One of the beloved structures for people who are writing weblogs is to do a project where they post on a single topic every day for a year.

It's a strategy that works quite well if you are in a place to focus on something for that length of time. You are writing frequently enough that you are likely to work your way through most of the ins and outs of that subject over the course of a year, but since you have only promised to write for a year, you know that the project will eventually come to an end.

Here's a look at these writing tasks around the internet, with a special focus on any that I can find which have local participants.

Local projects

365 Brand New Days. Kristen DCamp, a law school student, is finishing up a project with daily post about something brand new that she is doing for the first time. I wrote this up in June at day 153; we're now at day 354 (bumper pool). The highlight is clearly day 350: "Graduate Law School." Congratulations are in order - the daily posts got shorter and shorter over time as graduation day got nearer.

365 Days of Kale. Ann Arbor nutritionist and registered dietitian Diana Dyer started this weblog two years ago in the depths of the Michigan winter, writing with recipes and growing tips for this nutritious green which is available year round. "It may take me more than a year to actually make 365 postings, but let's get started now!" I count 68 postings over two years so far, a good start.

From around the net

A, 365 days of. "I'm Jonathan Klinger and I'm spending one full year driving a 1930 Model A everywhere I go." He's fixing a muffler today; the project started in October 2010.

Anime characters, 365 days of. A daily brief review, with illustrations, of the author's favorite Japanese animation characters.

Dresses: A new dress a day. Equipped with a daily $1 budget, Marisa Lynch takes flea market and thrift store finds and makes a new outfit each day.

Music: 365 days of cool and strange and often obscure audio selections. WFMU radio is the host for two years (2003 and 2007) of daily musical oddities. Listen to the robotic tones of Bent Bolt & The Nuts singing "The Mechanical Man" from January 3, 2007, and just imagine that you have one of these to look forward to each day.

Self portraits. This Flickr photo pool is full of participants who post a photo of themselves each and every day.

Skull-A-Day. Noah Scalin is on his fourth year of posting an illustration of a skull each and every day.

Slow cooking, 365 days of. A year worth of recipes cooked in the crockpot; after the project was done, Karen Petersen self-published a cookbook with the 250 recipes that worked out well enough to want to make again.

Slow cooking, a year of. A second run at the same topic, this one by Stephanie O’Dea. More crockpot recipes, these are primarily gluten-free.

Trash, 365 days of. A 2008 project to throw nothing away. "So starting tonight at midnight, I am not going to throw anything away for 365 days in order to see what my impact is."

If you want to do this project yourself

A small number of suggestions, if you were to look at taking on this project yourself.

Figure out if someone has already done this in the area you are interested in. These projects can be an inspiration, as the Julie/Julia Project of cooking daily from Julia Child's cookbook was for a decade of food bloggers.

If you need some structure, check out a book by Noah Scalin (of skull-a-day fame), 365: A Daily Creativity Journal. "The book offers 365 project prompts to kick start your creativity, plus plenty of room for journaling, sketching, and jotting down ideas."

Edward Vielmetti writes something every workday for AnnArbor.com, whether he has a creative idea or not.