Weekly Geeks #9 Part One

And this week’s theme is Challenges.

1. If you participate in any challenges, get organized! Update your lists, post about any you haven’t mentioned, add links of reviews to your lists if you do that, go to the challenge blog if there is one and post there, etc.

2. If you don’t participate in any challenges, then join one! There’s a good selection of possibilities over on my right hand sidebar (scroll down) where I list those I participate in. There’s also A Novel Challenge, a blog that keeps track of all sorts of reading challenges.

3. Towards the end of the week, write a wrap-up post about getting your challenges organized OR if you’re joining your first challenge, post about that any time during the week. Once you have your post up, come back and sign Mr Linky with the link to the specific post, not just to your blog.

This week's theme thrills me. I'm a challenge-addict. My first challenge was 2007's Spring Reading Thing. In 2007, I completed 18 challenges. So far, in 2008, I've completed 31. I'm signed up for 48 more. Though some of those aren't over until 2009. And some of those are perpetual challenges. Still, with the year only about half over, I'm sure a few more will slip in. (Like Carl's R.I.P challenge in the fall.)

Here are some of the challenges I'm hosting:

• 42 Sci-Fi Challenge
  
• Arthurian Challenge
• Cardathon Challenge
• Celebrate the Author Challenge
• Hans Christian Andersen Challenge
• Heart of A Child Challenge
• Initials Challenge
• It's The End of the World Challenge
• Nineteenth Century Women Writers Challenge
• YA Romance Challenge July 2008 - February 2009
• Young Readers Challenge

Here are some of the mini-challenges I'm hosting:

Austen Mini-Challenge, Inklings Mini-Challenge...
Bronte Sisters Mini-Challenge, Charles Dickens Mini-Challenge, Alexandre Dumas Mini-Challenge, Elizabeth Gaskell Mini-Challenge, and the Mark Twain Mini-Challenge.
New! Stephenie Meyer Mini-Challenge.

If you're looking for advice on reading challenges--how to manage them--please read my Tips on Challenges.

Some of you may not be familiar with reading challenges at all. I'll cover that here as well.

A reading challenge is typically hosted by one person, one blog. That one person sets the rules and guidelines for the challenge. They may help facilitate participants by setting up special sites, pages, posts related to the challenge. They might even have their own yahoo group to help build the participants into a community. Most reading challenges give participants rules as to how many books required and the deadline for reading those books. 6 books for 6 months, for example. 12 books for 12 months, etc. An average book challenge might ask readers to read anywhere from 6 books to 12 books. (Some are larger like the 888 Challenge asks for 56 books minimum. And the A-to-Z challenge asks for 52 books. The 100+ book challenge obviously wants at least 100 books.) Some are seasonal (spring, winter, fall, summer). Some are topical (science fiction, fantasy, thrillers, mysteries, romance, etc). Some are annual events. Some are perpetual--never ending. Each challenge is unique because they are hosted by different people. So the rules do vary.

A mini-challenge is a small, focused reading challenge. A miniature reading challenge where the minimum number of books is much smaller than that of most full-sized reading challenges. (One, two, or three instead of six, eight, twelve, etc.)

I'll be posting again on the subject later on in the week. Knowing me, probably more than once.

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