Weary Sunflower of the #atozchallenge

Tina's sunflower as it appeared on April 25th, 2015

     Each Sunday I've been doing a sunflower update post.  To read the series from the beginning you can start with The Special A to Z Tribute and the follow each Sunday after that one.

       I'm guessing that more than a few of you are feeling a bit like the sunflower pictured above.  This flower has managed to make it through April and looks like it will make it to the end of the Challenge.   I'm also pleased to report that the majority of those who began the Challenge on April 1st are still hanging it there and will be crossing the finish line at the letter "Z" on Thursday of this week.  

        At my last count we had lost 328 links from the opening count of 1888 when the list closed for sign-ups.   Over 1500 bloggers will finish the Challenge they set out to accomplish.  You all are to be congratulated.  A few might come up short for one reason or another--we understand that things can happen to derail participants sometimes--but many of those have indicated that they still plan to continue blogging the letters even if it takes them until sometime in May.  We honor everyone who at least tried.  If you didn't meet the Challenge this year you can still give it another try in 2016.

        Hang in there those of you who are blogging until the end!    On May 1st be sure to check this site for information about the A to Z Reflections Post on Monday May 4th.  This is the annual event where you have a chance to reflect on your A to Z experience and tell all of us what you think of the Challenge.  Full details coming up on Friday, but be sure to reserve May 4th on your blogging schedule.

        Let's make this final few days the best ones of all.   Get your posts up on schedule and try to make as many blog visits as you can.  Four more days!   Can you believe the end of April is so near?

        Do you have your last posts ready to go?  Will you be joining us for the May 4th Reflections?  Are you just a wee bit weary as we reach the end?

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The A-Z Blogger's Mantra for Victory Lane

V is for Victorious!

Victory Lane is where the magic happens. It's that last stretch of road where you start to realize you have what it takes to master the art of blogging everyday....and through the alphabet, no less. It's where you begin to feel proud for signing up for such a huge undertaking, in the first place. It's where you realize that most other things on your to-do list and other people in your life that were neglected, just to keep up with everyone else in this April blogathon, are what helped you get this far.

You’re not alone.

More than 1,500 people are in victory lane, including some who are managing to rock this year's A-to-Z challenge with two, three or four blogs. We're all in this 24-hour cycle together, trying to make it through blogging, visiting and commenting without going nuts. Be proud that you’ve been able to get to this point and remember, there's nowhere to go but upward and onward from here, until it's time to grab that 2015 A-Z Survivors Badge!

If for some reason you feel like you're at your wits end, just read the following mantra:

The "Survivors" Mantra for Victory Lane

You're a survivor.

You're not gonna give up.

You're not gonna stop.

You're gonna work harder...because you're a survivor.

You're gonna make it.

You will survive and keep on surviving.

If these famous words helped Destiny's Child reign on the Billboard Charts, then they can get you through the remaining days left to blog April. So, pat yourself on the back because making it to victory lane is an indication that you're strong enough to be in this for the long haul. It's a sign that the blogging muscles you've been building up so far are what will help you continue on to the very end of the alphabet.

How well are YOU flexing your blogging muscles this month?

Are YOU starting to feel Victorious yet?

#AtoZChallenge Co-Host Nicole Ayers is blogging 

at The Madlab Post on a mixed bag of subjects including 

superheroes, card games, documentaries, human trafficking, 

road rage, drinking games, film festivals and making the world 

a better place. Connect with her @MadlabPost on Twitter.

U is for UNDAUNTED!

Counting today, there are six more posts to be done for this year's A to Z Challenge, those for the letters U through Z. If you've kept up with the official calendar, great! I'm sure most of you got all your entries done and have them showing up on your blog automatically, on autopilot. There are others that are writing two or three days in advance, and even a few hardy souls who are getting the entries written and posted the day they're due.

This is for the rest of you, the ones who are stuck and maybe even falling behind:

Be undaunted! Stick with it! The only way you can fail now is by giving up. Regardless of the roadblocks you've faced this month, you can finish. And you're going to do great.

Stuck on a letter? It'll come to you. Move on to another one. Go back to the beginning and re-read all you've written, and see what suggests itself to you. Start writing down words that start with the letter, and see if you can find a word that can be made to fit your theme. Read what others have written for that letter. Go old school and pull out the dictionary, the thesaurus, the New York City Business-to-Business telephone directory, the good ol' World Book Encyclopedia. Turn it on its head.

You've done too much great work on this challenge to give up now. Your readers are all rooting for you. Hang in there!

Throwback Thursday #AtoZChallenge style!

When I realized that the letter T fell on a Thursday this year I KNEW I had to do a Throwback Thursday (#TBT) post for you all!

So I asked all the co-hosts to send me a link to their very first A post for the Challenge. It's fun to see how long we all have been participating - turns out 2012 was a good crop year for co-hosts - and also how our topics (and comments!) have changed. Click on our links below to take a step back in time!

Check 'em out:
Arlee Bird @ Tossing it Out 
Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh 
Jeremy @ Hollywood Nuts 
Nicole Ayers @ The Madlab Post 
Author Stephen Tremp (Due to a catastrophic SPAM battle with Google, Steve only has his A post from last year :( But we promise he's been around awhile!)
Heather M. Gardner 
AJ Lauer 
Pam @ An Unconventional Librarian 
Matthew MacNish @ The QQQE
Zalka Csenge Virág @ The Multicolored Diary and MopDog 
S. L. Hennessy @ Pensuasion 
C. Lee McKenzie @ The Write Game 
Joy Campbell @ The Character Depot 
Susan Gourley @ Susan Says 
John Holton @The Sound of One Hand Typing 
Lisa Buie-Collard, Author 

I was going to post the #1 single on the charts on April 1, 2010 but it was a song by Rihanna and I made y'all suffer through twerking last week so I didn't think it would be nice to do that to you again :)

And also because it's T and this fits into the Throwback theme, Tina's post welcoming me to Tina's Terrific Team in 2013 after she cajoled me into giving her an embarrassing childhood photo... <3

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Have you checked out our new A-Z merch?

Our hero Amy has made it through 19 crazy letters of the alphabet - will you help her make it through the last 6? Stop by to help her decide what to do!

S is for Signatures!

It came up in the Twitter chat the other day that we should talk about signatures. I know we have left the halfway point behind, but it is something that can still be useful for your remaining visits, and also for the reflections and road trips after A to Z is over!

Signatures are links to your own blog or website that make it easy for people to re-visit you after you comment on their blog. If you don't have one, people have to click on your name, and that either takes them to your Google+ profile, or your Blogger profile (or nowhere at all).

Is that a bad thing?
Well, if you are like me, and have multiple blogs (and not all of them are in the Challenge), there is nothing telling people on your Blogger profile what they should be clicking on. If you don't share your posts on G+, once again, it seems like a dead end to visitors. If you comment on blogs anonymously, you are essentially invisible.
And here is the thing:

We WANT to visit you back!

Visiting back is common courtesy during A to Z. You might not have the time every day to do it, but it is polite to catch up and visit back whenever you get the chance. Leaving sigs in comments also brings new people to your site!

In order to make it easier for people to visit you, you are encouraged to leave a clickable link to your blog at the end of your comment.
You can just copy-paste your blog's URL if you want to.

But if you want to be even more smooth, elegant and helpful, you can create a signature.

Signatures are HTML coded, which means they show up as clickable links. Mine looks like this:

@TarkabarkaHolgy from
Multicolored Diary - Epics from A to Z
MopDog - 26 Ways to Die in Medieval Hungary

In the HTML code, it looks like this:

@TarkabarkaHolgy from

<a href="http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com">Multicolored Diary</a> - Epics from A to Z

<a href="http://hungarykum.blogspot.com">MopDog</a> - 26 Ways to Die in Medieval Hungary

You can just copy and paste it, and swap the links and titles for your own!

Make sure you save it somewhere handy (I have it as a Draft in my Gmail box) so you don't have to re-type it every time you go on a visiting binge! You can just Copy and Paste, easy peasy.

Most commenting systems allow HTML, which means your sig will show up nice and clickable. Some might make it show up like the second example (Google+ does that sometimes) but the links are still clickable, and that's what matters.

Happy Visiting!