365, it seems, is the new 24/7.  I’ve been reading about the concept of “365 projects,” the blogged adventures of very zealous and committed folks who pick a passion and stay true to it for an entire year, each and every day. Think the effervescent Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project or the epicurean feats of Julie Powell, who not only cooked her way through a year with Julia Child, but got Nora Ephron to write the screen play. My sister-in-law’s wonderful partner, Laura, made the commitment December 2011 to meditate and blog about the experience every single day.  She did it, too, gracing us with some really wonderful insights along the way.

Sometimes it seems the only thing I can manage 365 is brushing and flossing. Between the soon-to-be republication of This Jewish Life, a graphic memoir project I’m working on, a children’s book text in search of publication, and a shelved-but-calling-to-me novel, exactly where and how do I shoehorn in one more venture?

But I’m tempted nevertheless. Could be fun in a goofy kind of way. I wouldn’t have to whip egg whites into stiff peaks or banish my inner curmudgeon. Said project would have to be simple enough to be managed, deep enough to be meaningful, and intriguing enough for me to stay, well, intrigued. For an entire year. Good thing 2012 was the leap year. Short, sweet, intriguing and doable………

I’ve got it. I’ll borrow the six word memoir concept from my friends at smithmag.net. They like me. Or my work, anyway, having selected a mini-memoir of mine for one of their books. Yeah, six words. I have to be able to manage that.  And if time gets short, there’s alway my Sonicare. It polishes my pearly whites for two seemingly endless minutes — a lot of time to think when you’re just standing there buzzing and brushing.

So here goes:

Starting yearlong venture; please come along. 

 

Subsequent entries will be posted at Debra Darvick’s Reading Room on Facebook.