Fall 2024 Read-a-Thon: Team Eagles

[Ciara]

There's no need to juggle pencils. We only need three more, probably two once people finish filling in their page counts/audio hours from Wednesday & Thursday. I'm confident that we will get there. Yesterday was an inexplicably low page count day for me, I didn't even break 300--I think because Unspeakable Home is some pretty bleak, dense prose. But I'm reading both Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare (for EGOT) & The Plot (for a book about books) today & flying through them. I have a date tonight, but I might be able to finish them both before then.

UPDATED:
a book about books: The Plot (Ciara)
title with 5 words or more: The Dagger & the Forbidden Heir (Emma)
over 500 pages: Star Trek: Destiny (Isabella)
about nature: Where the Forest Meets the Stars (Traci)
animal on the cover: Within the Hollow Heart (Emma) OR The Fox Wife (Ciara)
memoir/biography/autobiography: My Side of the River (Traci)
set in the Southern hemishphere: Between Us (Traci)
play/screenplay/poetry: King Lear (J)
protag with a career in the arts: With You Forever (Nancy)
title starts with EGOT: Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare (Ciara)
contains map or illustrations: Words of Radiance (Jillian)

[Traci]

After trying to go to bed last night, I really wanted to know what happened in my book, so finished Where the Forest Meets the Stars at 1am (not smart, oh well). So I'm on to Between Us today!

[Nancy]

I finished With You Forever and put it under Animal on the Cover so we can get our A in History.

I'm super busy the rest of today and tomorrow but will be travelling all day Sunday so expect to finish at least The Life Impossible and possibly Everything for You.

[Jillian]

I have around 160 pages left for "contains map or illustrations: Words of Radiance" so I will be finished sometime today.

[Ciara]

UPDATED
* title with 5 words or more: Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare (Ciara)
over 500 pages: Star Trek: Destiny (Isabella)
* set on an island: The Life Impossible (Nancy)
* set in the Southern hemishphere: Between Us (Traci)
play/screenplay/poetry: King Lear (J)
* contains map or illustrations: Words of Radiance (Jillian)

The asterisks indicate people who have checked in & confirmed that they are confident they will finish these specific books by Sunday.

Emma, I know you have some books in progress as well! If you finish one & there are still unclaimed prompts, go ahead & grab one if it fits! Or give a shout & I can help move things around to find a way to fit it in.

But we also do still need two pencils, I believe, so extra reading that doesn't end up fitting a prompt is more than welcome!

Isabella, you haven't checked in or updated pencils since Wednesday. Everything okay? Are you still good for the 500-page prompt or should we start shifting things around to cover it?

[Jillian]

Ciara, I’ll finish War and Peace tomorrow if we need it for the 500+ prompt.

[J]

Finished Holly yesterday. It qualifies for a fair number of prompts, but not the ones we need, so it is not listed for anything ATM. I was thinking that it was 500+ pages, when I started it, but it is slightly shorter than 500.

I'm concerned for my friend Isabella Taylor. Her posts on the first page now state (Deleted User). I hope she hasn't left our group out of fear of failure. I think we all know how hard it can be to finish a book that we aren't enjoying and there shouldn't be any pressure to do so.

As a group, we have finished some big books. So, moving things around to cover that prompt shouldn't be any issue.

[Jillian]

J wrote: "Finished Holly yesterday. It qualifies for a fair number of prompts, but not the ones we need, so it is not listed for anything ATM. I was thinking that it was 500+ pages, when I st..."

I'm seeing Holly used for "A book featuring a protagonist who has a career in the arts" on the spreadsheet.

I'm also seeing that Isabella has deleted her account, so I'll complete the 500+ prompt.

I think, we will have enough pencils by Sunday.

If I'm doing the math right once we read 33 more pages we will earn another pencil and just over 20 more hours for a pencil for audio. I know, I'll add 10.5 hours to audio once I finish War and Peace (I definitely speed it up but it still counts for the full time).

[J]

Possible rearrangement:

Deathly Hallows (Travel) -> Over 500 pgs
Wedding People (Primary Colors) -> Travel
Holly -> Primary Colors

We look good to finish the challenge. I'm working hard on my play. :)

[Ciara]

Oh no! I hope Isabella deleted her account for reasons other than the readathon. It's supposed to be fun, nothing for anyone to feel stressed out or ashamed over!

J, I saw that you finished Holly & I moved some things around so it would count for the "character has a career in the arts" prompt. I just finished the book I'm reading & can go ahead & read a book about travel so we can move the Harry Potter book that has already been read into the 500+ pages prompt. I have several to choose from & two days to do it, which is more than enough time.

So J, if you can commit to finishing King Lear, that will cover the play/screenplay/poetry prompt & we will be all set! Then it will just be a matter of pencils. We need two more.

[J]

Yes. I'm making good progress with Lear, just needed a tasty coffee and some free time (first day off from work).

I am also reading Five Weeks in a Balloon, which is a short travel book. I should be on pace to finish both (Lear today and Five weeks tomorrow) but I will prioritize Lear for sure.

I was glad to see that Holly worked for so many prompts, I was really just reading it for pencils.

[Ciara]

Okay, I just shifted things around a bit. We only have four prompts left to complete, plus two pencils! We can do it, even though we're down a man! Go, Team Eagles!

[Jillian]

I finished Words of Radiance and travel was the only open spot it fit. I went ahead and add the pages for that book to today's count. I'll just be working towards pencils for the rest of the read-a-thon (I got to finish my last book for the individual challenge).

[Ciara]

Jillian wrote: "I finished Words of Radiance and travel was the only open spot it fit. I went ahead and add the pages for that book to today's count. I'll just be working towards pencils for the re..."

That works out just fine, Jillian! I assigned the prompts based on what people knew they could finish reading in the time allotted, but obviously if someone finishes reading something else that fits into an open prompt, no sense in leaving it open! Everything we read counts toward pencils! I'm about a quarter of the way through the book I chose for the travel prompt, but I'll just finish for pencils. I'll probably have time to read one more book before the end of the day tomorrow as well, just for pencils. I'll try to pick something that reads fast but has a hefty page count, something thriller-adjacent.

[J]

Finished King Lear!

I might have spotted an issue. It looks like we have Madwoman listed twice. I don't see any other errors (under Literature as a book featuring a Teacher/Student/Writer and un Geography for Taking Place on an Island.)

We might have two prompts left to fill.

[Ciara]

Oh, yeah, I was moving things around to make space for people's in progress reads, & I moved Madwoman to teacher/student/writer to open up island for The Life Impossible, which Nancy is reading. But there's something wrong with my computer & it inexplicably crashes like five times a day. It crashed & it didn't save those edits, & I forgot to go in & make them again when I rebooted again (I was updating a lot of stuff).

So don't worry, it's covered! & if for some reason Nancy doesn't finish her book, I will be done with Splinters in about half an hour, & that is also a book about a writer, so we can just move Madwoman back to island & slot Splinters into the student/teacher/writer spot.

Traci, you've got Between Us on the completed page but it's marked In Progress? But it's also not on the planning page anymore? Assuming that one is actually completed, we are done with all our prompts! (Well, once I finish Splinters.) So it's just a matter of catching up on pencils!

[Traci]

Sorry, yes, it's completed!

[Erica]

Noticed you guys finished the report card too. We (knights) added a second term to the report card for continuing the prompts if you want to do the same to your spreadsheet.

[Nancy]

Sorry I totally forgot to log yesterday's pages but looks like you didn't need them anyway! Go team!

I will try to check in between flights tomorrow but I'm not sure I'll have time. If not I'll log what's left on Monday.

[Ciara]

We do need them! We still need one more pencil! Though we are sooooo close!

[Jillian]

We have 9.752 pencils so we are close to the last one. I also saw that pages and hours are added together to get the total amount of pencils.

I have a lot of cooking to do today so I should be able to log several audio hours.

[Ciara]

Today is Mabon so I have a lot to do, & I am not an audiobook person (in case you couldn't tell from my pages versus hours on the pencil tracking page). But I do try to read a minimum of 250 pages a day as a matter of course, so I will do my best! I'm steamrolling through my to-do list as we speak so I can clear the evening for reading.

[Nancy]

Ah I was confused because we have the A in Art even though we need one more pencil. I added my pages and hours so far today, I will check in again between flights 1 and 2 (to get from Texas to Serbia requires 3 different flights!) to log whatever I read on flight 1.

[Ciara]

I just logged the book I finished & that pushed us over the top! We finished every prompt & managed to get all ten pencils even though a team member dropped out! Awesome job, everyone!

[Jillian]

Well done! I went ahead and read a shorter book today (War and Peace gets so boring maybe I'll finish it tomorrow).

[Traci]

Nice job everyone!

[J]

Good work, everybody!

I don't think I ever had a group project for school ever go this well.

[Ciara]

Some super-teams added an extra term, but given the constraints we were under, we did AWESOME! A+ & gold stars all around!