#AtoZChallenge – Reflections

When my lovely friend and fellow blogger Rosie Amber suggested I take part in the A to Z Challenge I didn’t really know what to expect. Yes, I knew I’d be posting every day except Sundays in April, and I had an idea for a theme – writing and editing tips – but I had no idea how interesting and valuable an experience it would be.

I started off the way I always do – incredibly efficient and well-organised (to begin with). I had ten posts ready to go before the challenge actually started – all scheduled so that all I had to do was hit publish. This, however, lulled me into a false sense of security and by the time I’d reached letter ‘M’ I was writing posts the day they were due. So much for being well-organised!

The best thing about the challenge was making contact with other bloggers – bloggers and blogs mostly concerned with writing, but in a variety of genres and with a variety of interests and insights to share. These are recommended:

https://saylingaway.wordpress.com/

http://lucciagray.com/

http://www.shanayatales.com/

and of course

https://rosieamber.wordpress.com/

The trickiest thing was navigating blogs other than those on WordPress – it was irritating reading and appreciating a blog post and taking the time to add a comment only to have to jump through hoops to get the comment published. Not the bloggers fault of course, but a bit of a shame as sometimes I just gave up!

Another minor irritation was the amount of blogs listed that actually weren’t taking part. I’m pushed for time and the challenge was a big commitment. It was annoying to click on link after link to find no mention of the challenge or to read about theme reveal that looked really interesting only to find that the blogger had decided not to take part. Having said that, with the amount of blogs listed, I can understand that it would be extremely difficult and time consuming to remove these blogs from the list.

That said, I did thoroughly enjoy the challenge. I made lots of new blogging friends and had a big increase in visits to the site. And I’ll definitely take part next year. Although I’ll try and stay organised this time!

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