BFS: 2011

Every year around January, the folks down at NaNoWriMo start up a forum called BFS.  It means Big, Fun, and Scary, and it’s full of posts from people who have always wanted to try something but never gotten around to it.  This year, they’ve decided it’s time to get around to it.  Whether you want to tackle one thing or a dozen, and whether it’s something big, fun, scary, or most often a combination of all three, making a BFS list is a great way to take stock of what you’d like to try this year.  In the spirit of the New Year, and to kick off one of my big, fun, scary new projects, I’m posting my BFS: 2011 list as my first official PostADay 2011 post.

1. Do PostADay 2011.  As you may have already guessed by it’s subtle title, PostADay 2011 is a challenge from WordPress to post every single day for the rest of the year on your blog.  Challenge accepted, WordPress.  I’m still working on a tentative schedule for what I’ll post when, but right now it’s looking like a vlog on Monday, song of the week on Wednesday, a more serious post (ala Jon Acuff’s Serious Wednesdays at Stuff Christians Like.  Great blog, check it out) on Friday, and some shorter and/or more lighthearted material to fill in the gaps.  This leads me to my next project…

2. Become a Vlogger.  For those of you who don’t know (or don’t care, but you’ve probably stopped reading by now anyway), a vlog is like a blog, only it’s a video.  That means that once a week this year, probably on Mondays for the most part, I’ll post a video to YouTube with a link on my blog.  These videos will be, for the most part, just me talking about things that I find interesting, funny, challenging, important, or that I otherwise want to talk about.  I’m excited to give it a try, even if all I really accomplish is boosting my creativity, because everyone knows that you can’t have too much creativity.

3. Write a Script in April (and another book in November).  If you’ve been around my blog at all, ever, you’ve probably heard all about the wonder that is NaNoWriMo.  In fact, if you weren’t zoning out when you read the first paragraph of this post you’ve at least heard the name.  NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words in the month of November – a challenge which I’ve conquered twice.  Yes, I plan to do that again this year, but even more new and exciting is my first official run at Script Frenzy, NaNo’s sister program, which challenges writers to create a hundred pages of script in April.  I tried to co-write with my brother, Andrew, last year, but I learned very quickly that I’m an awful co-writer.  I dropped out and let him finish the script (which he did splendidly), but this year I’m going to try it for real with a solo effort.  I don’t know a lot of the details yet, but it’s going to be a movie based off of a near-future thriller idea that my Dad gave me about a government specialist who tracks down and brings in high-priority criminals.  The working title is “Apprehension”, and I couldn’t be more pumped for April to show up so that I can get it out on paper.

4. Enter the ABNA Contest in 2012.  Okay, okay, so this is technically not taking place in 2011, but the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest is a big deal, and if I’m going to enter it in January next year I’ll need to do all of the work this year.  Basically, the ABNA Contest is an invitation for first-time novelists to send in their books to be judged by a panel of experts.  One winner in each of two categories is selected for a two book deal with Penguin and a $15,000 advance, so you can imagine that I’d really like to win.  I’ll be entering this year’s NaNo, “Kill Me”, but I need to do some major editing first.  Definitely big, definitely fun, definitely scary, and potentially life-changing.

5. Come Back to Moody in the Fall.  You may notice that this item is a little out of place.  All of the others focus on my efforts to further myself as a writer/blogger, but this entry is about being a college student.  I’ll tell you why: mostly because I like my lists to finish in nice, round numbers like three and five, but also because this is going to be a big project.  I need to find a job and work at it like a maniac to make enough money to come back to school next semester, so that’s the big and scary part, and since I love being at Moody and I imagine that the security of a job is nice, I suppose this goal fits on the BFS list just as much as the others.

So that’s what the highlights 0f 2011 look like for me.  I’m eager to see how things go as I work toward my goals, and I’m curious: what sort of big, fun, scary things do you want to take a whack at this year?  Let me know in the comments below, and I’ll see you tomorrow with my second official PostADay… um, post.  I need to find a less clunky way to word that.