BEDA 1: The Rules

     While I waited for two shots of pure, hair-raising, caffeinated bliss to shoot forth from my rumbling espresso machine this afternoon after church, I couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to take care of some urgent business today. Something of cosmic importance that would forever shape the history of life, the universe, and everything. Then, as a dramatically-timed kettle whistled on my stove top, I remembered--today is August 1st. August 1st is a day in August. I promised myself and the blogging bunnies that I would Blog Every Day in August (or BEDA). BEDA is upon us!
    So, as I sip my espresso-diluted-in-hot-water, I begin the task of writing something (ideally) halfway interesting or entertaining daily, and posting it in my little corner of the internet, daily for an entire month. I usually shy away from these kinds of challenges, as I generally fail at accomplishing them. For example, many of my friends participate and "win" National Novel Writing Month every November. "Winners" write manuscripts of 50,000 words or more during the month of November. I tried NaNoWriMo way back in 2008 right after I finished a draft of a "novel" I call the Story That Shall Not Be Named. Sick of rewriting and revising the Story That Shall Not Be Named, I wanted to work on something fresh and figured NaNoWriMo would adequately motivate me to start a new project. Not so much. Turns out a love of the delete key, and on-the-go revisions are not conducive to banging out 50,000 words in 30 days.
     But BEDA will be different.
     BEDA requires no plot outlining or character development or unreachable word count goals. Rule-lover that I am, I have devised some rules to follow for successful BEDA-ing.

Five Habits of Highly Somewhat Successful BEDA-ers:


1. Posts must be no shorter than 200 words.
2. Posts may include material not originally written for a blog, such as excerpts from stories-in-progress or essays.
3. No posting about not having anything to write.
4. Sunday posts may suck since Sunday is a day of rest.
5. Sunday posts should include a list of books read during preceding week.

Books read last week:
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (third reread)
The Witches by Roald Dahl (millionth reread . . .a childhood favorite)

See you tomorrow, blog readers!