100 Days 2025 starts on Sunday!
Where has the time gone?! It’s almost June, 2025.
My gast is utterly flabbered.
When I started writing this blog, I thought I would look back at my announcement before the 2024 project; What was happening then? Did I feel as surprised by the passage of time? I found I could easily transplant the first few lines of the blog here, as if I had just written them…
Though I feel I say this to you every year, it has been quite a year. I often wonder (and am often asked!) if I will have the energy to run the project again when it comes time to start the prep, and yet here I am unable not to. I spent last night, and into the wee hours, updating the website and getting the registration form up and running, and what a treat it was re-watching the crowdfunder video, hearing and reading the words of some of our 2020 project participants.
No less true now, the updating and pouring through old copy, the difference this year is that I wasn’t able to get going until 5 days before the project starts. When I talked to a well-meaning friend about the project and was asked “why don’t you just let it go this year?” I took a wee while to think it through.
Reminding myself of the “Why?”
To remind myself of my ‘why?’, I re-read some earlier blog posts; my 100(ish) Days of Diabetes made me quite emotional, the Silly Hats of Lockdown was joyful, and I was reminded of some good resources about the benefits of creativity in 2020 feels very different; but let’s look forward.
It got me thinking about what inspired me in 2017 when I signed up for the NZ based project run by Emma Rogan. I had immediately booked an event space for an Edinburgh exhibition (to be held on what would be Day 103) and I was naïve enough and therefore determined enough, to do it; I had such a great time (You can read about that in Why Am I Doing This?).
It was the Crowdfunder video (again), reading comments and thank-you-emails from our community, and finding enquiries about the 2025 project (on our rather neglected social media), that made me realise that there might be someone out there wanting to do a project like this, who needs the community to get them moving and keep them going; and found that THEY are the why - YOU are the why.
So here we go again…
Project banner, showing work from our 2023 participants
A Reminder of the “What?”
Whether this is your first 100 Days Project - Welcome! - or your 2nd or more - Welcome Back! - I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you of some key things, before you tell yourself there’s no time to prepare.
There are 2 simple rules:
#1 Repeat a simple creative task everyday for 100 days
#2 Record each day's effort
It's that simple, and that difficult!
Choose one creative 'exercise', and then repeat it every day for 100 days.
Record each daily effort and see what evolves in the work and in the self over time.
It is up to you whether you want to share this with the community, or keep it just for you, but the project is here, the community is here, to keep you going when you need it.
Some advice about “how?”
Here are my tips for getting started and keeping going;
Give yourself useful constraints such as time, medium, subject, or a combination of things
Pick something you can do on your busiest day
Remember it is about the process, some days will be better than others, that's ok
Participant Page - NEW for 2025
It’s been known for me to spend 2 hours a day on social media during the 100 Days Project trying to share stories, reply to comments, share posts, as well as posting the #DailyCount. For various reasons, I am choosing to spend less time on Social Media, and was also frustrated last year when I was missing so many peoples projects due to algorithms choosing what I saw.
To help with this, we (me and the lovely Alexis) will be building a Participant Page where we will share a list of everyone taking part, a bit about their project focus, and if they choose, a link to where others can find their work - social media, website, blog, etc.
I hope this will help everyone feel more connected to the project and to each other.
Despite this decision, and with Day One only a few days away, it is still a very busy week, and it’s the opening of the Graduate Showcase at the end of the week; so there is a lot to be getting on with. If you are in Edinburgh and fancy getting those creative juices going, why not visit Edinburgh College of Art and see the Graduate Showcase - open to the public from the 30th May - 6th June?
Maybe I will see you there.