A to Z Challenge Reflections Mega Post.

I’d be lying if I said I’m sorry the A-Z Challenge is over. It has given me a chance to breathe and get back to the stuff I lumped on the back burner. I’ll also have to play a lot of catch up with some of the blogs I’ve neglected to visit during April. I suspect you’ll be busy doing  these same things too.

I’ve learned all sorts of stuff over these thirty days. I learned about crystals and gemstones (fascinating stuff) from Holly Ruggiero and Norwegian mythology from Siv Maria. I’ve visited exotic locations thanks to L’Aussie Denise and way too late in the challenge I met Wendy, who lives in South Africa and shared interesting details about different tribes. 

Josh Hoyt discussed a range of personality traits. Laura Marcella (she’s a peach!) wrote about a variety of subjects including conservation and recycling, writing, and her favourite animal, the zebra.  Jeanne at Captive Audience posted some way funny pictures for each letter of the alphabet.  Robyn Campbell used a range of words for each day, accompanied by some witty observations. From time to time I dropped in on Damyanti’s flash fiction (poignant, in a word), zipped over to Leicester with Rosalind Adam and leaned about Egypt and world building from Sarah, the Aspiring Subcreator.

What I didn’t gain in followers, I made up for in the quality of the people I met during this marathon. I’ve found like minded thinkers, people willing to help me promote my work and those who dropped by to see what I came up with each day. Thanks a million to all of you!

Some days, it was harder to select words to do with characters and writing. Guess that’s why this mega writing fest is called a challenge. I was surprised by the number of people participating and of course, I didn’t make it to some blogs. In some instances I lurked, but didn’t comment.  Call it a case of being awed by the content or being unable to comment for lack of knowledge on the subject (like bands and such).

Last, but by no means least, many thanks to Arlee Bird, and his band of troopers listed below, who facilitated this month-long writing frenzy. I lurked around these blogs from time to time, but didn’t leave comments. I don’t know how you all kept up with the oodles of visits you had to make, plus keep up with your posts. Hope you wrote them beforehand.

Arlee Bird's Tossing It Out
Jeffrey Beesler's World of the Scribe
Alex J. Cavanaugh Alex J. Cavanaugh
Jen Daiker's Unedited
Candace Ganger's The Misadventures in Candyland
Karen J Gowen at Coming Down the Mountain
Talli Roland
Stephen Tremp's Breakthrough Blogs

I’m not sure I would do this again, even though I'm prone to throwing caution to the wind and jumping in feet first when faced with something that sounds near-impossible to do. Writing beforehand was the smart approach, but I’m not always the sharpest knife in the drawer. In fact, I'm reckless enough to think the spontaneity aspect would be lost if I had written my blogs prior to the start of the Challenge. When it came right down to it, I didn't make the time to write my posts beforehand.  The A-Z Challenge is something I’d recommend to someone who’s lost their writing mojo and needs to get going again. On my part, I went from multi-paragraph postings to paring my offerings down to bite-sized morsels.

It’s been an amazing experience that taught me how resourceful I can be as a writer. I found ways to link writing with the words I chose; not always easy, but I got the job done. I know I’m gonna sound crazy when I say this, but the best part of putting the posts together was finding letters and appropriate pictures to go with the subject of the day. So what if I haven’t grown up yet and still like playing with pretty pictures? I’m a writer. I’m allowed. Even better than playing with photos and such, I enjoyed interacting with everyone who stopped by my blog.

What’s the most memorable thing about this month-long writing extravaganza?

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You, the people who dropped in to read what I wrote and to share your thoughts. 

 It’s been a blast!

And you haven’t gotten rid of me, I’ll be lurking around your blog in a bit. Resting up and all right now.

 Catch you later.

Zonking Out

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When I first heard about the challenge in February, I thought I’d prepare some posts beforehand (like the other smart writers). The plan was to ease into the Challenge gently, the way a zephyr caresses your skin on a hot day.

Well, that didn’t happen.

I got out of the starting gate with a lotta zest on that first day, hoping I’d still be able to stay ahead of the game. My muse had other ideas, so most evenings found me sitting before the monitor afraid that zero hour would hit, minus a subject to write around.

I zigzagged my way through the month, finding ways to connect the words I selected for each day to the craft of writing. Now that I have this Challenge all zipped-up, I feel like a blog-writing-and-blog-stopover-zombie and I still haven’t covered all the participants.

I’ve met some interesting people and learned a whole pile of stuff (more about that in the A to Z Challenge Reflections Mega Post on May 2). Alas, I don’t have the option to zonk out for a few days after the Challenge ends, much as I'd like to.  See my four legged friend below? Boy, would I love to be in his position. Anyway, I have to continue promoting my blogiversary giveaway and my second book, Dissolution, which comes out in May. 

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Be back with you later in the evening, but I’m off to a seminar today. Whatever you do, don’t forget to participate in my Anniversary Giveaway.  It’s getting lonely over there.

Zucchini

Cho-Cho

On the foodie front, I've come across curried zucchini soup and zucchini bread, but zucchini (which we call squash) is not a staple in the Jamaican diet.  It is also diced and cooked in fish tea (not a tea per se, but a brothy - Is that a word? - fish soup). I'm not sure I've ever had squash, but it's like cho-cho (another all-but-tasteless vegetable that's grown here) so I don't think I'm missing much. Hope you didn't hear me say 'Yuck!'