This year marks the fourth year of the #AtoZChallenge, the brainchild of Arlee Bird with Tossing it Out. He began the challenge as a way to develop community among bloggers, and since its inception, it has grown to an event worthy of the greatest blogging praise, with nearly 350,000 page views since last January and a list of around 2,000 participants for each of the past two years.
The concept of the challenge is simple - blog A through Z every day in April, except Sundays - and visit as many participating blogs as you can. Any topic, any genre, any format, so long as the title of the post begins with the right title. It's a great lesson in time management and scheduling blog posts, and it's a wonderful way to meet fellow bloggers.
Two years ago, as a brand new blogger, I met some of my favorite bloggers through the challenge, and was able to complete the challenge with inspiration to spare. Last year, I made it past the half way point and didn't quite see it through to the end. Vacations and exhaustion as a mom caused me to pause. However, last year I was far more successful in visiting other websites - while I may have visited 5 a day that first year, last year I made it through about 25-40 every day, thereby increasing my contacts and visibility, and learning some really cool things to boot.
This year, I hope to take lessons from the past two years to both post daily all the way through to Z and visit a great number of sites along the way. And ... give writercize some love. Concurrent with the challenge last year, my freelance work picked up considerably which was wonderful for my portfolio and general career satisfaction, but not so wonderful for my beloved blog. I hope that A to Z lights that fire once again to bring inspiration and creativity back into my daily writing!
To see an interview with Arlee Bird, check out this article on Technorati media from last year.
To sign up for the challenge, visit the A to Z Challenge blog.
Your writercize challenge today? Sign up! And start that list of A to Z blog titles now!
exercises to inspire word play, hone the craft of the written word and bulldoze writer's block for authors, bloggers, poets, freelancers, teachers, students, dreamers and writers of all kind
Thanks Damyanti! Glad you guys are putting it on again. It's becoming such a great tradition. Hopefully I grabbed the proper coding and the challenge button shows up now. Thanks for the note. :)
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to your A to Z posts. I am also participating this year.
ReplyDeletehttp://locaforlanguage.blogspot.com
Right on! I look forward to getting to know you in the upcoming months as well. :) Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteSigned up! This is going to be awesome!
ReplyDeleteJamie
Exciting! Good thing there are a couple of months to prep. :)
DeleteDid you do this last year?
Looking forward to reading your A to Z Challenge Post this year.
ReplyDeleteMelissa at My Creatively Random Life
Wahoo! It should be a fun month! :)
Deleteits been a long time!
ReplyDelete(do you know that song by cake?)
so good to hear from you & yay for doing the a to z!
So great to hear from you, and seriously brimming with excitement for your publishing news. Can not wait to hold a Tara Tyler book in my hands!
DeleteSo glad you'll be coming back. I will link to your post here on my Monday post for the A to Z Blog. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteLee
Wrote By Rote
An A to Z Co-host blog
Fabulous. Thanks Lee!! :)
DeleteThis sounds like a good way of getting into a regular writing schedule as well as connecting with other writers. I'll definitely be signing up soon and look forward to reading more of your posts. :-)
ReplyDeleteFabulous! Welcome, Kay. Let me know if you took the plunge! It is really a great experience. :)
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