A to Z Tip: Timing is Everything

This post is brought to you by Cindy Dwyer, another A-Z expert. Please welcome her – I found her advice really helpful even though I'm MST in the U.S.  She brought up some questions I hadn't even considered.

Like many bloggers, I have a full-time day job to support my writing habit. I leave the house at seven in the morning and get home at around five or five-thirty. So during the A to Z Challenge, I schedule my posts to go live in the wee hours of the night. This gives me several advantages. 

Since I sleep with my laptop next to the bed -- and really, who doesn't? ☺ -- when my alarm goes off at 6:00 a.m. EST, I can check to make sure that day's letter made it safely through the cyberspace gremlins before I even roll out of bed. If I don't fix any problems then, they stay broken until after dinner because, sadly, I do not have an IT department. (Once, I did come home to find my cat asleep on my laptop, but that wasn't quite what I had in mind when I wished I had help staying on top of the technical aspects of my website.)

Another great thing about posting early is that during those ten hours I'm gone, other A2Zers can be reading and commenting on my post. I do try to log onto my website during lunch to answer comments and visit a few blogs from the list. But on crazy days when I can't, at least my blog is current with that day's letter.

Even if you do have the entire day free to write your post, you still need to account for time zones. The A to Z Challenge attracts participants from around the world. Remember, New York is five hours behind London and sixteen hours behind eastern Australia. 

Say you live in California and have a habit of blogging after dinner. At 7:00 p.m. PST, it's two o'clock the following afternoon in parts of Australia, where people may have already posted "I" before you've had a chance to update your "G" post to "H". 

If you want your friends Down Under to read your letter of the day before they go to sleep, you really need to activate that entry before 8:00 a.m. EST.

And the opposite is true for bloggers on the other side of the world -- you may want to schedule your posts for a little later in the day to avoid appearing a letter ahead of the western hemisphere.

I'm curious to hear from prior A to Z participants. Did you try to post at the same time each day? Did the differences in time zones make you feel like you were always a little ahead (or behind) everyone else? 

These are excellent questions, and I'm curious how our international participants handle this issue.  Please speak up!

~Tina, very grateful for Cindy's excellent advice

A - Z "ing" through the A - Z Challenge

Ambitious beginnings

Cruising diligently

Exciting entertainment

Fantastic, golly-gee!

Heaven help us, hurry!

Inspire impressive jaunts

Kindly kick our kiesters

Lending labor, not laments

Motion mild manners

Never needing nasty names

Oppressing only captchas

Picky pop-ups in a frame

Quintessential quest

Quantificates rebuttals

Snatching snobby snaglines

Tried and true with titles

Useless unanimity

Verociously vivacious

Waging without weakness

XXVI – not one word less

Yin and yang have yielded

Zipping zigzags zestily

April’s Blogging Challenge

Is the testament, you see!

Brought to you by M.J Joachim.  Find her at Lots of Crochet Stitches

Photo credit:  Badges courtesy of A – Z Challenge and Charmaine Clancy

©2013 All Rights Reserved

Cryogenics: Can We Live Again In The Future?

Robert Ettinger, founder of the cryogenics movement, has died (at least for now) about eighteen months ago at the age of 92. Cryogenics is the process of freezing your head or your entire body in hopes science will one day figure out a way to bring you back from the dead. Ettinger will join his two wives (what was he thinking???) and his mother in frozen limbo. 

The facility is in Clinton Township, Michigan. Over 100 human corpses are floating in the gentle giant capsules filled with liquid nitrogen in hopes of one day living again. Nobody knows for sure whether we can ever restore consciousness frozen bodies, but cryopreservation is a phenomenon present in the animal kingdom and effective medical technology. 

Many livestock have developed tricks to survive temperatures below zero degrees Celsius, accounting and after periods of paralysis caused by frost. And scientists have made important progress in freezing living tissue and even of whole organs for medical purposes. 

The minimum price that the airline claims for his services is 28,000 dollars. Other organizations charge for customers and amounts up to $ 200,000 and offers the possibility of "neuroprezervării" instead of full body freeze, freezing heads may require only interested in the idea that personality and memories are stored in the brain and loaded into a computer or an artificial body in the future. 

One obstacle to overcome is frozen ice crystals within the bloodstream are very sharp. They can actually cut tissue and blood vessels, causing sever damage that make it difficult preserving vital parts of the human body. 

Question: Do you think this process of cryogenics is actually a possibility? Can we freeze our heads or bodies in hopes that one day technology will enable us to one day live again? 

Stephen Tremp, author of the BREAKTHROUGH series, has a B.A. in information systems and an MBA degree in global management. Stephen has a background in information systems, management, and finance and draws from this varied and complex experiential knowledge to write one-of-a-kind thrillers. His novels are enhanced by current events at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and other scientific research facilities around the world. These potential advances have the ability to change the way we perceive our universe and our place in it! 

You can visit Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs. 

BREAKTHROUGH and OPENING can be downloaded:  Kindle for $.99  through this weekend!

If you think this post is worthy of Twitter or Facebook, please select the appropriate icon below. Thanks!!!

Getting to Know Your Co-Hosts - Matthew MacNish

I'm Matthew MacNish.
I'm the author of the publishing and query critique blog: The QQQE
I co-author the YA literature blog: YA Confidential
I co-author the MG literature blog: Project MG Mayhem
I'm an aspiring KidLit Novelist, whose published short fiction you can find, here.
I collect vinyl records.
I love Star Wars, Anime, and Tolkien (yes I bought and watched The Hobbit on Blu-Ray last night - it was the third time I've seen it).

Here are my answers to some of the crazy questions we, and some of our readers, came up with:

"Where do you go to "Get away from it all"?"

I don't have time for that much anymore, but when I can, I like to hike in the mountains.

"Where do you hail from?"

Originally? Seattle.

"Name an item that you have too much of."

Records, I suppose.

“Your house in on fire; assuming your kids, pets, and other living things are safe, what do you grab as you head out the door?”

I'm really not a materialistic person, and I back-up my writing meticulously, but I suppose I would try to get my parents' ashes.

"Who is your favorite fictional character and why?"

Gandalf. I've wanted a Wizard for a best friend since I was three years old.

"Do you know how to 'Gangnam Style?'"

Yep. I used to be quite a dancer when I was younger. I could even breakdance a little, but I'm way too old and fat for that now.

Is there anything else you'd like to know? Ask away in the comments, and I'll come back to answer!

#atozchallenge News Round-up

Click Badge to add your Name
To the list.

     Have you signed up for the A to Z Challenge yet?   If not, the list can be found by clicking the tab at the top of this page.  Now's the time to get on the list.  You still have time to at least get started on preparing posts.  And even if you write as you go you'll still have fun.

       Many of you have been helping to promote the Challenge on your own sites.  Here are a few that we've run across:

Co-host Tina had a new commenter on her blog.  First challenge, 9 followers. Tina was the first to comment on her A-Z promo post.  If you have a chance, show her some love at Tales of the Reborn Crafter. 

M. J. Joachim has become a ubiquitous presence in the 2013 A to Z Challenge.   You can find one of her guest posts at the equally ubiquitous P. V. Ariel's Philips.com.

When readers run across an A to Z promo post they will sometimes let us know about what they find(since we often don't see all of them on our own).  That's how we found the post from Wayne at Random Stream of Consciousness.  Thanks Wayne!

Ambassador Tim Brannon from The Other Side made a post to try to get more people from his corner of the internet involved.

Beth Lapin talks about her A to Z theme on her special blog set up for the Challenge.  Check it out at Beth Lapin's A to Z Blog.

With her third A to Z Challenge ahead, Michelle tells her A to Z story at Writer-in-Transit.


Here's a good A to Z post from M.M. Pollard at MM's Fundamentals of English.    You may learn a few things from her during April.  

Maria at First Draft Cafe is working away at her posts for April.  

At first she wasn't go to do it, but now Nel Ashley has decided she should.  Read more at Nel Ashley.

Sharon Bayliss did a great interview with co-hosts Tina and Nicole at her blog Write for Your Life.

Julie did a lovely tribute to the Challenge at Empty Nest Insider.  

At her  blog Being Catholic, M.J. Joachim added the A to Z Challenge to the current events of the day.  We are newsworthy!

Be sure to stop by ...The Slightly Eccentric Diary of Rob Z Tobor for a lesson on A to Z blogging.  

JoJo at Tahoma Beadworks & Photography is part of Tina Downey's Terrific Team and started her duties with a Challenge announcement.

Challenge veteran Dale from Smurfin' the Web gave a good word for the Challenge--yes, he's ready to go.

If you're a U2 fan you will definitely want to check out On The Road With U2.  Deena's back for a second go around with the alphabet.

Rosie Amber is looking for you!  Stop by to read about her A to Z intentions at Rosie Amber. 

And to close this edition out with a bang, take a look at Andi-Roo's epic A to Z promo post at The World 4 Realz.  Yes, Andi-Roo is back for another year and that's for realz. 

         There you have it!  This will probably be the closing edition of  the A to Z Promo news, but don't let that stop you from adding your own promos to your blogs.   Tell everyone you know.  Tweet it.  Announce it on FaceBook.  Let's get some more sign ups.  Can we break last year's record?

Related articles

• #atozchallenge news -- Here's Who's Been Helping Out
• Do You Luv the #atozchallenge?
• Have You Joined the #AtoZchallenge Yet?
• This Is the Place for #atozchallenge News!