Good morning. How are you? As we move forward into a new month I knew I hadn’t been stressing myself as much as I wanted to. To help me with this I wanted to find challenges I could enter.
Off I went to Google where I found the A to Z Challenge. I had done this in the past and I had so much fun that I knew I wanted to try it again this year.
Before I share my post with you for day one I wanted to give you information on the A to Z Challenge because you can still sign up until April 6th. Come and join us and let us get to know you.
You can still sign up (until April 6) at this link…
Tenth Anniversary here at the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge
#AtoZchallenge. The blog hop that made an online community by asking bloggers to spend the month of April using the English alphabet as inspiration for their posts. We’re glad you stopped by today.
WHAT IS BLOGGING FROM A TO Z?
The A to Z Blogging Challenge began with a post from Saturday March 27, 2010. Our host set forth a challenge to all bloggers during the month of April.
We were asked if we could post every day except Sundays during April? The post would need to use the Alphabet and be thematically from A to Z? I thought this would be fun so I signed up and I loved the Challenge.
If you subtract Sundays from April, you have 26 days–one day for each letter of the alphabet. Although if April 1st lands on a Sunday you begin on that day which will be the only Sunday you would post during that month’s challenge.
Using this system, you begin April First with a topic themed on something with the letter A, on April second you chose another topic with the letter B as the theme. You continue on until you finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.
It doesn’t even have to be a word–it can be a proper noun, the letter used as a symbol, or the letter itself. The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day.
Before we begin I would like to introduce you to Sue Grafton and her best selling series of detective novels known as the “Alphabet Series”. They started in 1982 with “A” Is For Alibi up to her most recent “V” Is For Vengeance“.
Sue has made a franchise with the series and there have been other authors who have taken similar approaches. This Blogging From A to Z Challenge will be in the same vein.
We know that blogging can be fun and what fun we can have merrily blogging together with a common purpose–something where we can keep up with each other’s work and share in a common experience.
I know this challenge will be fun for me but also a useful exercise. There are times when I can’t think of anything to blog about. I know other writes have the same problems.
This is when writers engage in exercises which involve prompts, or suggestions for topics. We look for books, blogs, and websites devoted to providing prompts to be used as topic ideas.
Using the letters of the alphabet you can just think up words for each letter and pick one to write about. If you’re still stumped scan a dictionary or encyclopedia. Come on!–the prompts are everywhere.
To provide an example: My topic in the first year I did this challenge was Foods from A to Z. I chose recipes and different foods my family liked to share with everyone.
Doesn’t this sound easy? Well for me it is. I would like to remind you that you don’t have to change your format of what you write, just come up with topics that correspond with the letter of the day.
Try to be inventive and surprise us. Hopefully your posts will be at least 100 words to show that you really put some kind of effort into the challenge.
I would like to remind you creativity can come in less than 100 words. In 2011 Doris Plaster wrote a series of 50 word stories that eventually she published in book form.
If all you do is post a quote or something short, then keep it in the alphabet theme. Don’t worry about your blog’s subject matter– this will work for absolutely any blog. If you only post about food or animals or crafts or whatever, you can come up with alphabetized themes.
“But I only post poetry,” you might say. You can easily post poetry about any topic, right? Yvonne at Welcome to My World of Poetry does it all the time and she’s finished the A to Z challenge two times already.
Or what if you have a photoblog or just post artwork? It still works the same–creativity is creativity no matter what you do. Post your images and create an A to Z format for them.
Are you up to the challenge? Do you have what it takes? Even if you start and don’t finish that’s fine. Or will you just support us and pledge to follow our challenge? Mention it on your blog and link back to this post. We will appreciate all of the support we can get.
In 2010 there were 100 bloggers who started the Challenge and most of those saw it through to the end. The buzz about that event lasted throughout the following year and the word about A to Z spread.
In 2011 nearly 1300 bloggers signed up and once again the majority finished. People are still talking about that Challenge. In 2012, it was around 1700–every year we have seen an increase in participants.
I wonder if we ill we break the record in 2019 with even more bloggers on board for Blogging from A to Z? A lot of that will depend on you to spread the word and let others know that it’s coming. Let’s make 2019 the biggest year yet!
If you do join the challenge leave me a comment so I can follow your blog because I love making nee friends and helping promote other bloggers.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
