#atozchallenge #roadtrip - Stormy is on the move!

Yeah, keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel
Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel
Yeah, we're goin' to the Roadhouse
We're gonna have a real
Good time

(Roadhouse Blues by The Doors)

So, welcome to our second leg of the Post A-to-Z Road Trip!

Stormy the Weather Gnome and I are going to try to hit at least 20 new blogs a week from the Challenge list and tell you about a few of them in each of my posts.

When you go visit these awesome blogs, please make sure you tell them that you're visiting on the Post A to Z Road Trip!

No trip would be any fun at all without visiting Alex J. Cavanaugh!

Ninja Captain. Rock Guitar enthusiast. Science Fiction Adventure Author extraordinaire. Blog Genius. Music and movie connoisseur. IWSG creator.

Need we say more?

If you're not visiting his blog regularly, you are missing out.

Tara Tyler Talks
Tara Tyler

Stormy and I LOVE Tara and we always have a great time visiting her blog. She is a mom, a teacher, an author, and a lazy housewife (her words, not mine). She has a new book coming out soon and I'm so proud of her and excited to see what she comes up with next.


The future's uncertain
And the end is always near.

Let it roll, baby, roll.
Let it roll, baby, roll.
Let it roll, baby, roll.
Let it roll, all night long.


Christine Rains-Paranormal Romance Author
Christine Rains

Christine's 13th Floor Series is one of my very favorites and I'm looking forward to what she's got up her sleeve. She always adds a twist to a tale you think you know and proves you, oh so, wrong.


DL Hammons

One day, DL put up a few paragraphs of his writing for all of us to read on his blog. I can still remember my heart pounding while I read it and the premise still haunts me today. I really want to finish reading that story and I hope that we all get the chance to do just that.

Have you heard about Write Club? Well, DL is the founder of the Club and he really wants you to go visit his blog and check it out, maybe even sign up! There's only a few days left.

Thanks for visiting with us today!
Are you finding any great blogs on your trip?

Two Rewarding Results of Writing in Response to Blogs You Visit

Did you know that writing responses on your blog is of the quickest ways to feature a blogger in one of your posts? 

There are many ways to use the topic of another blogger’s writings as a springboard for your own blog’s content. Consider posting content that elaborates on a comment that you left, if any, on his or her original post. You can also forego commenting altogether, and write a response on your blog, making sure to link the post that sparked this subject you’re covering.  

No matter how you approach this method of responding to blogs you visit, it’s a win-win situation for all parties involved because it comes in handy where marketing and content creation is concerned.

Writing in response to the blogs you visit helps to cure writer’s block. Reading someone else’s perspective on a topic, or learning about certain experiences he or she had, is likely all it takes to revive your creative juices when you find yourself coming up short of blogging ideas.

Writing in response to the blogs you visit fosters interaction between bloggers. There is a good chance that bloggers whose post you’re responding to will visit your blog if you leave a comment on what they originally wrote with the permalink to your reaction. This might even lead to a mention and link in their latest blog post, which is one of the easiest ways for you to gain new readers. In the same breadth, linking to their post in the body of the content you write also helps to send your visitors their way – helping both blogs to build a network within the blogging community.

Have YOU ever written a comment that ended up being as long as the average blog post?

Nicole Ayers hosts the 'Monday Movie Meme' while also writing about independent film directors and their work at The Madlab Post. When she’s not keeping up with Jack Bauer, she also tweets.

Themes That Rocked! Challenge Participant Lanise Brown and Libraries From Around the World

Please welcome book reviewer, Lanise Brown!

Your theme was libraries around the world. What made you choose that for the Challenge?

My idea for the challenge sort of came last minute. While I was thinking up a theme and searching for cool bookish things online, I came across an article about the amazing libraries of the world. And I had my theme.

Which one was your favorite?

It’s difficult to pick just one, but I think the Rijksmuseum Research Library in Amsterdam and the José Vasconcelos Library in Mexico top my list.

They were all very unique – which one was the most unique or even odd?

The most unique and unusual was Mexico’s José Vasconcelos Library because of the building’s size, the painted whale skeleton that’s on display in the main hall, and the fact that the library’s been nicknamed the Megabiblioteca (megalibrary).

Which letter was the most difficult?

All of the letters towards the end of the alphabet were challenging, but the letter X was the toughest by far. No states or countries in the world begin with the letter X, so I had to resort to cities. Eventually, I found the Zhangzhou Campus University Library in Xiamen, China. There weren’t many pictures of the library though.

Have you ever visited any of the libraries you featured?

Sadly, no. But I hope I’ll get to visit a few of the locations some day.

Which one is the oldest?

The oldest is the National Library of France, which was founded in the 14th century. I featured the library’s Richelieu Reading Room that houses the library’s rare and antique collections.

If someone let you loose in one of those libraries, what would you do and how long would you stay?

Oh my goodness. I’d be like a kid in a candy shop. I’d probably grab more books than I could possibly read, and take a lot of pictures of the architecture. I’d make it a daylong event of course.

If you do the Challenge again next year, do you have a theme in mind?

I’ve been thinking about next year’s challenge. I suppose I’ll go with the rarest books from around the world, or I might even continue the library theme. There are so many more libraries to share.



Co-host Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh is the author of Amazon Best-sellers CassaStar, CassaFire, and CassaStorm, and his blog can be found HERE