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Damn. The A to Z Challenge really took its toll on me. I’ve been wanting to blog but I’m honestly so mentally drained that haven’t been able to string a post together. But I know I have to get this post up and running if I want to be a part of the ‘A to Z Reflections’ crew of awesome bloggers.
This was my first A to Z Challenge and I’ve got to admit it was a lot of fun ! I wasn’t sure that I’d finish it on time or if I could stay on track but I did and it felt really good to accomplish the blogging goal I had set for myself. Looking back at the challenge, here’s what I’ve gathered from it …
Theme Writing Can Be Fun
I’ve participated in challenges before and what I really liked about the A to Z challenge was the letter prompt. We all know our alphabets – and with every alphabet comes a spectrum of endless possibilities we can pick and choose from to write about. It’s a push in the right direction. I picked my blog theme as ‘A to Z of Blogging’ and I think I managed to do a pretty damn good job with my posts.
Makes You Accountable
I knew I had to post every day ‘cos everyone else was going to be doing that. Participating in the challenge made me accountable for my posts – not just for myself but also for all the other bloggers who were participating and visiting blogs. It worried me that a new blogger would come and visit my blog and there would be no new post and they would end up leaving disappointed. I made it a point to draft up and schedule as many posts as I could so that there was always a new post for each day.
Blogosphere Friends Are Super Supportive
The friends one makes in blogosphere and blog hopping are honestly awesome people. During the course of the challenge, I came across so many new bloggers and what really kept me going was the fact that they would turn up to my blog every day and leave me comments that gave me a chance to react and respond to them. When I needed help with post ideas ‘cos some alphabets were just really hard to come up with a tip for – they were there tweeting ideas to me. That’s a different level of friendship there.
Learn Something New Everyday
There were over 1500 bloggers participating in the challenge which meant that I got a chance to discover some amazing blogs & bloggers. I didn’t go through every blog out there – but I read about others who had checked out every single participating blog ! I bow down to that ! I’m grateful for the fact that the 30+ blogs I was checking out all taught me something new – every day ! Whether it was gardening tricks; cooking tips; writing tips; movie & book reviews – it was a great learning experience. I even managed to learn some Swedish ‘cos one of the blogs I was following was using the alphabets to teach useful Swedish words. All of the blogs I have read have been an inspiration to me and given me a bucket load of new post ideas as well for the future =)
I’d Do It All Over Again
Yes it’s true – I would do it all over again. I’d also be better prepared for the next time around. I actually came to know about the challenge towards the end of 2011 and I thought ‘oh I have time, I can put together my posts before hand’ (in retrospect, what the f*ck was I thinking). I only ended up writing my posts a few days before the challenge started. Next time around – I’m going also going to participate via my business blog – so that’s double the posts. (yeah I’m crazy but if others can do it – so can I)
Would love to hear about your experience during the course of the challenge if you have participated. If you haven’t, would you consider participating next year ?
