What’s up, geeks. So today is the annual celebration of the inevitability of death, and in honor of that, I want to posit a challenge to anyone out there with the balls to accept.
Y’see, in October, to gear up for NaNoWriMo, I re-read Stephen King’s On Writing, that memoir he wrote that is also part writing instruction manual. One of his key pieces of advice to aspiring writers is to read with abandon, to read constantly, whatever you can get your hands on. He says in there somewhere that he reads 50-80 books a year (or something like that, I don’t remember and don’t care enough to look it up). You know what that sounded like to me? It sounded like a challenge.
So I’m going to one-up that. I am going to read 100 books this year. That’s about two per week, for the mathematically challenged. And I’m not going to read a bunch of wimpy novellas, either. One of the books I pledge to read this year is Infinite Jest, and I might tackle a couple Pynchon novels, too. And maybe, if I’m in good shape, my last book will be The Stand, just as a further fuck-you-Mr. King. And in case you are wondering, I work full-time and go to school, so it’s not like I have nothing to do but sit on my ass and read.
I welcome anyone to join me in this odyssey of reading. I doubt many can do it. Think you can? Puh. And yeah, I know a bunch of people have probably done this before, on the webernet and such, but I don’t care. I still think most of you out there can’t do it.
My first book will be Mr. King’s The Dead Zone, and I will be updating you all every week or so on my progress, just to show how awesome I am.
- Z
