I love to read and I love to gamify my life. I like to play for “imaginary internet points” and just generally find new ways to trim down my ever-growing TBR (to be read) list. So, when a friend of mine introduced me to the and the Orilium Fall Equinox Magical Readathon, I knew this was going to be something I would enjoy.
The Orilium Readathon occurs twice a year for one-month at a time (there are some bonus activities like the Year of Aeldia challenge, House monthly challenges and other side quests), the Autumn Equinox in September and Spring Equinox in April. So, while the “requirements” can look a little duanting, its just for a month at a time, so I find it doable.
The concept for the readathon is a fantasy world called Aeldia where there is a university/academy of study called Orilium where you create your character, pick your calling (there’s about 25 or so) and then your calling will determining which prompts you will have to complete in order to earn your “imaginary internet points”. You also choose a house which will allow you to participate in a House book club selection as well.
There are other activities like “reading sprints” hosted by the creator on YouTube where you can “read along” live. It sounds a little odd but its a lot of fun. In between sprints (usually 30-45 minutes at a time with an on-screen timer), G plays games and gives out points. These imaginary internet points can then be used in the Emporium to purchase Scrolls — these can be bought for swapping out a book for another book if you can’t find anything that fits the challenge, for a book you DNF (did not finish), if you started a book before the readathon started, etc.
I started this challenge last September and participated in the Spring as well so I am on my second year. My character is now an apprentice!
You may be asking what does this reading challenge have to do with stationery!?!?
Since the challenge requires keeping track of points, the books you’re reading, page counts, imaginary points, etc. I, of course, need a dedicated notebook to keep track of everything this month. And I decided to use one of my handmade field notes (not a branded notebook so its lowercase!) to track my adventure this year.
I had made a notebook from mostly black and white papers which I thought would be a good basis for this fantasy-themed, book project. I plan on having a tutorial video posted in a week or so on how to make your own junk-journal-style field notes.
Over the weekend, I added my prompts, book selections and decorated the book with stamps, washi and stickers. I left blank pages to fill in my reviews and any other writings I want to mix into the project.
If you decide to try this readathon challenge too, you can find in the House of the Arcane in the Discord group and my online name is Wellapptdesk!