A to Z Blog Challenge – Reflections

During the month of April, I took part in three separate challenges – RhyPiBoMo, NaPoWriMo, and the A to Z Blog Challenge (see links in the sidebar). Apologies to anyone who tires of these endless, silly acronyms always ending in “-mo”, but they serve a purpose, and give budding poets/bloggers such as myself a challenge to rise to, and community to engage with, for a whole month (and hopefully beyond). As part of the A to Z Challenge, they invite you to post a blog reflecting on the month (http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/2015/05/wait-to-z-is-not-over-not-quite.html), hence this post.

I combined NaPoWriMo and the A to Z Challenge into one, setting myself the task of writing a new poem each day on each successive letter of the alphabet. I only stumbled across both challenges at the end of March, so had no time to stockpile any poems or content. Everything would have to be done “on the day”. Now, the alphabet being what it is, some days were significantly harder than others. What sadistic idiot designed the alphabet anyway? Who really needs the letter X? Or Z?

(If you’ve ever read a kids ABC book, these letters have always proved problematic… and I have a real bugbear about Dr Seuss and his “zizzer-zazzer-zuzz” effort)

On the other hand, I guess that’s where the “challenge” element comes into it!

So, what are my reflections on the month as a whole?

– I know now that I can write pretty much a poem a day, if I make the time for it. (Having enough of that time is a different matter!)

– My creativity is at its most… err… creative when backed into a corner. (For example, I was really struggling with J until I came up with this: https://altheauthor.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/j-is-for-poem/ – the poem is pretty autobiographical of this moment)

– I’ve tried a few different styles and themes, but my default is always rhyming (comic) verse. I would like to spend some time trying other poetic styles, just for my own entertainment and development, but I can’t help but think that more complicated structures are just not “for me”. (I always start with the idea, and shape the poem around that, rather than starting with a poetic form in mind and making an idea fit around it – this is why I couldn’t engage with the NaPoWriMo prompts, although have great respect for those that did.)

– I don’t like talking about number of visitors to my blog (more from embarrassment about the low numbers than through modesty, sadly), but I was hoping for a bigger spike in visitors than occurred. In the first half of the month, I did see an increase, and gained some new followers, but my visitor numbers at the end of the month are the same as for March. Perhaps this was because people found, as I did, that there are just so many blogs out there, that (a) finding the ones that fit my particular tastes and interests, and then (b) engaging with them, just takes time… more hours than are in the day, sadly!

– Numbers may not have changed much, but those that did come to visit have been amazing! One of them even wrote a poem in reply to one of my poems (see https://altheauthor.wordpress.com/2015/04/27/w-is-for-why-poem/ – and Jesi’s awesome reply at http://lunaticpoet.com/because-i-can-and-it-is-fun/). Others have taken the time to leave warm/ supportive/appreciative comments on a regular basis – thank you everyone! I dedicated my final themed post to all of these: https://altheauthor.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/z-is-for-poem/

Would I do it again?

It has felt like a bit of a slog on some days, but I am glad that I’ve done it… and already have a “theme” in mind for next year’s challenge! So that’s a YES! (https://altheauthor.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/y-is-for-poem/ – which is hopefully right about the secret of success!)

So, how was it for you? What were your thoughts on the month? Any great discoveries, either internal or on others’ blogs?