Have You Scheduled Your #atozchallenge Posts Yet?

Sign up to Reveal Your A to Z Theme!

As A to Z Challenge co-hosts, one of the biggest challenges we face is how to keep our own blogs going while taking care of a whole host of behind-the-scenes activity.

Last two years, I've gone with one blog. This year, I'm being brave and have submitted two, Amlokiblogs, and Daily (w)rite. I know of people who have submitted up to five blogs!

Before we know it, April would be here-- we have less than a month left! Where did all that time go? Seems to me we were just announcing the challenge and the co-hosts in January!

So, how many of your AZ posts are done? And how can you get them done in a way that is relatively quick and painless?

The most important thing, imho, is to decide a theme.

This makes it easier to pre-schedule posts.

For those of us doing the challenge, deciding a theme is half the job done, and if you've done this job, you can showcase it too, before the challenge starts: Mina Lobo has announced the "Big Reveal Bloghop" where we all reveal our themes a week before the challenge: March 21st. So go ahead and sign up and get to know/ renew acquaintances with a few other A to Z participants!

If you have all your A to Z posts done and dusted, and I know a lot of you have got just that, stupendous! Just make sure you spread the comment love. As DL Hammons tell us in his post, this is the one good way to make your blog part of the community!

If you haven't got your A to Z posts scheduled yet, what are you waiting for?

Alphabet Soup - A Jumbled Jungle of J's

This post is brought to you by Nicole from The Madlab Post...

It’s time for Alphabet Soup - The Word Scramble Puzzle for A to Z Wizards!

Unscramble the following names of movie actors and actresses whose first name starts with letter J. The first commenter who has unscrambled all of them, or the most at best, wins this week’s Alphabet Soup game. Answers and the name of the winner will be posted here at the A to Z blog during next week’s “Friday Fun Time.” Word to the wise: Don’t let the spaces in these names fool you!

1

Jhcaknsooa Jus

2

otkeacaJnsn J

3

ernnnH fidoeuJs

4

nferCylonJen ine

5

tosifei nnAJrnne

6

errCJy mia

7

eeortJtl nuSelm

8

JrnOCo lelnry

9

NlckoncJiohas

10

kck acaBJl

Have an alphabetized weekend, everyone!

Need some extra blogging motivation? Sign up for the Monday Movie Meme, a weekly writing and memory activity that will have you thinking about movies in a whole new light. New topics are posted every Monday!

NICOLE
Read The Madlab Post.
Find/Follow/RT @MadlabPost on Twitter.

Keep Track of #atozchallenge via The #atozchallenge Daily!

Last April, the A to Z challenge had about 1300 participants.This year, more than 600 bloggers

 have already signed up . Who knows how long the list would grow by the third of April?

I have to admit I was a little lost last year--so many blogs to visit, so little time! Plus, I had my 

own posts to think of, which according to my leave-everything-till-the-last-minute personality, 

I had left unscheduled, writing each day as it came. By the time I came to the list, I was 

horrified. Which link had I visited last? Then, when I clicked on a link, it sometimes turned out

 the blogger hadn't posted in a week. Which pissed me off, of course. 

This is when I discovered the #atozchallenge tag which our host Lee helpfully added to all his

 comments. I went on Twitter and discovered fresh A-Z posts by bloggers on this hashtag. No 

worrying over whether the link was valid, and I also got to make new Twitter buddies, and 

agonize with them about the number of posts to be written or visited! (For explanation of hashtag 

for those new to Twitter go here.)

So I basically went and created Twitter newspaper, The #atozchallenge Daily, one which 

automatically collects all the links posted with the  #atozchallenge tag. Even if you're not 

on twitter, all you have to do is bookmark this newspaper. Opening it everyday is a 

great way of finding links to fresh A to Z posts. You'll also find it embedded here in 

this blog, on the sidebar to the right! Embedding it on your own blog is as easy as clicking on 

this link, clicking on the "Embed" tab to the right on the page that opens, and copying the

resultant code into your blog.

If you are on Twitter, you can follow us for updates on @AprilA2Z, and use #atozchallenge 

for any posts you make about A to Z, now, or during the challenge in April. This would make 

it very easy for us and others to find you---adding tons of exposure to your blog. Also, we can

 be twitter buddies and obsess over A to Z building up to the challenge, and also when it 

begins to make us dizzy with all the comment love and discussions!

Of the host team, (besides the main @AprilA2Z) you could follow these folks on Twitter :

Alex J. Cavanaugh :                                              @AlexJCavanaugh

Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs :            @StephenTremp

Matthew MacNish at The QQQE  :                       @MatthewMacNish

Jeremy Hawkins at Retro-Zombie:                      @iZombieJMH

DL Hammons at Cruising Altitude :                    @DL_H

Shannon Lawrence at The Warrior Muse :         @thewarriormuse

Elizabeth Mueller :                                                @ElizbethMueller

Karen Gowen at Coming Down the Mountain : @KarenGowen

Damyanti (that is, moi) at Amlokiblogs:               @damyantig

So if you're on Twitter, follow @AprilA2Z and let us know you're participating--and spread the word via the #atozchallenge 

The more we are, the louder the noise we'll make, the more the people we'll make friends with, and the more fun we'll have. (Not to mention additional twitter and blog follows!)

If you don't like Twitter, keep your finger on the pulse by bookmarking The #atozchallenge Daily...either way, have fun and win new fans this April by participating in the A to Z Challenge!


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Damyanti Biswas, co host of the #atozchallenge.