Monday 6 May 2013

Reflections on the 2013 A-Z Challenge


Another shiny survivor's badge can only mean one thing: that we've come to the end of another Blogging from A-Z Challenge. Throughout the month of April, I'd been blogging my way through the alphabet, as I highlighted 26 speculative fiction books. And just like last year, participants are expected to give their thoughts and feelings in a reflections post.

I was so burned out by the time I clicked publish on my Z post that I didn't even realize the IWSG was posting the day after. So sorry, Alex. I promise to do better next month. My original plan was to schedule all my A-Z posts beforehand, so I would have more time to visit other blogs. But I ended up scheduling them on a daily basis instead. I still managed to visit a few blogs though, and I've made some new blogging buddies too.

The major difference between this year and last year was the fact that I wrote and scheduled all my posts on an actual computer, as opposed to a smartphone. This had a tremendous impact on the quality of my posts, and the speed with which they were written. I was able to nail the formatting down to my satisfaction, rather than have to leave everything to chance. I was also able to embed Youtube videos, something I could never do with Mail-to-Blogger.

It's been an interesting 26 days, but what really crowned my joy was having the friends I made during the last Challenge along for the ride once again. You know who you are. Thanks, guys, for making the 2013 Challenge every bit as enjoyable as the previous one.