I am going to participate in the month of letters challenge #LetterMo

Yesterday via a post from Cory Doctorow I found out about the month of letters challenge from Mary Robinette Kowal.

I have decided to participate.  It will be one way to help use up some of my card buying backlog (for all the right reasons).  I like buying cards, but it takes me longer to use them.  

Over the next few days I will work on my list of who to send the cards to, so that I am ready for the first day in February.  

I think this is going to be fun.

#366daysreading

I have noticed some people are going for #366books as a way of celebrating the National Year of Reading,  which is great, but I am going for #366daysreading.

I have been thinking about this after reading the discussion on twitter a few days ago, which was interesting, and it made me think about it, which is good.

I am deliberately not going to read a book a day, but instead each day I will plan to read a range of formats. I won't write about them all, but I will write about some. On the way home from work earlier in the week I was reading lots of signs in shops, reading prices, expiry dates, reading people's t-shirts and tattoos (and not being obtrusive about reading either), reading the indicator board to see when my train would arrive. People were carrying lots of things with print, and many people on my train were reading in a range of ways too. Most days I will read a mix of tweets (and other social sites like oink, google+ and getglue), websites (including blogs), apps (even the grocery shopping app I use, rss feeds and content on Flip), games, and a range of long format works in a mix of print and e.

One of the reasons I won't be writing about them all is that it would take much longer to write than it would to read, and to photograph or otherwise record all my reading would be too intrusive (plus not very interesting for anyone other than me). I am inspired by the description on the twitter reading group blog which ends with "All reading is reading no matter the format. Don’t be textist about format, or length of work, or context of reading." I like all the other ideas raised in the section called "what is reading".

I will follow people going for  #366books and #52books with interest.  I will be going along the path of #366daysreading. I probably need a better tag that does not imply I may do nothing else for the year but read.

Kindle propped on mobile phone

Kindle propped on mobile phone, a photo by ellen forsyth on Flickr.

A man was reading in the botanic gardens, lying on his stomach and eating lunch. I liked the way he used the tools available for comfortable reading (and that he kindly let me photograph his reading set up).