RESOURCES | April 2021: General Fiction
An "easy" month to kick off the project. And by "easy," I of course mean I have to read 15 books in 27 days.
It's almost April! That means it's time for the Official Oh Em Gee It's Time To Read Books resource list and accountability quotas. Yeah, I'll give that a better name in future months.
April 2021 Requirements
READ a total of 12 fiction books (11 novels, 1 short story collection)
READ 2 craft books (with 1 optional bonus, just 'cuz I love the book)
WRITE 15,000 words of creative writing (y'all won't see this)
WRITE 10,000 words of critical writing (this blog)
WRITE an annotated bibliography for this month's readings
WRITE a personal letter detailing the month's victories, failures, questions, and general thoughts
Due Date: Tuesday, April 27th, 2021
April Readings
Craft
The Writing Life, Annie Dillard
The Creative Habit (Learn It And Use It For Life), Twyla Tharpe
On Writing, Stephen King*
*Optional if I get to it, I just freaking love this book and haven't read it in a few years.
Fiction
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories, Raymond Carver
Play It as It Lays, Joan Didion
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
I'll Give You The Sun, Jandy Nelson
The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson
Normal People, Sally Rooney
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara
April Quotas
Critical Writing
10,000 words**
"Critical" writing is a bit of a stretch here. My goal for this is a blog post for each book I read this month, with my general thoughts on the book, the writing style, and any lessons I learned from it in terms of my own writing. I'm reading 15 books this month (yikes), so I don't think hitting this quota will be difficult. These won't be Harvard-worthy essays, but they will be spunky and informative literary blog posts. (I'll put in spoiler warnings too, so don't @ me.)
**Updated from 2,000 words on 4/8/2021 because I blab too much in these blogs, but y’all get to enjoy it!
Creative Writing
15,000 words
This is technically an "easier" goal than a typical MFA month. I want to ease in on the writing side because I'm out of practice, and am still figuring out what my permanent work schedule looks like. Once I'm in the swing of things, I'll start ramping up the word count quotas. (I'm supposed to do 40,000 words in September — *gulp*.) I will not be posting my creative works here, but I will post screenshots of the word count for accountability.
Other Requirements
Annotated Bibliography
Personal Letter / Monthly Recap
These I'll complete toward the end of each month, and they'll live in the Resources section of the website. That way, my minions can go back and see what I worked on each month!
This month kicks off on (surprise, surprise) Thursday, April 1st, with my "packet" due on Tuesday, April 27th.
(Before anyone's like, "But Maggie, that isn't a full month! What are you thinking?!" I want to be able to take a couple days off between packets to recharge my brain and appease abandoned clients. It's called "self care," OK?)