Very, Very Near to the End... ( #atozchallenge )

   

   The time is getting closer.  An A to Z Victory is almost yours to claim.  So what's next?

The A to Z Reflections Post!

        This tradition started with the very first Challenge in 2010 and has continued every year since.  Some of you may be wondering what this Reflections post is all about, so I will tell you.

        On Friday May 3rd an A to Z Reflections Linky List will go on line for you add the link to your post of your Challenge reflections.  This is the time when you can share your thoughts about the Challenge.  Tell all of us your likes and dislikes.   Let us know how the Challenge benefited you and what aspects bothered you.

         You can also share highlights such as new blog discoveries you made, certain posts that you enjoyed, or things you learned from other bloggers.  The Reflections post is your time to tell us what's on your mind about A to Z so we know what we did right and what we should change next year.  Also you can feel free to provide any ideas that you think might enhance future Challenges.

          When the list goes online, please wait until your post is up before adding your link to the list.  Unlike the Challenge itself, for the Reflections list we want you to link directly to your post.  This list will remain open for the week following May 3rd so you'll have plenty of time to add your link and you can post your Reflections any time during that week.   You can post your Reflections any time after April 30th, but list will not be available to you until May 3rd.

          We look forward to hearing from you.  And this gives you an added week of doing some more visiting.  We hope you have fun and we all become more informed.  Any questions?  Just ask.


Here are a few more bloggers who could use a last minute boost with followers.  Can you please help by visiting, following, and letting them know you stopped by?:

Tales of the Rock

Ramblings of a Silly Girl

Rabbit Trails

DeeCoded

Reflex Reactions

Warped Nerdiversity

Embracing Dawn

Writing Women's Fiction

My Crazy Family Circus

Lyre's Musings

Mainely Write

Flat Stanley and Friends

The Ninja Librarian

Simply Sarah

Bookish Geek

Ordinary Never Sleeps

      Let's ramp up visits, comments, and follows in these last few days.   And don't forget to subscribe to the blogs that you would like to keep following after the Challenge if they are on Wordpress or some other format that doesn't use Google Friend Connect.

      Let's put the Varoom! into the last few days!

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U is for Ubiquitous

From January until May the A-to-Z April Blogging challenge is ubiquitous.You see it all over the place. Mentioned on a blog here, a blog there, a Facebook page, and even on Twitter. You understand how amazing the challenge can be.You also know how unpredictable it seems. Even if you are the underdog during this challenge, and though it may take time, ultimately you decide despite it's untimeliness, that you will sign up and participate. 

Then you must choose to do a theme, or just write each post day by day. And you want to post something unique so you scour the internet for unheard of words even if it means writing about unicorns or ukuleles.  And then day one is upon you and your post isn't finished or perhaps it is already live. Either way you begin visiting other blogs and realize all that you learn from them. 

By day two you are having a bit of fun but by day ten it is upsetting. Maybe comments aren't coming in despite all your work and you're uber disappointed. Or maybe your own blog became unavailable at one point and you begin to understand why those comments didn't come. You being to come undone. But now it is day twenty-one and the challenge is almost through. And you see all the progress you've made it to. 

And that ultimate decision to join in the fun appears when you discover all that you've done. 

Hope you're all enjoying the challenge! 

T is for TIME!

Time. I don't know anyone who has as much as they want, do you?

I think as bloggers, we as a subculture have an especially short amount of time. Most bloggers, or at least those I'm familiar with, have a day job, a family, all while we are trying to work on our novels, or our music, our pieces of art, our humor, our crafts, or whatever our passion is, yet still attempting to maintain sanity. It ain't easy.

Then, to all of the above, let's add changing our blogging frequency (for most) add more visiting, more return/recognition of comments, and you've got a person stretched pretty thin.

Yet, most of us are loving it! Why? I think what we all have in common, regardless of what type of blog we have (and sorry if I didn't mention your flavor...but these daily posts are supposed to be short...) is DETERMINATION. Hmm, someone wrote about that at D...

TIME (whatever we may have) + Determination = Success

If you've made it this far, you're going to make it all the way! Six posts left. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

What I'd really like to know though is what have you learned? How did it go? Now that it's all over, what advice would you give others? (Yes, I know it's not over...I'm advertising...we take liberties...) How has participating changed your blog? You'll get a chance to tell us during our traditional Reflections Posts. Don't worry right now about when or where or how...just finish The Challenge. We'll let you know later what the rest of the scoop is.