Reflections #AtoZChallenge 2024

https://forms.gle/MYTdeHK9Dk22RMwM7

Reflections is an additional bloghop connected to the challenge. It is a chance to tell the team and the world your thoughts on the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2024.
Sign up between May 2 and May 9 with a direct link to your reflection post!

Some points to consider for your reflection post:  😎

• Did you win?
• Did you post an alphabet of letter-inspired posts?
• Did you HOP to other A to Z participants?
• Do you believe your blog saw an increase in traffic and comments during April 2024?
• Did you check the MasterList to be sure your entry was correct?
• Do you feel the A to Z Team (Arlee Bird, J Lenni Dorner, Zalka Csenge Virág, John Holton, Jayden R Vincente, and Ronel) supported you, your blog, and this challenge enough in 2024?
• What changes do you hope the team might consider for next year?
• Will you do the challenge again next year?
• Did you use the http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/2024-graphics.html Graphics page?
• Is the HTML useful to you?
• Are there any other images or graphics the team could offer to help you?
• Any suggestions for the team?
• Any thanks?
• Any requests for the 2025 team's theme? (The posts you'll see on this site in April.)
• Any post ideas or requests for our monthly posts on the blog from June to February?
• (Guest posting requests? Poke team captain J! https://jlennidorner.blogspot.com/)
• Have you followed the social media of the A to Z Challenge?
• What was your favorite comment left by another A to Z participant on your blog during the challenge? 🏆
• Did any other A to Z participant make you and your blog feel especially valued this year?
• Do you have a favorite blog that you found during the challenge this year?
• Do you feel you had a positive impact on the Blogging Community during the hop?
• Did you invite or encourage any other bloggers to join the challenge?
• Have you learned anything because of the #AtoZChallenge?
• Did you use a theme in 2024? Any thoughts on themes?
• Was taking part in the challenge a positive experience for you and your blog?
• Consider the significance of the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge, our values (community and inclusion), and your feelings about the experience. How may this influence your future blogging, learning, or actions?
• Any other thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the #AtoZChallenge 2024?
• Will you consider doing the challenge again next year?

Visit others in the reflection hop!
https://tinyurl.com/ymwxjvyv

See how your fellow A to Z Bloggers felt about the challenge this year.

If you've earned it, display your winner's badge!  


(HTML on the graphics page)

Roadtrip Sign up from May 4-25
Be sure to join the RoadTrip, a commitment to visit blogs in the hop (especially ones you may have missed) and highlight the favorite post you created in April.  More info on May 4!

MASTER LIST https://tinyurl.com/w54yupwe

Grow and strengthen the community.

Please follow us!

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@AprilA2Z "Twitter" X.     Our hashtag is #AtoZChallenge

You Can Do This #AtoZChallenge 2024

You can do this.

Keep that in mind as the month – and the challenge – draws to a close.

You can do this.

Far beyond April, your blog needs you to keep on writing and posting.

You can do this.

Write about things that interest you. Write about things you love.

You can do this.

After a month of consistent blogging, you know what you like and dislike; you’ve found your style.

You can do this.

You’ve read and commented on so many blogs, you know what works and what doesn’t (for you and others).

You can do this.

Now: become your favourite blogger.

How did your month of blogging go? What did you learn about yourself?

Please follow us!

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http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com
@a.to.z.challenge     @atozchallenge
@AprilA2Z Our hashtag is #AtoZChallenge

Win This Year! #AtoZChallenge

What blogging world do you wish we could have?

How are you making it happen?

Has this challenge helped you this year? 

Winner badges will post when the challenge ends. 

The Reflection post will be on May 2. That's when you let us know how everything went. 

What do you define as winning? Blogging the whole alphabet? Commenting on a certain number of blogs in the hop? 

What can you do today to get yourself that win?

MASTER LIST https://tinyurl.com/w54yupwe

Hop to as many blogs in the challenge as possible. Grow and strengthen the community.

Please follow us!

bloglovin.com/blogs/blogging-from-a-to-z-april-challenge-3294742
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com
@a.to.z.challenge     @atozchallenge
@AprilA2Z Our hashtag is #AtoZChallenge

Rah! Rah! Rah! #AtoZChallenge

Rah! Rah! Rah! 📣

We're so close to the end! You can do it!

If you comment on about 21 blogs a day for the rest of the month, you'll have successfully hopped through the whole masterlist! 

What about comments you've received? Have you checked your "spam" and "awaiting moderation" folders?

The above is a copped screenshot of a Blogger blog with 42 comments in spam. Most were not actually junk. Please take the time this weekend to see if people have been leaving you comments but your blog-host has misidentified them.

And then keep posting next week. We're so very close to earning those winner badges!

MASTER LIST https://tinyurl.com/w54yupwe

Hop to as many blogs in the challenge as possible. Grow and strengthen the community.

Please follow us!

bloglovin.com/blogs/blogging-from-a-to-z-april-challenge-3294742
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com
@a.to.z.challenge     @atozchallenge
@AprilA2Z Our hashtag is #AtoZChallenge

Letter L for Loneliness #AtoZChallenge guest post

The letter L in my mind is associated with the word Loneliness. A sad word, to be sure. Unfortunately, many writers are afflicted by it. I am. I’m an extreme introvert. I live in my head most of the time. I communicate with my fictional characters on a deeper level than I do with my neighbors or even family. With my characters, I’m open. I don’t feel constrained to hide my quirks or my oddities. Just the opposite: those quirks make my characters unique, my writing original. Often, the heroes of my stories become my best friends, at least until I’m done writing those stories, while my few real-life friends feel baffled by my insistent ‘daydreaming.’ Thank the stars for the internet and for my blogger friends.

It was on the internet that I finally found like-minded people, the community of other writers. They blog about hearing voices of their characters, and I think: yeah, me too. They blog about their research into the best poisons for their upcoming mystery, and I think: ditto. I did online research once for a homemade bomb. For the same reason, of course: my heroine needed to disarm a bomb by magical means. We are united in our half-humorous concern that the police might be interested in us because of our ‘dangerous’ research topics.  

The positive outcome is that my online writer-friends alleviate my Loneliness. They frequently understand me better than my kids or my sister do. We are sailing the same boat, weathering the same storms, heading towards the same shore. We want to be read. When the visitors of my blog comment on my posts, I feel happy. Understood. Appreciated. I’m not alone anymore.

For many introverts like me, our digital friends’ blogs are a lifeline. They make us all feel connected. Blog away, friends. I want to read your blogs. And comment, so you feel appreciated too. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a distantly related topic, I want to say that Loneliness is often a theme of science fiction stories. Case in point: The Martian by Andy Weir. Cosmonauts are often alone. As I’m not only a writer but also a book cover designer, I recently made a couple of pre-made book covers with the theme of Loneliness in mind. I didn’t know at the time I worked on those covers that I would be writing this guest post, but they fit perfectly, and I want to share them with you. I hope you enjoy them.

All the images I used in both my composite covers come from the free image site Pixabay.com.   

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Olga Godim is a speculative fiction writer and book cover designer. Her website and blog: https://olgagodim.wordpress.com/  

MASTER LIST https://tinyurl.com/w54yupwe

Hop to as many blogs in the challenge as possible. Grow and strengthen the community.

Please follow us!

bloglovin.com/blogs/blogging-from-a-to-z-april-challenge-3294742
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com
@a.to.z.challenge     @atozchallenge
@AprilA2Z Our hashtag is #AtoZChallenge

Jounce #AtoZChallenge Bloghop

Hello from team captain, J! Yes, I do love the letter today. I hope you have lots of joyous J posts.

Don't forget that this is a bloghop. We're one of the few blogging communities remaining. Jounce to other blogs! Leave comments for your fellow A to Z participants. We join together here, and have a connection and camaraderie. I'm not jesting! Go out there and make a new blogging friend today. 

MASTER LIST https://tinyurl.com/w54yupwe

Hop to as many blogs in the challenge as possible. Grow and strengthen the community.

Please follow us!

bloglovin.com/blogs/blogging-from-a-to-z-april-challenge-3294742
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com
@a.to.z.challenge     @atozchallenge
@AprilA2Z Our hashtag is #AtoZChallenge

You CAN Win the #AtoZChallenge 2024 🏆🏅🎆🎉 Five Tips 5️⃣

Welcome to the letter F. Don't fail now! We lose so many good bloggers by the second week of the challenge. It's hard to imagine keeping up the fast pace of the start for the whole month. Here are five tips for you:

1.  Look out for negative thoughts and feelings. The little voice saying "I think you can't, I think you can't, I think you can't" doesn't own you. Acknowledge it and then reach for your goals anyway.
2. The fact is that many of our bloggers do complete the challenge. Many do come up with an alphabet of blog posts in April. And the successful majority carve out time to visit and comment on at least 50 other blogs in the hop! There is a community here waiting to show you support and ready to help you achieve your social blogging goals.
3. If you can picture yourself failing the challenge, you can also picture yourself winning the challenge. There are many possible scenarios. You can decide how this April will end.
4. If thinking about the whole month or whole challenge gets to be too much, then focus on just one day. Create one blog post for the next letter, and then go hop to a handful of blogs. Find just an hour or just twenty minutes. Negative thoughts have to be on mute for a little. ⏲ Set a timer. ⏳
5. What is the very BEST-CASE scenario for the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge for you and your blog? Find your goal! Maybe it's getting to display the winner's badge. Perhaps it's getting a certain number of comments, or leaving a given number of them. Maybe it's about improving your writing. Or proving to yourself that you can actually create a month of blog posts. Whatever would make you feel the BEST about completing the challenge, write that down and read it to yourself all month. Every time you want to quit, look at your reason to try, your stated desire, and imagine yourself achieving that goal. Consider how it will make you feel to be a winner.

You CAN do this! Please, ask any of our A to Z team members for help. We all have lots of experience and plenty of ideas to share. We want to celebrate with you during the reflection post in May. We love hearing stories of bloggers who achieved their goals during the challenge. 

MASTER LIST https://tinyurl.com/w54yupwe

Hop to as many blogs in the challenge as possible. Grow and strengthen the community.

SIGN-UPS CLOSE APRIL 7, 2024.  
Sign-up for the challenge! https://forms.gle/41PjgHFL4zwnM2Am7

Please follow us!

bloglovin.com/blogs/blogging-from-a-to-z-april-challenge-3294742
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com
@a.to.z.challenge     @atozchallenge
@AprilA2Z Our hashtag is #AtoZChallenge