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The January Project 2012!

The rules are the same: 31 new pieces of writing written over 31 days, inspired by 31 songs. Shortly, the first of this year’s project will debut for your reading pleasure and then I don’t stop until January 31^st.

The selection process remains the same as well. To quote myself:

I will utilize a card system. First, I will draw a card labeled “Number,” “Mix,” “Soundtrack,” or a letter of the alphabet. Then, comes the card with numbers one through 30 on them. Then, whatever card is draw is reinserted into the pile, the number card pile is reshuffled, and another number drawn.

The first card tells me where to go in my (and my wife, the Thunder’s) collection. It runs alphabetically by artist from Numbers (your 50 Cents and 10,000 Maniacs, if you will) to Z—in case you did not know how the alphabet went. Then we have soundtracks (alphabetical by film, if you must know) and mixes (chronologically). For the sake of me, holiday mixes are exempt from this process.

The next card is how many I count off in the category to get to the correct CD to use. The last card gives me the track number to use as inspiration.

Thus, if I got “F”, “6”, and “8”, I would have to write something inspired by Fountains of Wayne’s “I Got a Flair,” which can be found on their self titled debut album.

So, there you go. Pretty straightforward, yes?

Is there anything new? Umm…too early to say. There are some things I’d like to do differently, but we’ll see if I can realize that. The biggest of these is that I want to do Writer’s Commentaries much closer to the pieces in question. I am thinking/hoping for a week later. In other words, the commentary on January 1^st would go up on the 8^th, the 2^nd the 9^th and so on. This way, maybe I’ll actually finish them. Also, you guys will probably care more with the stories fresher in your mind.

The other big change I’d like to make is more consistency in terms of posting times. Going forward, I am hoping for a morning post , say between 7 and 9 AM, every day. And, if and when the Writer’s Commentaries kick in, an evening posting time for that between 5 and 7 PM would be the ideal. Again though, this is a hope not a guarantee. Tonight, for instance, I already missed it. But we’ll be better tomorrow at least.

And that’s it. Tell your friends, your neighbors, your family, your religious or non-religious mentor…anyone really. Reach out and touch me at tim.g.stevens@gmail.com with song suggestions (I’ll try to do one reader suggestion a week) or feedback and follow me at @ungajje on Twitter. Thanks.