poetry-reading/storytelling evening
60. Organise a successful gathering for one of the pagan festivals
61. Draw a 28?-page comic or set of comics Even though it was only 12 pages in the end, I've got another issue in the works so I'm going to arbitrarily declare this one done. - Edit: Two 12-pagers done as of April 2007.
62. Illustrate, bind and sell a short story in handmade book form
63. Have at least 1000 quid in savings account for at least three months
64. Go ice skating
65. Bake a loaf of bread (several, to date)
66. Learn to enjoy regularly eating three vegetables I don't enjoy now (so far, regularly eating peas and peppers, the latter thanks to Dan. And I sort of like spinach now, but can't quite claim it as a regular since I only eat it occasionally with huge amounts of blue cheese.)
67. Lose a stone and stay that way for at least 3 months (tbh, I don't know if I still want to do this one. Instead, quite suddenly, I've become very happy with myself the way I am, and I'm considering that an achievement.)
68. Give blood (obviously before nose-piercing etc)
69. Get rid of all clothes I feel ugly in (Had massive clearout in early April 2007)
70. Paint landing & stairs
71. Get a piece of original art
72. Decide once and for all if I actually want that tattoo, and if yes, get it
73. Do a large piece of calligraphy/typographical art/collage based on something I've written (in progress - commissioned!)
74. Resubscribe to Mslexia
75. Read 5 books in foreign languages (0/5)
76. Read 3 books in Irish (poetry counts, if I Get It) (0/3)
77. Go to the Rollright Stones
78. Frame and hang pictures
79. Print out and frame pictures of Important People
80. Go to Burning Man done!
81. Revise and finish The End Of Words
82. Get violin back and learn a new piece on it
83. Make that half-hour DJ set with mixing software
84. Complete Wheel of the Year photo project (Photos taken over a whole year. Still have to compile them into a poster.)
85. (was Wild Card) Give a reading of something I've written in public (Read part of Lost Things, We Are The Genes and part of my Thames Barrier article at Oxfringe 2007)
86. WILD CARD 2!
87. WILD CARD 3!
88. Give up smileys and Random Capitalisation for a month and see what happens
89. Learn by heart the meanings of all the tarot cards (doing well - only doubtful about a few now)
90. Knit something and finish it
91. Spend two weeks answering all personal email on the day I get it
92. Spend two weeks answering all texts within the hour
93 to 100 are personal/censored
(One done so far, and surprisingly good it was too. A bunch of the others I can't do because of changes in my life circumstances since I made the list. But they are pleasant and worthwhile changes.)
101. Obligatory self-referential task: make another list of 101 tasks to start once this 1001 days are over
Lists:
Bands seen (15, if you count support acts)
Katy Carr, ICA, London, 13th May 2006
Sleater-Kinney, Zodiac, Oxford, 19th May 2006
Glade: Vitalic, 65daysofstatic, Alabama 3, Hybrid (restricting it to acts that actually behaved like "bands" on stage, so not (eg) Knifehandchop, Rennie Pilgrem or Protoculture)
Port Mahon, Oxford, sometime in October: Nervous Testpilot, Sunnyvale Noise Subelement
The Zodiac, Halloween 2006: Suitable Case for Treatment, The Mules, Mary Bendytoy
The Wheatsheaf, Oxford, again Octoberish: Meet Me In St Louis, Andnostar, Mugstar
Bangface, London, 8 February 2007: Plaid
The books and films lists are still tiny. This is because for the past year or so I've mostly been rereading and rewatching. Not piling new stuff into my head so much as assimilating what's already in there. But...
Books read (fiction) (15/50) (yes, comics count)
Kim Newman - Life's Lottery
Various - Put The Book Back On The Shelf (Belle & Sebastian graphic novel)
Kate Atkinson - Case Histories
Margaret Atwood - The Penelopiad
Grant Morrison - Steed & Mrs Peel (miniseries)
and two years' worth of The Invisibles
Warren Ellis - Planetary (first two trade paperbacks)
Transmetropolitan (first two trade paperbacks)
Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Ali Smith - The Accidental
Gwyneth Jones - Bold As Love
Carla Speed McNeil - Finder book 1
Gideon Defoe - The Pirates! In An Adventure with Communists
Joanna Russ - The Female Man
Eddie Campbell - Alec, or How To Be An Artist
Books read (non-fiction) (5/?)
Daniel Pinchbeck - Breaking Open The Head
Jan Morris - Oxford
Matt Madden - 99 Ways To Tell A Story
Scott McCloud - Understanding Comics
Chris Anderson - The Long Tail
Books read (social theory/research) (3/10)
Barbara Ehrenreich - Bait & Switch: The Futile Pursuit of the Corporate Dream
Roz Kaveney - Teen Dreams
Martin Torgoff - Can't Find My Way Home
Books read (other languages)
Books bookcrossed
Films seen (13/50) (god, what a lot of sequels)
The Omen 2
How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days
The Sixth Sense
American Psycho
Monsoon Wedding
V for Vendetta
Serenity
Confetti
X-Men: The Last Stand
Howl's Moving Castle
The Goat, with Buster Keaton
Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Superman Returns
Snakes On A Plane
Casino Royale
Little Miss Sunshine
Princess Raccoon
Art seen (2/5)
Beck's Futures 2006, ICA, 13th May
Exhibition at Ovada in Oxford, late August 2006 - name and exact date forgotten, but it involved chastity belts made of tissue paper, shopping trolleys and a rather fun light show.
Carsten Holler's slides, Tate Modern, 13 January. Wheeeeeeee! (with Dan, who also went wheeeee!)
New surrealist rooms at the Tate Modern, same day.
Online people met
p_dan_tic and shewho, 13th May 2006
annifa, 19th May 2006
coalescent, at Caption 2006
parallelgirl, at the Blue Posts in London, I think December 15 2006
burkesworks, Eagle and Child/j4 and addedentry's party, er sometime in late January 2007
Pieces published
8 reviews in Daily Info so far (1 unpaid, 7 paid in tickets)
Article in Backpacker magazine, January 2007, about capsule hotels in Tokyo
Cartoon in the next Smoke (How To Fly A Bus)
See the list of the blogger who started the whole thing (and hundreds of other lists) here.