A to Z Reflections

The organizers of last month’s A-to-Z Blogging Challenge have asked those of us who participated to post an article reflecting on the past month: What did we most enjoy? What did we least enjoy? Did we meet anyone interesting? And so on. Between May 7th and May 13th, we will post our blog articles and add our links to the Linky List. I’m posting mine today…

My Blog and the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge

Over the past few years, I’ve discovered how much I enjoy writing challenges. Whether it’s one of Janet Reid‘s “write a story in 100 or fewer words using the words bibble, bobble, dibble, dobble, and doop” competitions, or choosing a picture and using that as inspiration for a 1000-word-or-fewer story, I’m game. I like to be stretched, to push myself outside my literary comfort zone, to see what I’m really capable of doing with words. Sometimes I discover my limitations, but sometimes I find new depths or hidden strengths.

So, the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge was first and foremost a challenge in itself: coming up with somewhat interesting blog articles for each letter–even Q and Z. It stretched my creativity to think of things I would want to blog about (because there’s nothing more boring than reading something on a subject that bores the writer). And then, to make things more interesting, I had the idea of posting a piece of original fiction every Monday using the letter of the day. For some I picked a random word and used that as a theme, or starting point, and for others I solicited words from commenters to include in the story. I really enjoyed the latter, partly because getting input from blog readers makes me feel as if these people care what I write, which is really cool! But also, limiting myself to words suggested by others ramped up the challenge level. I don’t know why I’m such a literary challenge junkie, but it seems I am!

If you missed the stories I wrote for the challenge, here they are:

Bloodstain; Hourglass; Nightmare; Prom; Tortilla; Zoe

Meeting New Friends

The other great aspect of the challenge is the opportunity to find new blogs, and see what other people are doing. I tried to visit as many as I can, as well as keep up with the blogs on my RSS. Thankfully some of my blog friends were also doing the challenge, so I could incorporate their blogs into my daily tour. Of all the blogs I visited, one particularly stood out, and that was Meetings with my Muse, hosted by Kimberly. Hers was the first blog I came across that used alliterations as a theme. Every day, she would post an alliterative sentence using that day’s letter, and challenge her readers to come up with their own alliteration. A challenge! Yes!! She offered Amazon gift cards to the funniest and longest alliterations, but I was already in before I read that. I ended up winning the “longest alliteration that makes sense” award for one that, I must say, I am particularly pleased with:

Severus Snape’s silvery smokey subconscious strands smoothly slithered, silently surrendering some salient suggestions surrounding subplots strenuously suppressed, surprising steadfast series supporters.

But I applaud Kimberly for her creative use of the challenge, and was proud to add her blog to my RSS.

What Did I Least Enjoy?

I was disappointed when bloggers would drop out, or get behind. Not to blame them–I know it’s demanding and people have lives beyond their blogs, but it’s still an “awwww” moment when a blogger you were enjoying decides to stop participating. And it was sad that I didn’t get to as many blogs as I would have liked, due to work and other demands on my time. But there were so many blogs to choose from–and that was the great thing about this challenge: you could visit a couple of new blogs every day and not run out of blogs to visit.

So there are some thoughts of mine on this voyage of discovery that was the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge! What did you think, whether you were a participant, or a visitor?