Are You Ready To Road Trip?
Sign-ups will be closing Friday night (That's tomorrow folks!) so you still have some time to join us on our journey through the A to Z blog list throughout the rest of 2016. It's a great way to pass time on lazy summer days or any old time for that matter. Discover new blogs that you missed in April and make new blogging friends.
If you'd like to get on board the Road Trip Blogging Bus then add your blog link to the list below and then start visiting!
J here of #TeamArlee (the BEST team in the A to Z Challenge— woot woot!).
I've taken over the Debut Author Spotlight at Operation Awesome on Wednesdays.
Here's an A to Z list making this news relevant to YOU!
Authors who take part in the A to Z challenge know it's best to support one another
Blogging has never been more vital for debut authors
Connecting and commenting is the bread& butter of successful debut authors
Entertainment is easily found in the pages of a new book
Friends and family alone are not enough— debut authors need support and reviews from other people
Genres from every shelf are eligible for representation
Heartthrobs, hardships, humanitarian missions... it's hard not to find a good book
Intellectual discussions about books are the cornerstone of culture
Just leaving a nice comment on these posts could encourage the next Agatha Christie, Danielle Steel, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, John Grisham...
Kindred book spirits are easier to find thanks to my short interviews
Love 'em or leave 'em, you'll learn about the debut authors in just a few short minutes
Maybe you'd find something you never expected
New authors become favorite authors
Only debut once!
Publishing traditionally, small press, or self— all are welcome to be interviewed
Quality or quantitiy— which increases sales more? Come discuss!
Reviews are powerful! Determine if these debut authors will be graced by you giving them such a wonderous gift. A new author EVERY WEDNESDAY!
Social Media and debut authors... The "We live by the sword, we die by the sword" idiom means, basically, what you use shall come around and be used equally on or to you. So when it comes to debut authors, "We live by the Tweet, we die by the Tweet." These are people longing to connect with their audience. Come make a new friend!
Television and movies based on the works of debut authors have made billions. (Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, Nicholas Sparks's The Notebook, Ed Conlons's Blue Blood, etc)
Utopia is a place where we never run out of new books to read
Variety is the spice of life. Check out a debut author today!
Whatever A to Z category you most love, there's a book on the subject
X-treme book reading challenge: Read one book by a debut author every week!
Years ahead of other shippers if you fall in love with the book first!
Zip over to say hello and wish me luck on my new position interviewing debut authors at Operation Awesome.
Interested in being interviewed? Contact @JLenniDorner on Twitter!
If you're interested in submitting a guest post for the A to Z Challenge blog, please contact me at ArleeBird@gmail.com.
Today we welcome author J.A. Scottand his rocking theme of childhood television shows and commercials. Prepare for a trip down memory lane!
What made you select television shows from your childhood?
My theme last year was pet peeves (though I call them rants). Though
mostly they were something everyone could relate to, I was never too
sure everyone found them enjoyable to read. I wanted to do something
nearly everyone would have fun with. And who does not enjoy watching
television? When I was younger, we didn't have cable and video games.
Sure, they were around, but they were in their infancy and expensive.
If not for the TV, I would be outside playing with a stick. Also,
growing up, TV watching was something everyone in the family did
together. So when I wanted to revisit those days, it was in the hopes
it would bring back fond memories not only for me, but for everyone
reading as well.
The bonus commercials from the past were funny. Did you get lost
wandering You-tube looking for them?
If you mean, was there a snowball effect of watching one video,
leading to another and another video, yes. Fortunately, I had a few
tools at my disposal. A 1001 classic TV commercials DVD and an A-Z
Guide to TV Guide book. These tools made it easier to look for the
exact commercial I required. Hard to believe they were all on
you-tube. Thankfully, some people have too much time on their hands.
What was the most obscure show you remember?
The most obscure in my list was most likely 'Quark'. A TV show set in
the future about a crew collecting space garbage. As you might
imagine, it didn't last long. It's so obscure, even I never recall
seeing it. And I've always been into sci.fi.
As for the most obscure I HAVE seen, I noticed there were a few.
'Misfits of Science' was a zany slap-stick super hero series featuring
a young Courtney Cox. Quite easily my favourite of the obscure shows I
featured.
There was also 'It's a Living', a sit-com about waitresses in a swanky
restaurant. The comedy was mediocre, but at the time, it was all I
knew. And Ann Jillian certainly drew me in.
The final one (and I'm sorry I selected more than one), was the Krofft
Supershow. Most people seemed to have no idea what it was. The theme
music included an awkward 70's-ish, annoying theme. Most people did
not recognize the show in question from the theme music. But when fast
forwarded to the last minute, you would realize these were the people
who brought us such children's classics as Electra Woman and Dyna
Girl, Wonderbug and Dr. Shrinker. Incidentally, they also were
responsible for bringing us; Sigmund and the Sea Monster, the Far Out
Space Nuts, the Lost Saucer, Lidsville, the Bugaloos and of course,
the Land of the Lost. (Yes, I watched most of those…)
What was the show everyone remembered?
Whether a person watched it or not, I received many comment on Knight
Rider. This was a classic show which everyone seemed to remember.
There was a talking car and David Hasselhoff. There were even a generous supply of car jumps (to compete with Dukes of Hazard I
guess). Ironically enough, I got almost as many comments for Dukes of
Hazard.
How many of the commercial jingles did you still know by heart?
As long as I was aware of the commercial, 9 times out of 10 I could
recite any jingle the commercials offered.
I can still sing the jingles from Coke, McDonald's, Oscar Mayer, Dr.
Pepper, you name it, I probably remember it. Even the ones without a
jingle, I could most likely recall verbatim most of the lines. (I’d like to teach the world to sing!)
What aspect of this theme was the most fun?
When putting this theme together, I loved searching the
internet/You-tube for those rare gems. I particularly enjoyed
recalling my favourite TV shows through the theme music. As for the
commercials, I loved searching for the ones with early celebrities
appearances or the ones not so PC any more. I found those the most
humorous. After putting this theme together, the most enjoyable part
was reading the comments. Seeing which ones people remembered or how
many fond memories this theme revisited for many was another great
result.
What was the worst commercial you featured? The one that you
watched and wondered what the heck the company was thinking.
There was quite a few which made me scratch my head. The Ultra-Brite
and Xerox commercials were utterly ridiculous. But then again, they
were memorable. For Xerox, they wanted to illustrate the ease of their
equipment and Ultra-Brite, well, sex sells. Essentially (Use our
toothpaste and the girls will finally notice you). So those two get a
pass from me because I see WHAT they were trying to accomplish. The
Jell-O commercial might have been offensive to many, but it also was
long before the PC world we live in now. Then we have the Winston
commercial. It was quite the shock for me to discover Fred Flintstone
and Barney Rubble selling cigarettes. But that wasn't even the worse
commercial as far as I'm concerned. The ultimate winner of the 'Who
Were the Ad Wizards That Came Up With This One' award goes to the
Nabisco Cookie Man Superhero commercial. Or was he Kooky Man? A portly
man donned in a poor excuse for a costume, fights puppet like "greedy"
monsters to rescue stolen cookies. Which, of course, he promptly eats
when recovered. Don't miss the 10 second super extreme close-up of
this super hero's mouth enjoying a cookie. I can only assume this was
a "winner of a competition or something because it looks like a grade
school class put the commercial together. Seriously, I've had
nightmares better directed than this... this.... schlock.
What theme are you considering for next year?
There are a number ideas running through my head for next year. And
like last year, I've already begun preparing a few. Whichever ones I
don't do next year, I may do at some point on my blog as a regular
feature. But what I have been considering are the following (and I
would LOVE input on what others would like to see.)
1. Music - I own over 500 CD's. And yes, I already CAN put together a
list of AtoZ of my favourite CD's.
2. Movies - I've started to amass a large film collection. Not quite
as spectacular as my music collection, but it is starting to grow.
3. Milwaukee - Milwaukee is so much more than beer or Happy Days. But
we have them too. People will truly be amazed at what Milwaukee has to
offer. It's a great place by a great lake, and TONS to do, especially
in summer.
4. Games - I'm a gamer, and I don't mean video games. Since I was
young, games have been a big part of family time. And I have passed
this on to my children. Board games, card games, dice or whatever else
you can think of. I have a large selection, and they are all fun to
play.
5. Story - Though this would be challenging and there were not as many
people interested in this according to my reflections post, I'm still
considering a group participation story. Essentially, it will be a
flash fiction which develops over the course of the month. One
paragraph a day will end with a choice for the readers. Depending on
the majority vote, the story will shift and change according to what
people would like to read. Thanks, Jeffrey! And I won’t tell you how many CD’s and albums I own…
Co-host Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh is the author of Amazon Best-sellers CassaStar, CassaFire, CassaStorm, and Dragon of the Stars, founder of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, and his blog can be found HERE
This guest post comes courtesy of writer/blogger Lissa Johnston. If you would be interested in contributing your guest post to the A to Z Challenge Blog please contact us.
Personal Challenges and Light Bulb Moments
2016 is my first year participating in the A to Z Challenge, though not my first blog challenge and definitely not my first writing challenge. I’m familiar with deadline pressure - what writer isn’t? - but the A to Z presented a couple of different types of pressure, for different reasons. As I progressed through the challenge, and even afterward, my opinions on some blog-related issues have been swinging back and forth like a West Texas weather vane, to wit:
To Theme Or Not To Theme
When I started the challenge, I didn’t realize what was going on with the ‘theme’. I thought ‘A to Z’ was the theme. Once I figured it out, I thought, Whew! So glad theme is optional. Themes are stupid. Themes tie me down and restrict my writing. I’ll write whatever the heck I feel like. And of course after the hundredth random theme-less blog I visited, I was so thankful to stumble across blogs that had such narrowly focused themes I marveled in their ability to find 6 topics to write about, much less 26. I became a believer. Themes are the bomb. Themes are like fences. They may seem restrictive and unsightly, but in addition to keeping good things in, they also keep bad things out.
Categories and Comments
After the challenge concluded, we were encouraged to post a recap of our experiences. Of 1300+ bloggers who completed most of the challenge, less than a third shared a recap. Still, that’s over 300 opinions, and I’ve worked my way through nearly half.
Two areas were mentioned repeatedly: requests for tweaks to the blog category codes; and hand-wringing over the low percentage of participants who visited and commented at other blogs. My flip-flop on these two issues is intertwined.
First, to the categories: When we registered for the challenge, we were asked to describe our blogs using a two-letter code. The idea was to give other bloggers some idea of what your blog was about before they clicked. Many participants thought there should be more categories added. Some also suggested they should describe the theme, rather than the blog, since the two could vary wildly. My initial reaction to the category idea was, Categories? I don’t need no stinking categories! I assigned myself one. But I basically ignored other people’s blog categories because I wanted to visit ALL of them, regardless of topic.I will also admit my initial reaction to blogs being categorized is that it had the potential to hurt some blogs that might be at a disadvantage if ghetto-ized into a category with a very small niche.
Secondly, the comments: Some participants said they didn’t leave comments because they couldn’t think of anything to say. And I’m like, What? Most bloggers are writers, for crying out loud. Surely you can come up with 10 words on the fly, like that old Toastmasters improv exercise. If you can’t come up with a few words for a token comment, blog comments are the least of your worries.
That’s how I felt about categories and comments - until I had my light bulb moment.
I’ve been listening to several writing podcasts recently. One in particular really solved a problem I’ve been having with a current WIP. I couldn’t wait to get to the keyboard and type up a comment. And that’s when I realized: If I’m not that excited about every comment I leave, I shouldn’t be leaving it. I shouldn’t be wasting my time on meaningless ‘hey, just dropping by from the A to Z’ comments in a likely fruitless attempt to increase my page rank.
After my light bulb moment, I now understand why people want the categories to be clear, unambiguous, and definitive of both blog and theme if possible.The bloggers who are asking for this have already had the light bulb moment. They know what they are interested in and where they will have the best chance of finding blogs they will want to comment on organically. Otherwise, they’re wasting their time as well as yours.
I like to think I have an open mind. I’m willing to change my opinion when I’m wrong, especially when learning through personal experience. The 2016 A to Z Challenge was full of those experiences for me. What were some of your light bulb moments this year?
Lissa Johnston is a writer. Her latest book, The Dala Horse, is a middle grade adventure available now at Amazon. She blogs at www.lissajohnston.com.
Are YOU ready to cruise through the 2016 A-Z Challenge list? If you're like most of us, you didn't make the total rounds during April. Now's your chance to catch up to some of the great bloggers who posted during the 7th annual Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. And the good news is that we've got the rest of this year to do our road trippin'. Thanks to the late great Tina Downey at Life is Good and Shannon Lawrence at The Warrior Musewho started the Road Trip (formerly known as the Post-Challenge Challenge) -- by calling on each other to visit all of the blogs on the list before the next A-Z Challenge rolled around -- we now have this year-round event to stay active in the blogosphere during the "off-season."
Now I invite you to join us on the 6th annual Post-Challenge Road Trip, a meandering journey through the2016 list of A-Z participants, at your own pace, with your own rules, and very few expectations.
The most important thing to keep in mind is you're the boss of you're own schedule and approach to visiting blogs. Whether you want to visit one new blog on a daily basis or hundreds of blogs per day, you're the one at the wheel. The Road Trip is really just some buddies in the blogging community hanging out and visiting new voices in the A-Z world.
A few strategies that may have worked for Road Trippers include...
Visiting all the blogs with similar topics or categories as yours
Visiting all the blogs whose names make you curious
Visiting all the blogs at even (or odd) numbers on the list
Start from where you left off and keep on truckin'...
Visiting blogs that are low (or high, or in the middle) on the list
Visiting blogs randomly by just clicking on titles located in different areas of the list
Whatever you do, remember that signing up on the linky doesn't mean you're committed to visiting ALL of the blogs on the list. Coming along with us on this Road Trip just indicates that you're not done yet and would like to show your fellow A-Z participants some visiting and commenting love. These are among the things that keep a blogging community strong. In your blog travels, if you run across any bad links on the list please let us know (contact info at tab)--we've tried cleaning up the list, but there still may be some bad links in there.
Who's with us for the 2016 Post-Challenge Road Trip? Sign up below!
