Tree of Life: A Collaborative Writing Challenge by Samantha Redstreake Geary

Tree of Life: Origins is a collaborative journey in epic writing, where a single writer will interpret the cinematic scores of audiomachine's Tree of Life album to create an original, music driven tale. Every artist--whether a painter or poet, dancer or director, storyteller or sculptor, choreographer or composer--is driven by their passion to create. When you let your passion guide you, great things are born. It is when these passions converge that the real magic happens. My passion lies in pulling the threads of imagination that live and breathe in each eager note until I have woven a story worthy of the song. Every piece of music tells a tale, one that will bend and bow for every ear. Music is a meal rich in emotion that feeds the soul. A writer's soul has a voracious appetite, capable of devouring every last sound, leaving a plate of pure inspiration in its place.

It is my hope that you will all join me in this creative venture by following this epic tale as it unfolds. Starting July 24th through August 18th, I will be posting daily excerpts of the Tree of Life: Origins serial, each one featuring an inspirational album track. As the story unfolds, readers will have the opportunity to win prizes. Since this is a collaborative project, we would like you, the readers, to get involved by leaving your feedback in the comments section of the story's excerpts. The more you interact with us, the better your chances are of winning, say, a signed novel or ebook from one of our brilliant authors or an autographed Tree of Life album by the celebrated composer, Paul Dinletir!

Audiomachine will choose their top 10 favorite story posts. A lucky reader will be randomly chosen from the comments section of each selected post. Winners will be announced the week of August 18th!

And now for our list of master storytellers who graciously donated the following for your reading pleasure! Be sure to visit their websites to learn more about these amazing authors: Shana Abé -- signed copy of The Sweetest Dark Stacey Jay -- signed copy Of Beast and Beauty Chris Howard -- signed copy of Rootless Susan Kaye Quinn --The Debt Collector Season one ebooks Ellie Garratt -- Taking Time and Passing Time ebooks M. Pax -- signed copies of The Backworlds & Stopover at the Backworlds’ Edge and The Renaissance of Hetty Locklear ebook

Tree of Life: Branching Out is a collaborative writing challenge, where creative minds meet epic movie music. Preselected guest writers representing all genres, from all across the globe, will contribute their own 150 word excerpt (wc is flexible) to a continuing story collectively written over the course of 26 days. Each of the 26 writers will find inspiration in a featured composition from the motion picture music production house, audiomachine's new TREE OF LIFE album. These clever masters of the craft will spin the story in whatever direction they choose, picking up where the previous writer left off, resulting in the ultimate collaborative tale. The challenge kicks off July 15th through August 9th. Be sure to check back HERE daily for exciting new excerpts. When the collaboration is complete, fans will have a chance to vote for their favorite guest excerpt starting August, 10th. Submit your votes in a private message to Sam's FB page by August 17th. Winners will be announced August 18th. The top three writers will be awarded prizes.

Audiomachine will also choose their top three favorite guest excerpts! ATTENTION FANS: You can WIN an autographed TREE OF LIFE audiomachine album by LEAVING COMMENTS! On August 17th, two lucky readers will be chosen at random from the comments section of the story excerpts. The more you comment--the better your chances are of winning a piece of cinematic history! We want to hear from YOU!
Samantha Redstreake Geary :Unlocking Imaginations and Evoking the Essence of Memory
Sam's Blog: Writerly Sam
Sam's FB page

Sam, this sounds like such a great project! Thanks for sharing with us. I can't wait to write my section!

~Tina

Alicia Bien: Wine, Wonderful Wine

"You're going to write about wine?" Mr. Wonderful said setting his espresso cup on the breakfast table.

"Yep," I said stirring my green tea.

"For every day in April?"

"Yep."

"Have you lost your mind?"

"Yep!"

Mr. Wonderful is my biggest fan, which he should be since, well, he is my husband. In fact when we got married, his vowed to love, honor and support all my crazy plans. And in return I promised to love, honor and keep things interesting. After several years of marriage, we're both batting a thousand.

But perhaps I was biting off too much with this A-Z Blogging Challenge? Twenty-six days was a lot of writing, blogging and all around suffering. But then I reconsidered: I'd been a wine drinker since college; I was a member of a wine group and; I'd been writing about wine for some time, which meant I had plenty of stories to tell about wine, wineries and winos. The wino bit I knew from personal experience. Lots of personal experience. But the question remained: could I write about wine for 26 days in April? I had to find out.

"A" was a great place to start. Wine had plenty of "A" words like Aroma, Acidic and Alcohol Induced-Fun-Times-Rock-On! I did not, however, use any of these words instead opting for "A is for Drinking Alone" because if you wanted to learn about wine you have to be okay drinking wine alone in moderation. I know I am.

Would the other letters be as easy to write about? I had to find out.

I wrote my way through the alphabet without struggling for subject matter because I'd chosen a great theme. Wine encompasses worlds of material such as: flavor, taste, smell, geography, weather, farming, history, language, culture, international-geopolitical-fashion-giraffes. Well, maybe not that, but a whole lot nonetheless.

Of course some letters were more challenging that others. Could I write posts for "Q" or "U" or the dreaded "X"? I had to find out.

I tackled these posts and thanks to the pressure of needing to have the posts done--that glorious pressure!--I was able to write these and all the other posts for the Challenge. 

Part of the A-Z Blogging Challenge was to visit other blogs. Could I work, write and read others' blogs? I had to find out.

I started with my own name and worked my way down the list and it was a treat to discover new blogs. Clicking on a new blog was like opening a gift on Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. You didn't know what would be there except it would be a surprise. I relished reading these other blogs. I wished I could have read all 1,900,126 of them. But next year is another Challenge and opportunity to do so.

Having completed the Challenge I now had 26 wine stories as well as many others from various outlets I'd written for, therefore I decided to collect my favorite wine pieces into a comical book about one woman's wine journey from discovery to appreciation.

"You're publishing a book?" Mr. Wonderful said sipping his espresso.

"Yep," I said stirring my green tea.

"A book about wine?"

"Yep."

"You certainly keep things interesting."

"Yep!"

About the Author:

Alicia Bien is a wine drinker and comedy writer. She lives in Los Angeles with her spouse, "Mr. Wonderful", in their fixer-upper house, which they are fixing upping. She blogs at New House Girl. Her book EVOLUTION OF A WINE DRINKER will be released July 31, 2013.

Thanks for being with us today, Alicia.  Good luck with the release of your book!

~Tina

Cori McKeivor: Channeling the A to Z Motivation All Year Long

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying their post-challenge roadtrips and new projects. I entered two blogs into the A to Z challenge and found it a great motivator for my blogging. Tiring, yes. Stressful, yes. However, it was ultimately a great motivator and a great source of inspiration (but my post challenge 'reflections' blog post will tell you more about that if you are interested).

What I want to talk about today is channelling that A to Z motivation all year round. Shelina wrote a great post last month about missing the April challenge and trying to plan the month ahead to get more regular writing done. I did just that. As discussed in my reflections post, I had a plan for April. Since then I have had a (bit more disorganised) plan for the following months.

It has been working well even if it is a bit haphazard juggling an extra blog. This month I have started a new A to Z challenge all of my own to boost the content on my new blog.  I have chosen to write an "A to Z of Skills" for my DIY Career Development Blog which was 'born' out of the challenge. It is a new blog and I am still trying to build up the useful content. This will be weekly post which I started at the beginning of the month (which means if I stick to it it will end neatly at the end of 2013).

It is a great new challenge if you are still feeling the post challenge blogging blues or have lost your momentum. Action point: Try a themed weekly a to z for a topic you want to write more content on but never quite get there. So why not try it yourself to build up you content on a particular theme or topic without the stress of the daily challenge but still maintaining some consistency. Besides, being in a weekly A to Z zone might also inspire you to check off some blogs on your post-challenge roadtrip.

Info about me:  Cori of Printed Portal is a young professional working and writing in the UK. She writes about planning and organisation at her blog Planning with Printed Portal, about writing (when she has time) at Putting Pen to Paper and more recently has started a new blog about taking control of your own career development at DIY Career Development after an enjoyable A to Z Challenge in April.

Thanks so much for being here today, Cori, and for sharing your enthusiasm and great ideas.

~Tina

Dystopolis by Ian Anderson

A-Z 2013: "Dystopolis"

Last year my theme was Beautiful Things, inspired by the title track of Gungor's album. I enjoyed it, and the challenge lived up to its name! This year I was all but decided I wouldn't participate due to another job change and an addition to our family. However, there was a story bubbling under my skin, and a couple nights before April I made quick plans to jump in no matter how unorganized I was.

The theme from last year had me writing about different objects that I considered beautiful, but this year I wanted something different, something more cohesive. The idea I settled on was a short story. The plan was to post a small portion of a dystopia each day of April, and at the end of the month I'd have a rough draft.

I had no outline to begin the month, and I had no idea if it would work (and that's still up for debate). The only bit of story I did have was the ending, and I wrote everything with that in mind. The challenge created a deadline that I thrived upon - and it really drove the story. I was forced to pound away at Adam and Evie's tale, even if I had no idea where it was going when I sat down. Those April mornings weren't something I dreaded, but something I looked forward to, something I needed.

And when I remained faithful to that deadline, faithful to the story, I found that the story flowed. Characters surprised me, events popped up that I didn't foresee, and the tale took up its own life.

Of course I couldn't sustain the pace of April. At times I'm glad for that, and at times I hope for the day when I can sit down every day with a deadline in front of me and allow the story to come to life. Maybe next April will be another step in that direction.

If you're looking for a way to jump start your blog or give yourself a deadline for that short story you've been meaning to write, why not join the fun next April? The A-Z Challenge will stretch you and encourage you, just as it did me!

Additionally, I hope you'll give "Dystopolis" a chance. You can now purchase the story for the Kindle on Amazon for $0.99. Stop by my blog, Reflections on things fantastic, to read a preview!

Thanks so much for being here today, Ian, and for the chance to get your book at such a good price! I'm looking forward to reading it – one of my favorite genres!

~Tina

Susan: How to Help Bloggers Connect Across Platforms

Please welcome Susan, who joined us this year for her first A-Z Challenge. She has an interesting proposal for next year – check it out!

~Tina

As a relatively new blogger looking for something to write about I came across the Blogging from A to Z challenge just at the right time. I had been blogging for about 8 months on my first blog, Sue's considered trifles which was intended to be the basis of a book on the English language from an enthusiastic amateur. I had sometimes deviated from my original intention and blogged about other subjects of in a different style.

At the beginning of Holy Week I had started posting to a new blog, Sue's Trifles in order to blog in whatever way I chose, while working on my original blog in a more consistent manner. I had already created and published two posts about letters of the alphabet, P and R and had begun making notes about other letters. I was considering taking the words PRECIOUS and WALK which do not have any letters in common. 

Precious is a word used to mean valued or special. Isaiah 28:16 is one example of its use in the Bible. However that was only going to use twelve out of the twenty six letters in the alphabet. An A to Z challenge was right up my street. I was at a slight disadvantage during the challenge as my blog was so new.

I also found that it was difficult to direct other A to Z bloggers to my A to Z posts. My username on WordPress is more closely connected to my other blog. I have learned a lot during and since the challenge about using widgets to customise my blog. I have also improved my Gravatar profile to help with this. I also created a page with a list of links to my A to Z posts, having seen a similar one on another blog.

I use facebook a bit, but have very few friends on facebook and don’t often look at links to it from blogs. However I set up a facebook page for my blogs during April. When I published post U, I had already prepared and scheduled my posts for the rest of the challenge, so I had a bit of “spare” time and discovered the facebook page for the A to Z community. I posted links to my posts from Q to the end of the alphabet on the appropriate threads there, but did not seem to have any additional traffic from this source, although I looked at some posts myself using links from the same threads.

Now as a blogger on the WordPress platform, it is simple for me to post comments on other WordPress blogs and keep track of the answers without flooding my email inbox. However, I found that to comment on other blogs, whether on blogspot or other web-sites required a great deal of patience, perseverance and ingenuity. Even then it often did not work. I had thought carefully about what I wanted to say, typed it and it either gave a page not found error, or just failed. I learned to copy my comments before trying to post them, but even so my failure rate was very high.

So here is my proposal. For bloggers who really want to interact with others on different blogging platforms, why not set up a facebook page for your blog. (You need to have a personal facebook account first.) The help pages on facebook allowed me to do this, so I’m sure you can manage it too! Then if you find a blogger you wish to give a comment to, use your facebook page identity to comment on the facebook page of the other blogger.

I’d like to do the A to Z challenge again next year. I have found some interesting blogs and wonderful bloggers through it. There are links to some of their blogs in my reflections post and on my links page. I have also learned a great deal about blogging and social networking. What do you think? Have you already set up a facebook page for your blog(s)? Did you use the A to Z community page on facebook? And how difficult is it for non-WordPress bloggers to comment on WordPress blogs?