Why bother?

This is for my own edification.  However, because I live in the twenty-first century, it is only right that I conduct this ritual of self-involvement in a public forum.  The purpose of creating the blog is a new year's resolution.  Two resolutions actually. 

One, I want to write more.  I write a lot for my job, but that is very fact-driven and not exactly creative.  I am not hoping to write the next great american novel, but expository, creative writing would be a nice change of pace. 

Two, I want to listen to my music collection.  I looked up and found I have a massive amount of recorded music right now, and I am a little overwhelmed by it.  Even though I tend to play music throughout the day, regardless of what I am doing, I don't always listen to what is being played.  Songs go by and I barely notice them.  Or some songs just don't get played.

So in order to address both those shortcomings, I am going to listen to ten songs a day, and I am then going to write about them.  I am not so out-of-touch with my own laziness to believe I will do this without fail every day.  However, I want to set the bar high enough that it has meaning and does not just fall by the wayside.  So I am setting the goal at 4 posts per week, ten songs per post.  Right now, I haven't told anyone I am doing this, so for the most part I am writing just for myself.  However, at the end of the first week, I will let some people know this is up and running.  This is to keep me honest and try to keep me to the pace I set.  Also, if you don't write as if you will be read, you don't try to write well.

And so, even though I know how this will work, I am spelling it out here for those readers who do not have direct access to my thoughts.  The goal is to listen to all of my music, but I want to do it in a way that brings some variety to the experience - so the list will be sorted alphabetically by song.  There was no good way to randomize every song in the library so I could avoid repetition, and sorting by artist or album would mean talking about one album per post and that isn't really the goal.  The goal is to listen to songs and write in reaction to those songs.  Not necessarily a review, but a response.  However, since going through the songs alphabetically means it could take years before I reached the z's, and quite possibly a month of songs starting with the word "I," I am going to alter the alphabet a little.  Day 1 I will start in the a's, Day 2 I will move to the b's, and so on, until I wrap around and we can start back at "a."  This may lead to trouble later on as we will not finish all letters at the same time, but we will address that when we get there.  I will also need to find a way to accomodate new songs that I obtain after I have passed their spot in the listening order.  However, these are details that can be worked out once I have established that I actually will keep doing this beyond some brief Mr. Toad-like passion.

So that is the plan - tomorrow we will start with our first ten songs.