7 Themes for the Blogging from A-Z Challenge

With the holiday season around the corner, the last thing on people's minds is blogging and what to write as far away as next year. Me? I'm full of good intentions that get lost along the way, so I like the thought of advance planning.

I already know what I'll be blogging about in the A-Z next year, or so I think for right now, until another shiny, new idea comes along. In case you haven't settled on a theme yet, the holidays are a great time to look around and see what possible fun and exciting topics you can cover.  Here's my shortlist of things I'd be interested in seeing done during the Challenge.

A-Z of planning for a new year (Helpful, if you're the sort who can't seem to get things rolling motivation-wise or resolution-wise when January 1 hits)

A-Z of getting though the holidays with your sanity intact (think, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc. or any other one for that matter. This guide will help you organize and delegate tasks before, during and after the holidays)

A-Z of planning and researching your projects (Some of us are useless when it comes to getting ourselves organized and ready to work when we're taking on anything new, including writing a book)

A-Z of handmade gift items (If you're good with crafts and such and like the thought of personalized gifts)

A-Z of fun projects for children (This might interest you if you're that relative who gets landed with the job of babysitting all the little tots during family gatherings)

A-Z of getting through the A-Z Challenge (This guide would help the disorganized among us to plan for the chaos that descends during the A-Z if we do little or no planning beforehand)

A-Z Holiday Devotional (If you're religious or spiritual and use devotionals to jumpstart your worship sessions)

Can you think of any other fun topics that would be great to tackle during the A-Z? Anybody planning to take on any of these? Have you started planning for the A-Z?

J.L. Campbell lives in Jamaica and writes romance, women's fiction and young adult fiction. She blogs at http://www.joylcampbell.com

Deep Space Here We come!

Hey Folks, As always, thanks for stopping by. This is a very exciting week. Two things are happening you should be aware of.

 

First, NASA is testing Orion, the spacecraft that will someday take mankind into Deep Space. First up is a planned trip to an asteroid around 2025, then it's off to Mars a decade or so after that.

 

You can watch live coverage beginning at 1:30 a.m. PST/4:30 a.m. EST on NASA TV.

 

The New Horizons Spacecraft: Get ready to learn some really cool stuff about Pluto!

 

Launched nine years ago, is about to encounter the Pluto. This will be the first man made craft to visit the planet. New Horizons has spent much of its life in a hibernation of sorts to conserve energy, and will power up December 6th in preparation for a 2015 summer rendezvous with the dwarf planet.

 

Despite the risks, the mission is poised to return a glut of discoveries, continuing the legacy of the first planetary spacecraft: the Mariner missions that visited Mercury, Venus, and Mars in the 1960s and 1970s, and the Voyager missions that explored the outer planets in the 1980s. Those missions were pioneers, as nearly every image and measurement revealed fantastic worlds never seen before.

Hubble image shows Pluto and three  moons, Charon, Nix, and Hydra.

 

Pluto is one of the largest objects in the Kuiper belt, a collection of cold bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune and the last frontier of the solar system. The first Kuiper belt object wasn’t discovered until 1992. There are now more than 1,000 known Kuiper belt objects, and scientists estimate there are hundreds of thousands of them.

 

These objects have been around since the formation of the planets, so they serve as relics that help researchers understand the history and origin of the solar system. And Pluto contains clues about these ancient, icy bodies. For example, any craters on its surface will help scientists estimate how frequently Kuiper belt objects slammed into one another in the past.

 

Reference: http://www.wired.com/2014/12/new-horizons-pluto-mission-wake-up/

Stephen Tremp is the author of the Breakthrough: The Adventures of Chase Manhattan. You can visit him at http://authorstephentremp.blogspot.com

The Insecure Writer's Support Group Guide to Publishing and Beyond

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Insecure Writer’s Support Group website
IWSG Facebook
IWSG Critique Circle.