For the past year I wrote the exact same long sentence from memory every day in my journal. I didn't look back to see what it was, I just recalled it and wrote it down. It was also a random sentence versus a quotation, a line of poetry, etc. The point is, I wrote it 365 times to test my memory over the length of a year. After all that I went back and checked every entry, and turns out that I wrote it perfectly 364 times. I messed it up once, but I immediately realized it was wrong, struck out the error and rewrote it correctly.
Why spend a year of my life doing this? Memory loss that affects day-to-day activities is an early sign of dementia. Although I'm at a higher risk for it than the average person (thank you, blood vessel-damaging diabetes) I'm not seriously worried about getting that on top of everything else; I was just curious.
You guys are the first to hear about this little exercise. I don't talk about this stuff much.
I have an established track record with year-long projects (making 1000 artist trading cards, taking a photograph every day and posting it online, etc.) but I've even done three that were very long. For example, I gave myself ten years to get published back in 1988 and spent the next decade writing books and submitting proposals to NY. Got my first contract offer a month shy of ten years. The two other projects were personal, not professional -- and I failed at both -- but I still feel good about nailing the publishing thing. Even my guy thought it was hopeless after a few years.
I want to do another long project: write a short story every week for as long as I can. I'd have to set myself a length and time limit, and post them somewhere on line as proof (probably just in my Google Docs account as invitation-only) but I think it would be fun. And if I managed to keep going for a year, I'd have 52 new stories for posterity. I think that would be an interesting test and (if I could keep it going for a year) a major writing accomplishment.
Opinions? Do you think I'm crazy? Or does it sound like fun? Let me know what you think in comments.
3 comments:
You have longer staying power than me. Greg and I both play mental agility games. He does puzzles. I play Tetris type games and Mahjong. It keeps us sharper I think.
PS I gave Jammy a scrambled egg and he ate most of it. I don't overcook it and I keep it moving in the pan so it doesn't get a chance to form large curds. He was able to keep it down.
Thank you for the idea! I'll be adding it to his menu rotation.
Glad the egg idea worked. Keeping my fingers crossed for him.
I don't think that sounds silly, I think it sounds fun and challenging and you should go for it! Keeping one's mind engaged is always a good thing. I do crosswords still though they take me a bit longer now, and word games.
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