illusionofjoy | A writing challenge (of sorts)

I am honestly disgusted with myself for my lack of creativity over the past...well, too fucking long. True, I'm recording some stuff (no promise of a new album anytime soon - nyah!), but my writing output is too low. I used to write all the time - my journal archives are a testament to that.

I never said I wrote anything great or earth-shattering.

So, I want out of this rut. As such, I came up with an idea: for however long it takes, I will listen to every single CD in my collection in alphabetical order from beginning to end and write something about each one. Nothing necessarily formal or critical, but just something relating to the album, even if it's just something personal to me. Granted, this may prove to be an endurance test at times, given the sheer amount of shit permeating my collection. Hell, it may inspire me to actually get rid of said shit, what with having to suffer through it for this project. Of course, once something enters my collection, it rarely ever leaves, namely because I'm always thinking something along the lines of, "well, what if I need it to play when I DJ somewhere?" That kind of thinking is great when one is the music director at college radio station, but not so productive when one rarely DJs anymore and finds oneself lacking in space on one's CD shelves.

Of course, the thought to immediately come to mind is: do I really want to put myself through this? Granted, it would give me an excuse to write journal entries which can be mirrored on my Last.fm profile (and yes, I'd scrobble all of this stuff to prove I actually was listening - god help me), but I can imagine myself getting disgusted midway through the project and saying, "enough! Who wants to buy my whole collection so I can just start again from scratch?"

Still, the idea does have merit. Every album is a trip down memory lane, for better or for worse, so I likely wouldn't be at a loss for things to write about. So, who wants to dare me to go through with this? Better yet - who wants to join me in this with their own CD collection? We could provide moral support for each other (or make fun of the awful things we bought as teenagers/the awful things relatives have bought for us).

Here are the rules I made up for myself:

Every album must be listened to, including compilations and soundtracks. Start with A, work your way through ZZ Top and then finish with the comps.
Everything must be scrobbled to Last.fm to prove you actually listened to it.
Singles and EPs may be skipped, if desired. One song in one day is too little.
Multi-disc albums may be split up into one disc per day. No one should attempt to listen to all of The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs in one sitting.
For every album listened to, a journal entry must be written about it. Subject matter is open-ended, but must in some way relate to the album at hand.

If I actually decide to go through with this, you'll all know...