J: Juggling

Don't be as useless as a muggle,

A hundreds things you can juggle.

Dozens of balls to toss and keep in the air,

Doing laundry so you have something to wear.

No time to go to bed and in your pillow snuggle,

Get to that blogging, lots of comments to juggle.

Don't forget to go to work and earn money,

Living in a tent or your car isn't funny.

Being tired and stretched thin makes you lovable,

Hugs to those who can juggle and adorable.

Eat something good and exercise shouldn't be a miss.

Talk to your family and give them some a nice kiss.

There are hundreds of blogs for you to see,

Drink lots of wine, coffee or iced tee.

This blogging party is so much fun,

Even if you can't meet everyone.

How many different things to you juggle each day? What life issues are getting in your way? Your comment doesn't have to rhyme like my post. Your visit is what counts the most.

I is for Inspiration

What inspires you?

The A to Z Challenge is off to a great start, and blogs all around the world are booming with the alphabet. We are already done with Week 1! But what happens if you suddenly find yourself without inspiration for the next day's post?

First and foremost: Do NOT give up! The A to Z community stands behind you, and we all want you to keep blogging :) Just imagine how many people will come to your blog before the end of April.

Here are some things you can do for inspiration:

1. Stop worrying and visit some blogs! Their themes and topics might spark a new idea in your head.

2. Look at some random word generators and word listings. Keep clicking away, something is bound to come up!

3. Listen to some music! Music is great for inspiration, and also a great topic. Think in songs, not words!

4. Open up a thesaurus, or, even better, a dictionary. Take an adventurous trip into another language! There are so many words out there waiting to be discovered by you...

5. Don't take yourself too seriously. It is okay to stumble, even if you are following a theme. Make it playful and funny, and move on. You'll pick the serious stuff back up tomorrow.

Happy A to Z!

H as in How Do You Make it Work? - by Matthew MacNish

Hello A to Z Challengers!

How has your April Challenge been going so far?

Personally, I've found a great balance between feeling not so much overwhelmed, but pleasantly challenged, and having great fun discovering new blogs and bloggers at the same time.

Hard is why we call it a challenge.

It's not easy writing a blog post every day except Sunday for an entire month, and even we co-hosts who are seasoned bloggers don't have the easiest time making it happen without freaking out a little bit.

How do we pull it off?

Well first of all, every blogger is different, but I would wager we co-hosts all use similar strategies. First, we schedule our posts ahead of time. There's nothing wrong with flying by the seat of your pants and drafting your posts the morning of for regular blogging (I do it all the time myself) but it would be really difficult to make that work for the A to Z April Blogging Challenge, and any time you did spend writing a post would be time you couldn't spend visiting blogs.

I don't actually write all 26 posts before the challenge even beings, but I do write about the first 10-15, and then I write another week's worth of posts each Sunday until they're all done. You can of course pick whatever strategy works for you, but we would highly recommend figuring out some plan for writing as many of your posts ahead of time as possible.

Another thing we do is get Help.

Not only do we have another fabulous list of Co-Hosts this year, but all of us have minions/assistant/helpers as well. When you're checking a list of literally thousands of blogs, it helps to not have to do it all alone.

My assistants this year are Sylvie Hanes from Life from An Optimist's Point of View, and Carrie-Anne Brownian/Ursula Hartlein from Welcome to My Magick Theatre.

They help us go through the list, and highlight great blogs with great themes, and also find people who aren't participating, or might need a reminder if they aren't up to date with their posts.

Have any questions?

Feel free to ask questions here, in the comments.

You can also reply to the co-host responsible for your section of the list in the email we sent announcing the challenge.

You can also ask questions by emailing us at contactatozteam@gmail.com. Find us on Facebook, and Google + as well.

Thanks for dropping by, and I hope you are all enjoying the Challenge and discovering tons of great new blogs! - Matthew MacNish

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