Okay, maybe I'm overdoing things a little. (No, wait... I'm not.) The point is, Christmas is a huge holiday for everyone, whether you're a retailer, a member of the clergy, a parent, (especially) a kid, or anyone else who loves the excitement and promise of the season.
For the sponsors of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, April 1 is kind of the same thing. It's something we prepare for almost as soon as May 1 of the previous year. Every year we do the Challenge, we want it to be better than the previous year's. For us, that means encouraging people who have participated in past years to participate again, and to bring their blogging friends, and their friends, and so on, and so on, as the old shampoo commercial used to say. The A to Z Challenge is truly a time when "the more, the merrier" applies.
So, it's never too soon to start encouraging people to start thinking about April. And that includes inviting you to start thinking about participating in the festivities, and about people you think might enjoy the Challenge. Bloggers you admire, people who you think would enjoy themselves. You might meet some bloggers (or potential bloggers) during the upcoming NaNoWriMo, or in the other "blog hops" you do every year.
It's also never too soon to start thinking about your theme for the upcoming year. Maybe this is easy, because you use the same theme every Challenge. Great! You can start thinking about your entries. Maybe you try to think of something new every year. This would be a good time to start. If you have trouble thinking of a theme, you might want to see what other people have used in years past. The list of blogs who participated in the 2015 Challenge is still available; feel free to browse the blogs of other participants. Maybe you never use a theme. That's all right! You can always begin planning your word list for the Challenge.
You might think 163 days is a long time, but you'd be surprised how quickly it passes. Personally, I can't wait! How about you?
When I saw the notice for this post in my email my mind went to the "shopping days before Christmas" and I thought I was gonna have to slap somebody upside the head. But A to Z 2016 is a different matter entirely :O)
ReplyDeleteI see you are looking beyond Christmas, Have you by anychance got your 30 post done and dusted?
ReplyDeleteYvonne.
Hard to believe it's the last half of October already! I finally hit on a theme a few weeks ago and started a couple of rough outlines, but that's it. so far. Someone I know has already written every post. It's so much easier to have them all done ahead of time and I hope to accomplish that, for once. Thanks for the reminder, John. ☺
ReplyDeleteChristmas stuff is already in the store here; I'm waiting until after Halloween and you are right, everything will be decorated for Christmas. I do have a theme for next year's A/Z and have started collecting stuff for it. It is always an exciting time leading up to it and wondering how to organize the time to get it all done.
ReplyDeletebetty
I'll think about my theme and eventually settle on something between Christmas and the New Year. Time goes so fast.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to the posts on my main blog going live in April, and putting the final touches on them with the A to Z buttons and a few minor tweaks here and there. I still need to choose all the topics for my secondary names blog and get to work writing, editing, and scheduling those posts. I've recommended the Challenge to friends with blogs, but you never know how many people will remember and sign up, or keep with it the entire month.
ReplyDeleteI'm still trying to think of a theme.
ReplyDeleteI had such a good time this year with the Challenge, and I look forward to doing it again. No ideas yet about a theme, but I'll probably change my mind a few times before settling on one.
ReplyDelete