Daily Journal: February 22,2023

Not quite the results I wanted for yesterday, but at least it wasn’t a zero, but to my deadline-chasing brain, anything under 180 pages might just be 0, well, actually it was 94 but who’s counting.

From yesterday’s five tasks from my perpetual reading checklist, just one was checked off, the old reliable story from Biútiful Frik. I just hope to find some balance between all the everyday responsibilities and reading.

Now, for today´s checklist, my tasks go as follows:

  • Read 75 pages of Cormac McCarthy´s The Border Trilogy
  • Read 192 pages of H.P. Lovecraft’s Collection (each day, it becomes more unlikely to achieve (
  • Read 1 story from Biútiful Frik (task already completed and the book is finished)
  • Read Spy X Family Vol. 3
  • Read 26 pages of Mark Chadbourn´s Hellboy: The Ice Wolves (another task that is on the brink of completing)

I’ll try to knock out at least another task and make this day at least a little bit productive.

Off to read

azr.

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Daily Journal: February 21, 2023

It has been 61 days since my last blank day, which means 0 pages read, you’ll have to go back all the way back to December 20, 2022, to find that dreaded result, but there’s no reason to panic, I’ll find a way to get things back on track if there’s a will there’s a way.

Needless to say, but from yesterday’s five tasks from my perpetual reading checklist non were checked off. But today will be a whole different story, the whole deal of the matter is a question of finding the little time nooks to take a breath and read a few pages, I guess there´s far more planning needed in order to achieve harmony between all the spheres that make up my daily life, and just know the perfect way to do so.

Now, for today´s checklist, my tasks go as follows:

  • Read 62 pages of Cormac McCarthy´s The Border Trilogy
  • Read 160 pages of H.P. Lovecraft’s Collection
  • Read 1 story from Biútiful Frik (task already completed)
  • Read Spy X Family Vol. 3
  • Read 26 pages of Mark Chadbourn´s Hellboy: The Ice Wolves

And speaking of the supernatural Detective and my favorite comic book character of all time, of course, I’m talking about the big red dude known as Hellboy, today he´ll grace my combat armor for the day, as I tackle the treacherous Ice Wolves on a cold and snowy night on a remote New England cabin, full of secrets and fascinating artifacts.

Off to read

azr

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Daily Journal: February 20, 2023

Sunday is always an amazing day for reading, it could have been perfect, but I came short of some of my goals for the day, but non the less, it was a rainy day and I read over 300 pages, so this one goes in the win column.

There are now 7 days before the 100-day march and 3,666 pages to get to the 40,000-page mark. From my perpetual checklist, this time around 4 of the 5 tasks of the day was checked off, only the elusive H.P. Lovecraft collection and its more than 100 pages a day has proven more difficult than expected. The other thing that was listed as a priority was to get 377 pages to fill my weekly quota, that task fell short by 68 pages, but still, 1,178 pages for the week it’s nothing to brow upon.

For today, as complicated as Monday comes with life and work getting in the way, my checklist for today goes as follows:

  • Read 53 pages of Cormac McCarthy’s The Border Trilogy
  • Read 138 pages of H.P. Lovecraft´s Collection
  • Read 1 story from Biútiful Frik
  • Read Spy X Family Vol. 3
  • Read 22 pages of Mark Chadbourn´s Hellboy: The Ice Wolves

Today, if all fall into place, I’ll return to the manga series Spy X Family, currently on volume number 3, following the adventure of spy Twilight, and the seemingly impossible task of procuring a family to infiltrate an elite private school, but as to complicate thing his fake adopted daughter is a telepath.

Off to read.

azr

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Daily Journal: February 19, 2023

Yesterday was a fairly productive day, of the five tasks on my checklist, I checked off three. The only two that eluded my capability of reading, reading 48 pages of Cormac McCarthy’s The Border Trilogy and reading 108 pages of H.P. Lovecraft’s Collection, this one, in particular, has been stalled for several days.

The focus for today is trying to get closer to the 40,000-page mark, as I wrote yesterday before my 100-day march begins on February 27. I still have 3,859 pages left to achieve the goal over an 8-day period, having 4 books and 5 mangas left on my TBR pile in order, to sum up, the necessary pages to cross the mark. The other task left to close out the week with at least the quota is to read a total of 377 pages for this lazy rainy Sunday.

I hope the day stays, at least for a little while, with the beautiful cloud cover that our desert enjoys right now, and if it has a touch of light rain it would be perfect to take my reading outside for a couple of chapters in the company of my beloved ash tree.

After crunching a few numbers, today’s checklist goes as follows:

  • Read 53 pages of Cormac McCarthy´s The Border Trilogy
  • Read 120 pages of H.P. Lovecraft’s Collection
  • Read 1 story from Biútiful Frik (see picture and description below)
  • Read DR.Stone Vol. 9
  • Read 24 pages of Mark Chadbourn´s Hellboy: The Ice Wolves

Before I set out for today’s reading, I would like to share a quick description of one of the books on my TBR pile which I have named “Before the march”, it is Biútiful Frik, a collection of short stories, three of them illustrated, inspired by Mary Shelley´s Frankenstein, the short stories are by Mexican female authors, with the exception of the graphic artist Bef, and their take is a refreshing approach to one of history’s greatest novel.

Off to read.

azr

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Daily Journal: February 18, 2023

As it turns out, the best results for regaining my motivation and rhythm of reading come from taking a moment early in my mornings to plan and scheme what my day should be. Just as dawn approaches, with the first cup of coffee of the day, the pathways toward my ultimate open up quite clearly, I don´t know if it’s the almost awake state or the stupor from the caffeine shot to the system, but things become a series of task to be approached.

In this particular series of entries, my intent is to share my day-to-day planning toward this project that is an integral part of who I am, it gives me so much joy and purpose to share my love for books, and with this outlet, I can share a glimpse of what it looks like to be on a pathway dedicated to devouring what the world of literature has to offer, this, sprinkled with a bit of the place that gives me comfort and solace to escape reality for a bit.

For the upcoming weeks my sole focus will be to achieve a couple of things: reach 40,000 total pages for the year before the last 100 days of reading, better known as the 100-day march, and work toward the ultimate goal of 64,942 pages for the year fifteen. In between these two global goals, there are always fun activities and challenges to get me to the finish line in style.

To help me along with the 40,000 total pages, I have devised a daily checklist of the minimal reading tasks, that sum up will get me passed this particular task, for today these are the goals:

  • Read 48 pages of Cormac McCarthy’s The Border Trilogy
  • Read 108 pages of H.P. Lovecraft: A Collection
  • Read 1 story from the compilation Biútiful Frik
  • Read the manga DR.Stone Vol. 8
  • Read 28 pages of Mark Chadbourn’s Hellboy: The Ice Wolves

Throughout the day I will make little nooks to read and enjoy a moment of silence. I’ll see you tomorrow to see how the day went, and what new task emerges for the new day.

Off to read.

azr.

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Numbers: February 18, 2023

I know not quite a Monday but let’s call it a blissful Saturday, and hopefully back to my old writing habits.

My total for the weeks that I didn’t update goes as follows:

  • Week 34: 1,443 pages
  • Week 35: 483 pages
  • Week 36: 821 pages

The only week that gave a little bit over the quota was number 34, but not even close to countering the two awful results of the subsequent weeks. But not all are bad news since my last update, I finished the second volume of Gotrek and Felix´s Adventures and got to around 60% done with Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, thanks to my plans of getting as close as possible for this year’s total quota, a new section of this blog has emerged as a necessity to refocus the daily efforts toward the coveted 1,000,000-page mark.

With events like my 100-day march, the boldness, and the final breath, each day counts toward this year’s success.

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 35,949 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s 3,550 pages of progress since my last update, now the next task is to reach the number 4 spot in my top years of reading, which is currently 9,396 pages away. Still, there’s the 3,000-plus week that eludes me, one of the goals for year number fifteen is to have at least one, and finally have the first sigil, representing one of the three aspects of my inspiration, tattooed on my body.

My reading schedule, the Achilles heel of the whole shebang, is 54 days behind, four days more than the last update, this could be worst but as I commented before, this setback is a reflection of the current book that I’m reading being over 1,000 pages, and the return of H.P. Lovecraft’s story collection, a 1,353-page volume, back to my reading rotation gives me slow progress with a big pay off at the end, by the beginning of the 100-day march I should regain the lost ground and then some. My current projections put my total at 51,396 pages that are 13,546 pages less than what I’m comfortable with. The mantra for every morning will continue to be: one step at a time, one page at a time.

I start week thirty-seven with a deficit of 8,086 pages, giving me quite the challenge to balance out this gargantuan number in each of the 15 weeks left on this year of reading. That number for this week is 775 additional pages to the 1,246 pages of the weekly quota.

For the first 500,000 pages, I have only 47,675 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is August 23, 2024, that’s around 20 days earlier than the last projection, my sights are still pointed at March 20, 2023, as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, now I have 31 days to do so, but according to my current projection, the reality is that I’m 553 days behind schedule.

For the second part of the journey or the other 500,000 pages, my weekly pages needed are now 1,412 with a daily average of 202 pages, one daily page less than the last projection.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections put it 6,352 days away, a 62-day gain from the last projection, making the end date July 9, 2040, that’s 3,322 days after the original plan, 38 days less than the last projection. I have to keep reminding myself that my goal is to reach my goal by my 50th birthday, right now, I would be 59 years 1 month, and 4 days old.

To summarize the numbers from my Journey Back.

  • Pages to reach 500,000: 47,675 pages
  • Days to reach 1,000,000: 6,352 days
  • Days behind schedule: 3,322 days

Off to read.

azr.

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A fantastical literary podcast, or, my new collaboration

As I mentioned before, at the beginning of this year a much-anticipated collaboration with our friend over in lo que leemos was finally taking shape. Today I’m glad to inform you that our first episode of the podcast “Estrellas y Dragones” is now available to stream on several platforms, and the video of our conversation is also available thru the YouTube channel of our shared project.

Below you can find the links to the YouTube channel and Spotify.

Estrellas y Dragones on Youtube

Our first episode was about the first omnibus of the adventures of famous heroes of the Warhammer Fantasy universe Gotrek and Felix. We hope to be producing at least one episode per month, in which, we will cover our joint reads of anything and everything surrounding two of our favorites genre, fantasy and science fiction, with the occasional horror novel, just to spice things up.

For now, I´m off to read.

azr

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The, seemingly, impossible task

One of the tasks that was in my January goals was to finish the two books that were put on hold for my holiday reading marathon.

Both books, The Second Omnibus of The Adventures of Gotrek and Felix, and The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy, are over 1,000 pages each, and with 3 days left on the month, I have to rally in order to hit one more of my goals, I have already surpass the monthly quota, but that’s information for tomorrow’s post.

So, today’s targets are as follows.

Quite the task for these upcoming days, but with a high reward at the end of it, I’m more than motivated to get things done.

Off to read

azr

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Of Forgotten Things

As much as I like to use digital mediums to keep track of my reading, currently, I’m combining some simple spreadsheets with the readmore app, nothing beats the ol’ reliable analog tracking in the form of a journal mostly adapted from the Bullet Journal method, and enriched with so many ideas you can find all over the internet.

But to be completely honest, my two reading journals for years fourteen and the current year fifteen, are not quite up to date with all the amazing progress that these couple of years have given me, and to do them justice I have decided to take upon nice self to right the situation. It will be a monumental task, but they surely deserve it, and plus, this will leave a physical manifestation of my beloved project.

The smaller one, with the crescent moon on the cover is my journal for year fourteen, it is a Tsuki Midnight Edition from Notebook Therapy the cool of this particular notebook is that it has black pages and it came with a set of gel pencils. The taller one is my current journal and it is a Classic Squared Notebook from Moleskine, a pretty elegant and reliable brand.

Over the year I have tried to develop a tracking method that is both clear with the data and also integrates some graphic elements to represent my progress.

An element that both journals have is this page depicting the days I have left of reading for the year, but also it doubles as a tracker of how much I read each and every day with a color chart that is easy to read, I treat it as a calendar that you check off each passing day.

A new element that I incorporated into this year´s journal is the colorful spiral that you see above, each square represents a number of pages read, and it helps me visualize my monthly progress in a clear and colorful way, and to be honest, filling those squares is both satisfying and relaxing.

There are other elements integrated into my journals and as always these analog logs are constantly evolving into what I think they need to be to better represent my journey thru reading 1,000,000 pages. I’ll share a little more inside this precious book, and hopefully inspire, as so many beautiful examples that did this for me, to pick up a notebook and scribble away your ideas.

Off to read.

azr

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Numbers: January 24, 2023

Once again my Magic Monday has to turn into a Tuesday, but with things going as they are, I really can’t complain.

My total for the week was an amazing 1,491 pages, that’s 19% more than the week’s quota. The goal of picking up my reading of the second volume of Gotrek and Felix´s Adventures and The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy has worked out beautifully, respectively, I have completed 68% and 45% of each book. The plan is to finish them by January 31, which is about 49 and 70 daily pages of each to get this task.

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 32,399 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s 1,174 pages of progress since last Monday, with this, this year entered my top 5 of the best page total, now the next task, position number 4, is 12,946 pages away. Still, there’s the 3,000-plus week that eludes me, one of the goals for year number fifteen is to have at least one, and finally have the first sigil tattooed on my body.

My reading schedule, the Achilles heel of the whole shebang, is 50 days behind, one day more than last week, this minimal step back does not concern me that much, this is a reflection of the two current books that I’m reading being over 1,000 pages, slow progress with a big pay off at the end, by the end of January I should regain the lost ground and then some. My current projections put my total at 51,112 pages that are 13,830 pages less than what I’m comfortable with. The mantra for every morning will continue to be: one step at a time, one page at a time.

I start week thirty-four with a more manageable deficit of 7,095 pages, giving me quite the challenge to balance out this gargantuan number in each of the 18 weeks left on this year of reading. That number for this week is 540 additional pages to the 1,246 pages of the weekly quota.

For the first 500,000 pages, I have only 51,225 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is September 11,2024 that’s around 6 days earlier than the last projection, my sights are still pointed at March 20, 2023, as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, now I have 56 days to do so, but according to my current projection, the reality is that I’m 596 days behind schedule.

For the second part of the journey or the other 500,000 pages, my weekly pages needed are now 1,423 with a daily average of 203 pages, one daily page less than the last projection.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections put it 6,414 days away, a 21-day gain from the last projection, making the end date August 16, 2040, that’s 3,360 days after the original plan, 3 days less than the last projection. I have to keep reminding myself that my goal is to reach my goal by my 50th birthday, right now, I would be 59 years 2 months, and 11 days old.

To summarize the numbers from my Journey Back.

  • Pages to reach 500,000: 51,225 pages
  • Days to reach 1,000,000: 6,414 days
  • Days behind schedule: 3,360 days

Off to read.

azr.

0

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