This was the second year that I have undertaken the
April A-Z Challenge. Full of good intentions I had chosen my castle theme early
in March and had prepared well over half of my posts.
As it previous years the problem was in visiting
and commenting on others’ posts. There were far too many for anyone to be able
to visit them all. Until about 18 April I was visiting around 20 a day and
leaving comments on half of them. I made the point of visiting c7 ‘new’ writers
each day, but I found that so many of the people I followed in the previous
year were taking part again. I even struggled to keep up with their posts let
alone the new ones I had taken on.
I just had to check out Hilary Melton-Butcher’s
blog as she had also chosen a castle theme. We only chose the same castle twice
and even then we had a different approach to what we wrote. I had tried to keep
to castles that were reported to be haunted – this proved impossible to
maintain throughout the month. Hilary’s brilliant idea of posting links to my
previous day’s post (I returned the favour) meant that readers of our blogs had
a host of castles to chose from and provided a lot of cross-fertilisation
between the two blogs.
As usual certain letters proved difficult and
this time it wasn’t the usual Q, X and Z. I had to go to Germany for X
and cheat a bit on V.
The biggest problem that came up was one that I
could not have planned for. A request from a local company for help with a
pre-qualification questionnaire, and its consequences meant that from 20th
blogging suddenly had no priority for me (in fact, I though this reflections
post would not be completed either). A number of you must have been puzzled why
I suddenly stopped commenting on your blogs. My apologies to those of you who
wondered what was going on.
Will I be taking part next year? Well I have
already got a number of A-Z lists prepared but that’s as far as it has gone.
Finally my thanks to Arlee and his co-hosts for
the amount of work they have put in to make the Challenge so enjoyable again
this year.
My sincere thanks to all my followers, old and
new (over 40 this year) and to everyone who read and commented on my blog.
3 comments:
I had a cool time in my first year on A to Z. Next year I will plan ahead! lol
Yeah, after a couple of weeks it gets harder and harder to stay with it.
For me it wasn't the difficulty with writing, but rather setting the time to write as I had my novel debuting and a zillion things to do.
At any rate, I am back to 'normal'.
Hi Bob .. it was fun having both of us posting .. made it interesting - once I'd worked out we were on different wavelengths as far our descriptions were concerned & I was able to relax - til W came along and I had to do a quick redraft.
I wondered what happened .. but local help with education is more important occasionally!
Glad you've got your theme worked out for next year .. me too!
Cheers Hilary
I enjoyed your castle themes and switched between you and Hilary. Fun.
This was my first year at the challenge and I enjoyed it. As I used recipes, I will likely do the same again in future years.
Enjoyed your blogs
Post a Comment