May 6, 2013

Reflections on the A to Z Challenge


First of all, congratulations to all the participants who completed this year's Blogging from A to Z Challenge. 

This was my second year, and my first year with a theme--the A to Z of literary devices. I found the theme to be both a plus and a minus. Plus: readers interested in literary devices came back time and time again. Minus: others popped in one day and disappeared. Last year, I did random posts and seemed to get more comments. Next year, I'll either go sans theme or have a more general theme.

Unlike last year, I stayed on top of posts. I wrote a week ahead. In a perfect world, all my posts would have been done by April 1. But my life skews to crazy, so I was happy with staying a week ahead.

I love this challenge, and I plan on doing it again next year. However, I did find the participant list (1,656 at last count) to be overwhelming. I'd love to see people sign up under headings--food bloggers in one list, writers in another, and so on. That doesn't mean I wouldn't try out non-writer blogs, but I would spend the majority of my time getting to know other readers/writers.

All in all, it's an amazing challenge. I'm grateful for everyone who stopped by in April and shared some comment love. I hope all of you will stick around!

To check out other Reflections posts, visit here.

What was your favorite part of A to Z this year? If you didn't do it, would you consider it for next year?

5 comments:

Annette Gendler said...

Tia, congrats on completing this challenge! I hugely admire you for it - I don't know enough about it to participate but I also don't think writing to prescribed themes would be my thing. At least not for that long!

Kate said...

I really like the idea of having people sign up under different genres for the A to Z. I too would have liked to read all the writing blogs first and then maybe branch off into other genres.

Jo Michaels said...

I may join you next year, Tia. Depends how life treats me. It's been pretty rough and super busy lately. I need a period of calm, you know? :) That's one hell of a number! 1600?!?! Holy crap, Batman! I'm proud of you for achieving what you did. It's not easy. Maybe go with something like animals as they relate to human nature. hehe I kid, I kid :) WRITE ON!

Suzanne said...

Hi, stopping by from the reflections list :) This was my first A-Z and I really enjoyed being involved - although next year I plan to be much more organised!
Suzanne @ Suzannes Tribe

Michelle Wallace said...

Congrats on finishing the challenge Tia!
I'm so glad we met!
Your theme was great, but the "madness" of the A to Z meant that time was too limited. Actually, there are many great themes that I missed out on... too many blogs, too little time...

Writer In Transit