07 May, 2018

#AtoZChallenge Reflections: A New Hope

A long time ago in a galaxy (well, continent) far, far away, I did the 2016 A to Z challenge. My goal was to re-start my blogging habit and hopefully find some new blogs to read. I succeeded.

Then life happened, and we moved to China, and I regressed. In 2017 the A to Z challenge was not designed in a way conducive for anonymous blogs such as myself to remain anonymous, so I did not participate.

This year, thanks to the efforts of the A-to-Z team - I know it was a lot of work to organize and maintain, so truly, sincere thanks! - I was again able to participate, link up, and connect with other blogs without breaching my own security. Similar goal to 2016: build better consistency in my blogging habit, and connect with others.

I made sure I visited a few new blogs each day - some days because of the time difference, only one new blog - and after a few days I had quite a list of blogs that I liked and wanted to visit daily. I did not make it to all of these blogs every day, but will be back later!

I hope the Master List will be available for at least a couple months. I think it will be, if I understand "road trip" correctly, but I know nothing about this road trip yet except that it was mentioned in 2 posts that I read on the A to Z challenge page, and I don't understand what one needs to do to participate. Hint: for events connected to the A to Z challenge, a separate page would be helpful

That said, I hope to do this challenge every year. In 2016, I had each post planned out including images, and most of them were written with time to spare. This year I winged it - wung it? - and still survived! I was blessed with limited work to interfere with my life and time, so I could take my time and visit blogs and comment. I made a point to visit at least one genre each day, that I would not typically search for. THAT was a great idea on my part. I highly recommend it. Great writers exist in all realms!

Every year is different though. Who knows what 2019 will be like? (Yikes. Just writing "2019" felt like a knife in my neck.)

What about you? If you did the A to Z challenge, did you meet your goals? If you didn't, did it keep you away from AtoZ blogs?

18 comments:

  1. Nice A-Z wrap up here! We enjoyed it a lot. This was our first year participating and we managed to visit a ton of blogs and engage with our audience in a new way. Can't wait for 2019. (That felt strange to write...wow, you're right!) We didn't get to ALL the blogs either but look forward to visiting them the rest of the year.

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    1. Yes! I think, in addition to writing a post two times a week, I will focus on reading other blogs more often. When I started blogging, I visited a bunch of blogs every time I was online. That was in 2011 and ... 3 jobs ago. Now I'll have to be diligent!

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  2. It's been lovely getting to (anonymously) know you over the Challenge and to read about your very interesting life. I'm relieved to have my blog posts back to two a week - the daily posts were a killer with all the commenting and visiting and reading - but such a great way to meet new people. I'm already pondering 2019's Challenge - I think I may be certifiable!

    Leanne | www.crestingthehill.com.au
    AtoZ Reflections and Farewell

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    1. I haven't started pondering 2019 yet. Did I mention we move this month? My entire life will be different in a year, so I can't imagine, but I *will* do the challenge.

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  3. Sadly I didn't do the challenge and I didn't visit very many of the blogs. I do hope to get back to not only writing on my own blog but visiting people I like. Such as YOU!

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    1. I hope you increase your blogging, too. I try to visit every time you write, and I've noticed it has dwindled. You've had a year of great change, am I right? Maybe things will settle into routine and we'll see you more on the blogosphere.

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  4. Congratulations on successfully completing the A-Z Challenge. Maybe I'll do it next year. When I get to the 23rd letter maybe I'll write about why "wung" should be the past participle of "wing".
    Weirdly the Oxford English Dictionary already gives "wung" as an alternative spelling of "pung", an obsolete word for "purse".

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    1. I would love to read about "wung" as a suitable conjugation of "wing". Maybe you could set a theme of words that aren't, but should be.

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  5. Congratulations on a successful challenge. I'm glad you got to participate this year. This was my fourth year playing, and like you I winged it, which of course means April was crazy fun. But definitely requiring recovery time. There's never a chance to visit all the blogs participating during the actual challenge, at least if one plans on eating and sleeping, so now it's time to do a more leisurely jaunt through blogland. Thank heavens!

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    1. I have to say, the daily lists were great for me. I loved that they allowed people to list their genre there. As I said, I tried to hit a new genre each time, in addition to new blogs.

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  6. From what I understand, the list remains up until at least the end of the year. And the road trip is just a name for those who decide to explore the blogs on the list outside of April. There are no real rules to it.

    Congrats for making it through the challenge. It was much nicer to have a list this year, wasn't it?

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    1. Loved the list. When I did it in 2016, there was one master list, but it was crap shoot going to people's pages to see if something new was up.
      Thanks for the info about the Road Trip!

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  7. Since the Master List is a Google document, you can download it and keep it as long as you like. Whether they keep it up or not, you will have it.

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  8. Congratulations on successfully completing the challenge. I'm only just discovering your blog now, from a link at Cresting the Hill. I've followed via Feedly and will be browsing your A-Z posts over the coming weeks.

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    1. Thanks, Tizzy! Which A to Z blog are you? I'll look you up, too.

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    2. The link in the master list isn't working... fyi.

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    3. Found you through theme reveal. Starting digging...

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