This Week on Route AtoZ: Ghosts, Puppies and a Sparkling Anniversary! #atozchallenge #RoadTrip

There is a lot of activity buzzing in our A-to-Z Road Trip section of the blogosphere. If you haven’t visited new blogs on the 2014 signup list, now is the time to get acquainted with some of the sweetest, scariest and most sparkly blog posts you’ll read between now and the next Road Trip check-in. Don’t know where to start? Here is what’s going on at a few blogs worth visiting that you may have missed back in April.

Diana at PartTime Monster has a travel itinerary that includes thirteen fictional places where one can hang out with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a bunch of Hobbits. Safety is optional. After tearing some tendons in her calf and foot, Marianne at Adventures in the Ballpark is trying to figure out how we’re supposed to identify aches and pains that come from aging versus those that are the result of injury. Regardless, she’s content with handling the balls life throws at us as they come, and to that end, celebrated her recent 39^th wedding anniversary with ice cream and relaxation.

Guilie Castillo at Life in Dogs chronicles the unlikely and short-lived friendship between a puppy and crab who met on the beach while also paying tribute to her late street rescue named Frida in celebration of the Day of the Dead. Aside from doing NaNoWriMo and finding tricks to keep her face from looking extra shimmery, Lisa-Marie Jordan at this little life of mine added one of the coolest Owl light switch plates to her redecorating process, not to mention bedroom paint color choices with fun names including “Silver Screen” and “Twilight Grey.” The sounds of both names are reminiscent of the movies, which is fun. After Manzanita at Wanna Buy a Duck met another blogger in person, she shared an overview of their outdoor escapades, complete with bright Halloween costumes, mountain climbing and visits to ghost towns in Montana. 

What activities have YOU noticed the A-to-Z community blogging about lately?

Have you visited the 2015 A-to-Z Challenge Blogging Team yet?

A-to-Z Challenge Co-Host Nicole Ayers shares observations on films at The Madlab Post. She supports organizations that provide humanitarian aid in the wake of disasters. You can connect with her @MadlabPost on Twitter.  

The 2015 Blogging from A to Z April Challenge Team!

And the 2015 A to Z Team is...

...okay, well, technically the team is already up and running right now in 2014, so telling you it's the 2015 team is kinda/sorta misleading.

So, it's actually the 2014/2015 A to Z Team.

Maybe I should explain...take too long...let me sum up. :)

As the A to Z Challenge grows by leaps and bounds each year so does the list of A to Z Team Members.

There's a lot of behind the scenes work, that I won't bore you with, but just know that we need lots of great bloggers to organize such an amazing Challenge.

So, without further ado, here is your new A to Z Team line-up...

The Founder
Arlee Bird

The Veterans
Alex J. Cavanaugh
Jeremy Hawkins 
Stephen Tremp
Nicole Ayers
Matthew MacNish (Returning)

The Staff Members
AJ Lauer
Pam Margolis
Heather M. Gardner

The Brave New Members
C. Lee McKenzie
S. L. Hennessy
Zalka Csenge
Susan Gourley
Lisa Buie-Collard
J.L. Campbell
John Holton

What a fantastic group of people!

Make sure to visit the A to Z Main Challenge Blog frequently to keep up with all the latest and greatest updates about our next Challenge and to meet some of these new members as they post on the blog!

Also, don't forget, all of these awesome people are going to need ambassadors/minions/helpers/assistants/teams/whooligans/alliances and/or sidekicks.

If you're interested in helping out the greatest Blog Challenge on the internet, stay tuned.

Holiday season is upon us

If you haven't noticed, it's not long to Christmas, Hanukkah and many other festivities relating to the middle of winter or the solstice.  It's even closer to Thanksgiving.  If you like being bombarded with things you can buy and throw away again when you're bored with them you are probably enjoying life to the full.  Since I dislike waste, and don't like shopping, and would rather sit in a corner by a log fire with a book (or my eReader) than party outrageously, this is the time of year that I go into hibernation.

What really frightens me is the number of books that are available now.  Self-publication has a lot to do with this.  The flood has turned into a tsunami, and good books are being tossed in the flotsam of life, hoping to surface long enough for the right reader to find and enjoy them.  It always was this way around now, every commerical organisation hoping to make its big buck in the run up to the present-fest.  I don't compete - I try not to bring my books out when there is fierce competition, fuelled by deep pockets.

But I do try the odd promotion.  I'm working on an anthology for middle grade children (8+), with six writer friends, called BookElves Anthology Vol. 1 and I'm doing some Giveaways.

I'll draw your attention to Read Tuesday, styled as a "Black Friday type of event for readers and authors" which takes place on December 9th.  Hundreds of special offers will be featured, on all types of books, with particular emphasis on family friendly ones.  And in the lead up to the event there are things to interest authors and readers and bloggers, so that probably includes you!

The A to Z Blog Challenge is another promotion for authors and bloggers, but of a less 'in your face' kind (on the whole).  I'm constantly amazed by the number of writers taking part.  Not all of them blog stories during the Challenge: some choose different topics entirely, others mix and match.  It's only five months till we reach G in the Challenge, so anyone writing short stories may already be past that!  I have seen blogs that do a serial through the month, but I confess that turns me off.  It's difficult to get into those serials if you're blog-hopping, and very disappointing if you arrive on day 23 and find the story makes no sense to you.  I also learned the hard way the first year I took part, that doing a detailed background to your stories only works if you already have a core of readers who would be interested!  It may help your own writing, though.  Blogs that do flash fiction during the month work best for my style of doing the challenge - but you may disagree.  That's what makes this whole thing so much fun.

I've met some wonderful people and wonderful writers during the Challenge, so many that I'm hard pressed to keep up with them all.  Damyanti Biswas writes amazing short stories as well as talking about writing, and she does two blogs (at least) plus Team Leading through the Challenge!  I've thoroughly enjoyed Sue Ann Bowling's Homecoming blog for the last three years thanks to her Challenge participation.  She writes great stories as well as blogging about her Alaska home.  Sadly, Sue is seriously ill, but I hope this mention cheers you up, Sue. 

More writing blogs I've enjoyed through the Challenge you could look out for:
Hilary Melton Butcher at Positive Letters, Inspirational Stories
Ragged Writers
Sara C Snider, a lovely author
Patricia Stoltey, Writing, Colorado and things
Madeline Mora-Summonte's Flash Fiction Collection
Silvia Writes
Noelle Granger Sayling Away
Tyrean's Writing Spot
and so many more, and not forgetting Samantha Redstreake Geary and Csenge Zalka who were among my co-minions #Team Damyanti on last year's Challenge.

Jemima Pett writes scifi/fantasy The Princelings of the East for older children and is working on a new scifi series, with asteroid miners and sentient trees, for publication in 2015.  Twitter + Pinterest