Themeattics

Let us cultivate our garden.

Voltaire, Candide

I’d like to revive something I had previously set up. Some of you might recall the 30-Day Projects page that I ran on Facebook. For those of you that don’t, I’ll recap.

The idea was to have people post their plan of something to accomplish over the next 30 days, giving everyone the same start date and seeing what became of it at the end of those 30. It was a very loose idea and, though it went through a couple of iterations before I ended up leaving it in the dust bin, I think there was a good intent and idea behind it. One that I’d like to see polished and put to good use.

Part one of that polish is to give this thing some formalized rules. One of the myriad problems of the original design was that it was too open-ended. People, myself included, ended up treating it like a public accountability to-do list instead of what it was intended to be – a singular, focused target on one true project. Fix the roof. Code a little game. Learn a character’s block strings. Spend an hour a day, every day, writing. Something measurable, something concrete.

Part two of that polish is to give it a home here on ThemeAttic. A page, a name, a public face, a schedule. Invite some friends, family, and strangers to get involved. Let them post updates, make threads for help or accountability, etc.

I’m declaring this here, since I likely won’t have things up and running in time for a true first kickoff – I’ll be doing two of these back to back. My project for October is to get this set up, and my project for November, which I’d like to have people able to do their own during, will be NaNoWriMo. Once things are in motion for the public side it certainly won’t be a monthly thing. Maybe bi-monthly or quarterly, minimum.

Why do I gravitate so hard toward something like this? Well, for those of you that have been following my work, it scratches all the necessary itches. Bettering ourselves by working on something that we desire. Something that’s difficult. Relying on those around us to keep us disciplined and on task with public accountability. The ability to showcase what we’ve done, target accomplished or not. Remember, anything you do to improve leaves you better than you were yesterday, and the only person you should ever compare yourself to is the person you were yesterday.

I want to become a better person, and in my own small way, I want to help you do the same. Let’s lift things up around here, starting with ourselves.