Keeping Heart #atozchallenge 2024

If you're not accustomed to blogging every day, you learn that coming up with a daily blog post is hard work. I've been blogging daily for almost ten years, and it's still hard work. But hard work isn't the only factor behind blogging: you have to keep your heart in it.

Easier said than done, isn't it?

You're going to have days when you sit at the computer and say, "you know, I don't want to blog today. I just want to sit here and watch cat videos on YouTube." And that's okay: we all get that way sometimes. The trick is to have your blog stuff done first. How can you do that?

1. Build up a backlog. On days when you feel like you could write all day, write a few extra blog posts. If you have a pretty set schedule every day (Monday's Music Moves Me, Top Ten Tuesday etc.), it's pretty easy to do that. If you don't have a set schedule, find blog topics that have no "expiration date" and accumulate a pile of those, sitting in "draft" status, ready to release when you need to.

2. Re-run previous posts. When you need a post and don't have one, find a post you've run previously and run it again as an "encore presentation." In fact, find a bunch of your best posts when you have some "down time" and keep them in reserve. When you re-run them, make it obvious that it's an encore.

3. Be honest. There have been one or two times when I just couldn't get the lead out and told my readers "Sorry, no blog today."

Are there some techniques you use when you have a post due and have trouble getting it out?

MASTER LIST https://tinyurl.com/w54yupwe

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H as in How Do You Make it Work? - by Matthew MacNish

Hello A to Z Challengers!

How has your April Challenge been going so far?

Personally, I've found a great balance between feeling not so much overwhelmed, but pleasantly challenged, and having great fun discovering new blogs and bloggers at the same time.

Hard is why we call it a challenge.

It's not easy writing a blog post every day except Sunday for an entire month, and even we co-hosts who are seasoned bloggers don't have the easiest time making it happen without freaking out a little bit.

How do we pull it off?

Well first of all, every blogger is different, but I would wager we co-hosts all use similar strategies. First, we schedule our posts ahead of time. There's nothing wrong with flying by the seat of your pants and drafting your posts the morning of for regular blogging (I do it all the time myself) but it would be really difficult to make that work for the A to Z April Blogging Challenge, and any time you did spend writing a post would be time you couldn't spend visiting blogs.

I don't actually write all 26 posts before the challenge even beings, but I do write about the first 10-15, and then I write another week's worth of posts each Sunday until they're all done. You can of course pick whatever strategy works for you, but we would highly recommend figuring out some plan for writing as many of your posts ahead of time as possible.

Another thing we do is get Help.

Not only do we have another fabulous list of Co-Hosts this year, but all of us have minions/assistant/helpers as well. When you're checking a list of literally thousands of blogs, it helps to not have to do it all alone.

My assistants this year are Sylvie Hanes from Life from An Optimist's Point of View, and Carrie-Anne Brownian/Ursula Hartlein from Welcome to My Magick Theatre.

They help us go through the list, and highlight great blogs with great themes, and also find people who aren't participating, or might need a reminder if they aren't up to date with their posts.

Have any questions?

Feel free to ask questions here, in the comments.

You can also reply to the co-host responsible for your section of the list in the email we sent announcing the challenge.

You can also ask questions by emailing us at contactatozteam@gmail.com. Find us on Facebook, and Google + as well.

Thanks for dropping by, and I hope you are all enjoying the Challenge and discovering tons of great new blogs! - Matthew MacNish

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