Reflection on the A-Z Challenge

Ah, the challenge is over and I’m almost sad that it is. I had a blast with it, this being my first year. One of the things I enjoyed most was writing and editing the posts – and I wrote them ahead of time.I am just getting back into writing after a long hiatus and it was so rewarding to discover that I can in fact find time to write every day. I hope that the discipline that I developed can continue because I’d really like to finish my book this year. I’d also like to be able to post several times each week.

I did prepare my posts ahead of time. I had completed all of the posts except for the letter Z by the time April 1^st rolled around. I thought I could just schedule each piece to post on its specific day but I found that I was doing a lot of editing and rewriting, adding images and in general overhauling the original post each day prior to posting. I don’t think there is any way I could’ve completed this challenge had I not prepared before the official start. I will most definitely do that again next year. And yes, I’m going to be participating next year!

I enjoyed the themes that many bloggers chose to do. I didn’t do a theme and I don’t know that I’ll do a theme next year either. I liked having the freedom to write about anything. Maybe I’m shying away from a theme because it is harder to stay thematic with 26 letters. I’ll consider for next time but I really did enjoy having the freedom of variety.

One of the great benefits of the challenge is the exposure to all the new and different blogs. I found some amazing blogs and many I have started following and added to my blogroll. The only regret I have is not having enough time to visit more blogs and make more comments. But thankfully the A-Z list stays up and I can keep finding new and interesting blogs to follow.

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to engage with most of the bloggers and I found that comments were always well reciprocated. I have truly enjoyed all the new visitors and followers to my blog and I’m very grateful for their comments and likes. The bloggers I “met” were fantastic. Some have become blog friends and we’ve had several rewarding exchanges. And I look forward to meeting many more in the coming months as I continue to visit more A-Zers.

I really liked having the list of Blogs with Less Than 100 Followers. I’m a fairly new blogger (not quite a year yet) and I know how scary it can be to start out and be a wee blog in this huge blogosphere. It can be overwhelming when you start out with small numbers and you see others who have thousands and tens of thousands of followers. It’s a daunting prospect. Having that list available gives us the opportunity to give back and help new bloggers build a decent following so please keep that for next year.

I just want to thank all of the organizers and helpers who put the A-Z Challenge together! It no doubt took a lot of work and a lot of time and for that we participants are surely grateful. It’s obvious that you all took on the challenge of organizing the Challenge as a labor of love. Thanks for all your support and encouragement during April and the months leading up to it. Y’all did a great job!