• Reading Nourishes Writing

    24 Readathon Hour 11 Mini Challenge: Plan A Bookish Party

    October 22, 2016

    It’s October 22nd. The air is full of the smells of roasting coffee and possibly unshowered readers. Your ears prickle at the scratchy sound of pages turning and the crinkle of snack food wrappers. Twitter feeds are being scrolled through fervently; instagram pictures snapped every new hour; and book after book cries as it’s mercilessly devoured by a hungry Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon participant voraciously gobbling their TBR stack.

    That’s right, it’s October 22nd, and that means it’s time for another Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon! I’m running a mini-challenge for this hour: Plan A Bookish Party. I ran this mini-challenge in 2015 on my old blog, and it was a great success. So, let’s get started!

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  • Reading Nourishes Writing

    Reading Nourishes Writing: Upcoming Readathons

    August 29, 2016

    “Reading Nourishes Writing” is a hugely important maxim over here at Happy Writer, one that I remind myself of constantly. (Especially when I’m feeling guilty for setting aside my laptop for a few more minutes of reading time.) As a writer, nothing will boost your creativity more than reading books, than filling your head up with words, and beautiful descriptions, and vivid settings, and characters so real you can see the sunlight glinting off their hair and hear the padding of their feet as they walk across the room.

    Reading books will show you how other authors solved problems, how they structured their story, how they fleshed out their characters. You wouldn’t try to build a car without ever looking at the insides of a real, working car, would you? You can flip through dry manuals, sure, but a real peek under the hood will help you visualize where all those nuts and bolts and tube-y bits really fit. (Tube-y bits. I obviously know tons about cars.) Same principle! Learn by Doing. Write by Reading.

    So, if you’re a writer out there who feels a little guilty whenever you set aside your WIP to read a couple more pages of a book, don’t! You’re filling the well, inking the pen, eating the food that’ll give you energy to keep moving. And, if you’re a person like me, who has mountains of books she never quite finds the time to conquer, here are some upcoming readathons that’ll help motivate you to take that break, refill that well, and read some books!

    Upcoming Readathons: Fall 2016

    The Great Twitter Readathon: Hosted by Sierra Abrams, this readathon will run exclusively on Twitter September 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. There is an optional group read as well as group chats, if you’d like to join in!

    The Tackle Your TBR Readathon: Every year, Wishful Endings hosts the Tackle Your TBR Readathon. Running from September 12th through the 26th, the Tackle Your TBR Readathon is a laidback, no-stress challenge that demands no expectations: just a chance to motivate ourselves to read a little more than we might’ve normally and make a dent in our towering To Be Read stacks!

    Banned Book-A-Thon: This weeklong celebration of Banned Books Week will run from September 25th to October 1st. Here is the video announcement and the Twitter to follow.

    Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon: Held twice a year in October and April, the Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon is my favorite reading event. A full day of challenges, prizes, snacks, and a bajillion pages read. This year’s event will be on Saturday, October 22.

    The FrightFall Readathon: Hosted by SeasonsReadings, this readathon will run from October 3rd through the 7th.

    Epic Reads Open Reading Decathlon: Or, if you can’t fit a formal readathon into your schedule, might I suggest the open-ended Epic Reads Reading Decathlon challenge? All you have to do is read 10 books in 10 days! Easy, right? (heh. sweats)

    Have you ever participated in a readathon? What’s your best number of books you’ve ever read in a single week? If you know of any other readathons happening soon, leave them in a comment below and I’ll add to this post!

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