At the start of December I signed up to Josie Long’s 100 Days to Make Me a Better Person project (more details here) and pledged to do either physical exercise or creative writing everyday for 100 days. 30 days in, I’m not sure if I’m a better person or not but I have written 3,500 words (some that I’m even quite pleased with) and as well as going to the gym I have tried kick boxing, aqua-aerobics, spinning and done a 45 minute Swiss ball class that nearly killed me. I’ve had a couple of days were I cheated (counting dancing drunkenly at a party as physical exercise or writing 9 words and claiming it as a very short story) and I’ve had 2 days where I failed altogether but on the whole I’m quite proud of my efforts and I’ve really enjoyed it.
But what I have enjoyed more is finding out about other people’s 100 days projects. I’m quite new the whole Twitter thing but it’s been so much fun to see what everyone else is doing and I really love the whole community feel- how easy it is to tell some one you like their work, offer encouragement etc.
There are some absolutely fabulous 100 days projects out there and I know I’m not the only one who sometimes feels that theirs is not hugely creative in comparison. I can’t help wishing I'd pledged to write a twitter play every day/draw a mythical creature and write a haiku about it/write a novel in 100 instalments of 100 words/write a 30 second song everyday etc, etc, etc.
To be honest I don’t have the artistic/creative/musical skills to do a lot of these projects, especially not for 100 days but I feel inspired by what I’ve seen and I’m going to give it a go. So I present to you:
10 Weeks of Plagiarism to Make Me a Better Person
Basically the plan is for the next 10 weeks (the remaining 70 days) I will copy/rip off/pay homage to other people’s inspired 100 days projects in the hope of improving my creative output. I’ve loosely planned my 10 weeks and will be trying to do something every week (on top of my original 100 days pledge). If you know of any great projects you think I should copy, or if you would like me to try yours, please let me know.
This week I’m going to do limericks and haikus a la Nicola Dawn, James Clayton, A C Cleary, @taunalen and I expect many others.
And here is my first limerick, inspired by my complete financial irresponsibility yesterday -holidays and gadgets are way more important that staying out of your overdraft- right?
This week I thought that I might
Treat myself to a phone and some flights
But hang on I’m poor
I can’t spend any more
I don’t think I’ve got this quite right
