Sunday, April 12, 2015
Sunflower Update
Here is the updated sunflower photo taken on Saturday April 11th. It's looking a bit raggedly perhaps, but still standing strong. Hopefully I'll have a good harvest of seeds from this flower. For those who might be wondering what the heck this sunflower photo is all about you can find the story at A Special A to Z Tribute.
Making Progress
We are approaching the halfway point of the 2015 Blogging from A to Z April Challenge and it appears that the majority of those who originally signed on to the list are still going strong. To date we've lost maybe 150 of those who originally added their links to the list. Most of those either backed out and asked to be removed or were Link List opportunists who had no intention of participating.
The A to Z Team of co-hosts and their assistance teams have been busy scouring the list for bloggers who have fallen by the wayside and stopped posting or never started. We are trying to keep a clean list so you don't have to waste your time on the non-participants. I think overall we are doing a better job than any previous year of keeping the list cleaned up. Still a few get missed. Some of you have been reporting problem sites to us and that has been a great help to us. Feel free to let us know if you run across a site that you don't think should be on the Linky List and we'll check it out.
Just a notice to those of you who have fallen behind but don't wish to be removed from the list quite yet. At least update your blog with an A to Z post and if there is a problem note that in your most recent posts so we'll know what's going on with you. We don't like to have to remove links, but in fairness to everyone else if you aren't keeping up with the Challenge then you shouldn't expect the rest of us to be reading old posts.
Also, there are some blogs that can be a bit confusing to the new visitor. Make sure it is clear on the landing page that you are participating in the A to Z Challenge and be sure that each A to Z post is clearly identified with tags, a badge image, or a mention that your post is A to Z related. This is especially true if you do multiple daily postings and your A to Z posts get covered up by other posts.
I applaud this year's team and helpers and all of you bloggers for helping us maintain the list. And a big acknowledgement goes to Alex J. Cavanaugh for maintaining the list so well along with all of the other things he's got going with his blogging and book release.
Interested in an Official A to Z 2015 T-Shirt?
This week be watching co-host blogs and this site for a special announcement about an A to Z souvenir that will be offered to show your support and participation in the 2015 A to Z Challenge. We've been asked about T-shirts in the past and this year we're going to run a marketing test to see what kind of interest there would be in this. Be watching this week for the official announcements. I believe we'll start seeing something on Wednesday April 15th.
Have you been keeping up okay with A to Z this year? Have you found many sites that need to be removed from the list? Is an A to Z Tee-Shirt something that might interest you?
Saturday, April 11, 2015
J: Juggling
Don't be as useless as a muggle,
A hundreds things you can juggle.
Dozens of balls to toss and keep in the air,
Doing laundry so you have something to wear.
No time to go to bed and in your pillow snuggle,
Get to that blogging, lots of comments to juggle.
Don't forget to go to work and earn money,
Living in a tent or your car isn't funny.
Being tired and stretched thin makes you lovable,
Hugs to those who can juggle and adorable.
Eat something good and exercise shouldn't be a miss.
Talk to your family and give them some a nice kiss.
There are hundreds of blogs for you to see,
Drink lots of wine, coffee or iced tee.
This blogging party is so much fun,
Even if you can't meet everyone.
How many different things to you juggle each day? What life issues are getting in your way? Your comment doesn't have to rhyme like my post. Your visit is what counts the most.
Friday, April 10, 2015
I is for Inspiration
What inspires you?
The A to Z Challenge is off to a great start, and blogs all around the world are booming with the alphabet. We are already done with Week 1! But what happens if you suddenly find yourself without inspiration for the next day's post?
First and foremost: Do NOT give up! The A to Z community stands behind you, and we all want you to keep blogging :) Just imagine how many people will come to your blog before the end of April.
Here are some things you can do for inspiration:
1. Stop worrying and visit some blogs! Their themes and topics might spark a new idea in your head.
2. Look at some random word generators and word listings. Keep clicking away, something is bound to come up!
3. Listen to some music! Music is great for inspiration, and also a great topic. Think in songs, not words!
4. Open up a thesaurus, or, even better, a dictionary. Take an adventurous trip into another language! There are so many words out there waiting to be discovered by you...
5. Don't take yourself too seriously. It is okay to stumble, even if you are following a theme. Make it playful and funny, and move on. You'll pick the serious stuff back up tomorrow.
Happy A to Z!
The A to Z Challenge is off to a great start, and blogs all around the world are booming with the alphabet. We are already done with Week 1! But what happens if you suddenly find yourself without inspiration for the next day's post?
First and foremost: Do NOT give up! The A to Z community stands behind you, and we all want you to keep blogging :) Just imagine how many people will come to your blog before the end of April.
Here are some things you can do for inspiration:
1. Stop worrying and visit some blogs! Their themes and topics might spark a new idea in your head.
2. Look at some random word generators and word listings. Keep clicking away, something is bound to come up!
3. Listen to some music! Music is great for inspiration, and also a great topic. Think in songs, not words!
4. Open up a thesaurus, or, even better, a dictionary. Take an adventurous trip into another language! There are so many words out there waiting to be discovered by you...
5. Don't take yourself too seriously. It is okay to stumble, even if you are following a theme. Make it playful and funny, and move on. You'll pick the serious stuff back up tomorrow.
Happy A to Z!
Thursday, April 9, 2015
H as in How Do You Make it Work? - by Matthew MacNish
Hello A to Z Challengers!
How has your April Challenge been going so far?
Personally, I've found a great balance between feeling not so much overwhelmed, but pleasantly challenged, and having great fun discovering new blogs and bloggers at the same time.
Hard is why we call it a challenge.
It's not easy writing a blog post every day except Sunday for an entire month, and even we co-hosts who are seasoned bloggers don't have the easiest time making it happen without freaking out a little bit.
How do we pull it off?
Well first of all, every blogger is different, but I would wager we co-hosts all use similar strategies. First, we schedule our posts ahead of time. There's nothing wrong with flying by the seat of your pants and drafting your posts the morning of for regular blogging (I do it all the time myself) but it would be really difficult to make that work for the A to Z April Blogging Challenge, and any time you did spend writing a post would be time you couldn't spend visiting blogs.
I don't actually write all 26 posts before the challenge even beings, but I do write about the first 10-15, and then I write another week's worth of posts each Sunday until they're all done. You can of course pick whatever strategy works for you, but we would highly recommend figuring out some plan for writing as many of your posts ahead of time as possible.
Another thing we do is get Help.
Not only do we have another fabulous list of Co-Hosts this year, but all of us have minions/assistant/helpers as well. When you're checking a list of literally thousands of blogs, it helps to not have to do it all alone.
My assistants this year are Sylvie Hanes from Life from An Optimist's Point of View, and Carrie-Anne Brownian/Ursula Hartlein from Welcome to My Magick Theatre.
They help us go through the list, and highlight great blogs with great themes, and also find people who aren't participating, or might need a reminder if they aren't up to date with their posts.
Have any questions?
Feel free to ask questions here, in the comments.
You can also reply to the co-host responsible for your section of the list in the email we sent announcing the challenge.
You can also ask questions by emailing us at contactatozteam@gmail.com. Find us on Facebook, and Google + as well.
Thanks for dropping by, and I hope you are all enjoying the Challenge and discovering tons of great new blogs! - Matthew MacNish
You can find me at My Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr
How has your April Challenge been going so far?
Personally, I've found a great balance between feeling not so much overwhelmed, but pleasantly challenged, and having great fun discovering new blogs and bloggers at the same time.
Hard is why we call it a challenge.
It's not easy writing a blog post every day except Sunday for an entire month, and even we co-hosts who are seasoned bloggers don't have the easiest time making it happen without freaking out a little bit.
How do we pull it off?
Well first of all, every blogger is different, but I would wager we co-hosts all use similar strategies. First, we schedule our posts ahead of time. There's nothing wrong with flying by the seat of your pants and drafting your posts the morning of for regular blogging (I do it all the time myself) but it would be really difficult to make that work for the A to Z April Blogging Challenge, and any time you did spend writing a post would be time you couldn't spend visiting blogs.
I don't actually write all 26 posts before the challenge even beings, but I do write about the first 10-15, and then I write another week's worth of posts each Sunday until they're all done. You can of course pick whatever strategy works for you, but we would highly recommend figuring out some plan for writing as many of your posts ahead of time as possible.
Another thing we do is get Help.
Not only do we have another fabulous list of Co-Hosts this year, but all of us have minions/assistant/helpers as well. When you're checking a list of literally thousands of blogs, it helps to not have to do it all alone.
My assistants this year are Sylvie Hanes from Life from An Optimist's Point of View, and Carrie-Anne Brownian/Ursula Hartlein from Welcome to My Magick Theatre.
They help us go through the list, and highlight great blogs with great themes, and also find people who aren't participating, or might need a reminder if they aren't up to date with their posts.
Have any questions?
Feel free to ask questions here, in the comments.
You can also reply to the co-host responsible for your section of the list in the email we sent announcing the challenge.
You can also ask questions by emailing us at contactatozteam@gmail.com. Find us on Facebook, and Google + as well.
Thanks for dropping by, and I hope you are all enjoying the Challenge and discovering tons of great new blogs! - Matthew MacNish
You can find me at My Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
The Letter G
You've set your GOAL. You're posting on your blog every day for 26 days, and you're visiting as many blogs as you can daily.
Were you nuts?
Of course. That's part of the fun.
Here's a song to motivate you to move ahead and post that letter H. Listen to it, then charge ahead.
You can do it.
ONE LETTER AT A TIME.
See you at Z!
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