There are two components to the  the A to Z Blogging Challenge:

1. Write a blog post every day except Sunday, using the letters of the alphabet as your guide (production aspect);

2. Comment on at least five other blogs a day (the social aspect.)

Writing

This was my second year to participate in the A to Z Challenge, but my first to use a theme (1940’s). So glad I learned from the veterans and picked a theme. It helped to be focused when I was trying to decide what to do with the letters. Also, another idea I picked up from several bloggers was to create a tab on my top menu to store my A to Z posts. Visitors can now see at a glance all the topics and choose the one(s) that most interest them. Another lesson that I hope to incorporate next year is to write my blogs early, leaving my time in April free for visiting other blogs and following up with those who commented on my own blog.

Commenting

I think many people find commenting the most difficult part of the challenge. Sometimes it’s hard to come up with an intelligent thought to add to the discussion, and some blogs were hard to figure out HOW to leave a comment even if you did have something relative to say. I think commenting is a skill that gets better with practice, just like writing blogs gets easier with practice. Confession time: I rarely comment on blogs, EXCEPT for during the month of April. I like having an excuse to leave a comment, even a simple one. “Hi, I’m here for AtoZ!” when I’ve got nothing else to say. Let’s see if I can extend my new-found boldness into the rest of the year.

A big Thank You! to the organizers and minions of this event. It was a lot of fun and I appreciated seeing you keep an eye on things, and leaving comments on empty posts.

Fun Blogs I found (and the reasons why):

Most intriguing mystery:

U–US Bank: @ A Bench with a View blog had everyone guessing why no one would rob this particular US bank, and made us all come back the next day for the answer.

Most emotionally touching experience:

T–Toothless: Sisters doing their 93-yr old mom’s hair and make-up, getting her ready for the viewing @Creating Life Beautifully

Most helpful blogging advice:

S is for Signature: @ A to Z Challenge taught me how to enter the code so that my signature has a clean-looking link back to my website. So helpful when visiting Blogger websites:

@ShonnaSlayton from

<a href=”https://shonnaslayton.com/blog/”>Shonna Slayton YA Writer</a> – Blogging the 1940’s from A to Z

The post that cracked me up the most:

P is for Peru: Adventures told with a splash of wit and sarcasm @TanGental

There were some others from higher up in the alphabet, but I was keeping track using the numbers….which changed as people dropped out of the challenge. Oops, I forgot about that. As I visit through the Reflections Posts I hope to rediscover these blogs I meant to return to. Which leads me to my questions…

Following Questions:

What do you find is the best way to follow blogs? One commenter notified me that my feed was unavailable. I was pushing it through Feedburner, and Google thought it was fine when I ran diagnostics, but I noticed that those blogs using Comment Luv (which I don’t even know what that is…) said they couldn’t find a feed. So I stopped using Feedburner and now Comment Luv is happy, but now what do I do? What do I use to link the RSS button? What shows up now is terribly clunky and seems wrong. (My theme has this handy-dandy form where I entered the feedburner link, and now I don’t know what to do.) Or is there a new way people follow blogs now? *waits eagerly for any and all advice*