1000 Nights
Less than a week ago, I completed my latest and longest Quest. It was inspired by Ray Bradbury, and took me 1000 Nights to complete. (2.7 years)
In this video he floats the idea…what if…for the next 1000 Nights, you read a poem, a short story and an essay a night?
YES! I thought.
At the time I was a reader, but of novels. I hadn’t read much poetry since school. I’d read maybe a handful of short stories. And essays? Egh. So it seemed like an interesting kind of gauntlet. One likely to change me in ways that I couldn’t predict. (Plus, I may have been charmed by Ray.)
I started it off calling it the 1000 Nights Challenge. But the more I read, and the further I travelled along this epic reading path, it no longer felt like ‘challenge’ captured the spirit of my approach. No, I was on a Quest, picking writers to explore, like it was a big adventure—one of my choosing.
It’s been an incredible chance to weave all over the wordy world. To see what I love, what I hate, and what leaves me cold. I’ve found writers whose work I’ve wanted to double down on, and then challenged myself to branch out, again and again.
I recorded my own reading here, and also wrote a wrap up blog post with 10 things that helped, 3 resources, and a few overall favourites.
