2011 Million Word Read & Review Fan Fiction Challenge
Sponsored by Dr. Cullen's Love Shack . com

"The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn't matter."
~Edward Albee

Hello and Welcome! I'm so glad you've found or maybe stumbled into this little Fan Fiction Reading Challenge! Reading is important, whether it's published literature or self published fan fiction. By reading, we learn about ourselves, about others, and expand our vision of the world around us. The power of words is incredible and they inspire each of us in different ways making us both the teacher and the student within our small space in the universe.

For 2011, I saw that GoodReads . com is encouraging people to read by creating a book reading challenge and I know several people who have decided to take that on. However, in the world of fan fiction, stories aren't published in the same way; they're published a single chapter at a time, which makes it difficult to keep track of how many stories you've read. Not to mention that the currency of the fandom is valued in feedback, not money. So, this is what I decided to take on, create a reading challenge that would reward the reader as well as the writer, thus my challenge was born.

Now, unlike the Goodreads challenge, I'm not letting you pick your goal. It's a million words, plain and simple, just because I liked the number. Based on the addicts that visit my blog posting on Fridays, a million words isn't even a challenge, so it makes me wonder just how fast can you get to a million? Hmmm... we shall see. ;)

Here are the rules:

1. You have until December 31, 2011 to read one million words of any fan fiction you choose.

2. To get credit for the words you've read from a story you must submit a review to the author for each chapter of the story that you're claiming.

3. And since I'm neither a mind reader nor psychic, you must also submit a review to this story post, simply stating the story title, author, and chapter(s) you reviewed, that way I can find out the number of words to add to your total. If you reviewed chapters 11-15 of a story then all of that info can all be submitted to the challenge in one post. All story reviews must be from January 1st thru December 31st of 2011 to qualify. Also, you need to know that, this challenge is not limited to fanfiction . net. Authors publish their words all over cyberspace, so I don't want to create a location limit. Even on their own blogs, most of them have a way to comment on their chapter, please leave your reviews there and then come here to get credit.

4. I will try to post the word count totals for those participating each Sunday. It will simply be listed here as a story update that way everyone can see where they are. If you want to be notified when the latest totals are up, just put this story on alert. :)

5. Since this is not a contest, I'd love to be able to offer an incentive for all of those who actually complete the challenge; however I'm not sure what that incentive will be or if we'll even be able to offer one yet. What exactly do you give to people who are reading digital media? Most of us here at Dr. Cullen's Love Shack are pretty creative, so who knows what we'll come up with. Stay tuned.

So, are you ready to take me on? I hope so. I think this will be fun and I'm looking forward to seeing who joins me. My contact information is in my profile description if you want to find me on facebook or twitter.

Now go READ! :)