"Guess I have to change my dress now"
This is a reflections post for the a-z blogging challenge. I am a survivor of this challenge for the second year in a row. The trick to surviving the A-Z challenge is finding the key to your imagination and to stay committed. Once you have done that this key will open locks to doors that you might have never found before. You will discover new blogs, and make new friends, but most important, you will get the chance to party everyday (except Sundays) for an entire month with hundreds of other bloggers. You get to connect with others through the alphabet and learn about all sorts of interesting things.
Last year I tackled the challenge on a daily basis and really had no theme worked out. This year, I planned my posts in advance, decided on a theme and even had my own challenge mascot. For those of you that are doing the challenge next year, I recommend scheduling your posts in advance. This saved me so much time and if I needed to make changes it was easy to go find the scheduled post and edit it.
What I really loved were the little buttons that enabled me to easily check out each blog that was doing the challenge. I wish that it had been there from the beginning of the challenge because once I saw that I could get the buttons and downloaded them on to my blog it made traveling so much easier. Even though the challenge is over, I still want to use them so I hope that will be possible.
This year I was very happy to see that the advertising and inactive blogs were found and eliminated from the list. Who ever managed that, GOOD JOB! It was so irritating last year to run into those dead ends. It was also pleasant to see that most bloggers kept their posts short and easy to read. Most bloggers also removed Captcha -Word Verification, and made it easy to comment and follow their blogs. I think this is largely due to the great advice that was handed down through the A-Z blog which is something that I also loved this year. Having a point of reference for the challenge helped me out a lot.
On a final note I would like to thank all those wonderful people that worked so hard to make this challenge so great. I had a blast and now that I have found my imagination key, I plan on using it again next year. I hope to see all of you there on the other side of the ABC door.
16 comments:
i tries to write my posts in advance too, but ended up writing three of four on the Sunday, and then winging it. Next year I'm defintitely going to schedule all of them. Definitely.
mood
Moody Writing
I must prepare in advance next year. It was a little stressful hammering out post early in the morning. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun and met several new bloggers.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Eat Live Move
i need to learn so much more for next year--i don't even know about the button thing--great job you did
This was my first year and, thankfully, I had a theme and scheduled many posts ahead of time. I realized I like the idea of a theme and may work that into my blog more.
A theme and pre-scheduled posts is the only way to go!
The team worked together to find the bad links, inactive blogs, and ad sites and I removed them from the list. We still missed some - we'll do better next year!
Congratulations on finishing the challenge and sharing your reflections. (Love your Minnie!)I'm following you now and hopefully, next year, we will do it again!
Well done for completing the challenge! I wasn't an A2Z blogger this year but I was following the challenge and greatly enjoyed everyone's posts. I think you did amazingly well and thanks for the great tips for everyone (like me) considering this for the future. :-)
Hi Siv .. when's Minnie going to get a new dress?
Well done on your reflections - I'd written half my posts, did the next quarter one weekend, and if Blogger hadn't caused connection problems .. I'd have had an easier time! I caught up just!
I loved your posts - but have just come across J .. so I'm off to comment! Amazing story ...
See you at J and then soon afterwards ... cheers Hilary
I agree with you about all the great advice the co-hosts provided - I followed most of it and I think that is one reason why the Challenge was not too overwhelming for me.
Dawn
Congrats on completing the challenge :)
The schedule facility in Blogger is definitely the way to go. I totally abused it and owe it a massive apology for having done so.
I agree, preparing posts before hand is the way to go. I only prepared half of my posts before and boy did I regret not doing them all when I got to the end.
It was fun though. I enjoyed meeting you through this as well, lady! I look forward to visiting outside of the challenge as well.
Last year I found out about the challenge the day after it started and had to write to catch up from the beginning. This year I started early, scheduled my posts and had more time to check out other blogs. I'll be doing it again this way next year. Congrats on finishing!
Yep, like so many others...my first year and I had no idea how time consuming it would become. It was a fun experience, though, and I did enjoy meeting so many great people. I will probably do it again next year, but would have to write them and schedule them in advance. I have to be a planner, not a pantser :-) Nice to meet you! :-)
I had a great time with the challenge too. The number of participants (1500+) was more than a little daunting and I didn't get to visit everyone. I'm sure I'm not alone. looking forward to next year!
Congrats on reaching the A to Z finish line!
The most sensible approach to the challenge is pre-written posts... it helps to alleviate stress and allows more time for hopping around the blogiverse.
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