For Potential Joiners: What is #atozchallenge about? #blogchat

For those of us who have been part of the A to Z Challenge with Arlee Bird  or Lee and the rest of the team, this challenge needs no introduction.

Lately, I've seen quite a bit of interest about the challenge on Twitter and Facebook tho, so I'll quote an explanation of the A to Z challenge from Lee, who founded it:

Most of the time if you subtract Sundays from April, you then have 26 days--one day for each letter of the alphabet.  When 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 premise, you would start beginning April First with a topic themed on something with the letterA, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so 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.

         Most of you are probably familiar with Sue Grafton and her best selling series of detective novels known as the "Alphabet Series" that started in 1982 with "A" Is For Alibi up to her most recent "V" Is For Vengeance".   She 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.

 So, for those of us on #blogchat here's a good challenge to bookmark for April 2013-- it welcomes diverse topics from parenting to quilting to gardening and writing, and a whole gamut of subjects in between. I can personally say that it helped my blog and twitter to be part of this challenge, not to mention the hordes of blog-friends I made, and the e-book I published.

So, if you're looking to boost your blog, keep Blogging From A to Z Challenge in your schedule and follow @AprilA2Z on twitter (and this site, of course) , for updates!

Challenge Participant Special Feature - Golden Eagle!

Today I have a truly remarkable guest, The Golden Eagle from The Eagle’s Aerial Perspective! Her theme for the A to Z Challenge focused on the sciences. Even if science doesn’t excite you, her posts were down to earth and really explained what each topic was all about. And it wasn’t just her posts that were impressive! I’ll let Golden tell you herself…

What made you tackle a research-heavy theme such as the sciences?

I love research. It's a great opportunity to dig through facts, learn new stuff, and use the internet for something it's quite good at: providing information.

Which letter/topic was the most fun to research?

Oh, all of them were fun. :) But because it's one of my favorite subjects (and featured one of my favorite scientists, Lisa Randall, in addition to one of my all-time favorite science videos) I guess I'd have to pick Particle Physics.

Do you foresee a career in science for yourself?

Hopefully! It would be awesome to study the sciences in college.

Fluid dynamics was fascinating – can you give a short description?

Fluid dynamics is the applied science of how liquids and gases work. It includes aerodynamics, acoustics, and some oceanography, along with other fields, and is often used in manufacturing.

You listed notable scientists throughout the month – who do you admire the most?

It's pretty much a tie between Neil deGrasse Tyson and Lisa Randall. I love Tyson's humor and his style of presenting science to the public (he's been compared to Carl Sagan), but I also admire Lisa Randall for being the first tenured female physicist at Harvard, Princeton, and MIT.

Which topic surprised you with its popularity?

My post about Jumping Genes. I didn't expect such a specific subject to get as many comments/views as it did!

Now, blow everyone’s mind with a little bit about yourself:

I'm a teenage writer/webmaster/nerd who does not usually think of herself as having anything mind-blowing about her--though if you'd like a random fact, I can say I taught myself how to write with my weaker hand. For the heck of it. Learned ambidexterity!

If you participate in next year’s Challenge, what topics might you cover?

I'm not really sure at this point. There are so many other fields of study that I'm not lacking in material science-wise (there were several subjects I wish I could have covered, but I didn't want to choose more than one for each day), yet I also like the idea of branching out into other topics. For example, I've been toying with the idea of making 2013's series about world cultures/religions/traditions. Now that would be a challenge to write about.

Thanks, Golden! You are the sharpest teenager I know.

Co-host Ninja Captain Alex is the author of CassaStar and CassaFire and his blog can be found HERE

Link Back Signatures: The Great Controversy (not really...just messing with you)

You came back! Glad you're not sick of me, yet ;-)

First of all, I'm not here to “sell” you on the idea of having a link-back signature. I'm not here to convince you that you need to change. The real beauty of Blogland for me is that we all get to be who we are. Or who we want to invent ourselves to be – we're all in one big boat, there's infinite room, and we get to hang out in any class we want, behave anyway we want (provided it's legal - my lawyer made me say that.)

In addition, the opinions expressed here are MY opinions. The opinions of Tina Downey do not necessarily represent the opinions of the ENTIRE A-Z TEAM. I do know that they are shared by some of the A-Z Team members. You can identify them by their, um, link back signatures at the end of their comments :-)

I think we'd better start with the definition, since 25% of our responders didn't know what the question meant. A link back signature is a hyperlink, just like any clickable piece of text on any website you visit, and by clicking it, you land on that person's blog. Sometimes it's their front page, sometimes it's on a particular post they'd like you to read. It's a wormhole, for you sci-fi fans, instantly transporting you past what I'm about to reveal, and lands you safely on the commenter’s blog.

Many of you pointed out that it's not necessary to have one, people can find you anyway. Yes. Patient, technically savvy, experienced bloggers can. They know that they can click on your name or your picture, pull up your profile, see the list of six blogs you own, guess which one is most active, click on that blog, find out you haven't written anything there for two years, stay patient, click on another blog, find that one more active, but still not the A-Z blog...and that's where I give up. Maybe it's different when you're a host and have to visit 300 blogs in the first three days. You're not quite as patient.

Another example. My friend Jeremy Hawkins (I could make his name clickable and you'd be right there, but he's in the sidebar, so you can easily click there) has MY blog listed in his list. That's because he's my admin. He built my beautiful sunflower and flamingo blog from scratch. I have him listed as a blog owner. I don't have to – but why wouldn't I want to advertise for someone who did such a nice thing for me, just out of friendship? He's freelance, word of mouth. I've got a button for him too. BUT, if you were trying to find HIS blog, you'd see Life is Good listed, might click there, and wouldn't be at his house at all. You'd be at Rydell IV, not the international space station. Am I making sense?

As a team, before the challenge started, we had a guest poster who wrote a FANTASTIC tutorial about how to make a hyperlink signature. You'll find it here. Check it out! Then you can choose how you'd like to operate, fully (fuller?) informed about this option of easily getting people to your blog. You are blogging to get people to read your work, right?

Thanks for listening.

Tina