A-Z Reflections

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Well, that went quick didn’t it! A HUGE thank you to Alex Cavanaugh for hosting again this year. I know he had lots of little helpers, so thank you to them too! They all did a marvellous job! 🙂

So now it’s time to reflect…..

If you didn’t follow my A-Z posts let me just explain the concept. I decided, mad woman that I am, to showcase 26 writers, authors who I, as a novice unpublished writer, felt I could learn from. So each post consisted of a short bio (that was the hardest bit….I was pulling my hair out trying to condense Hemingway’s life down into a few short paragraphs! Lol), quotes about writing, and a video from YouTube. I hope anyone who read the posts took away something 🙂

What were the highlights of my April Challenge?
Everyday was a highlight really. I had a lot of new people visit my blog this year, first timers, bloggers who I had never encountered before. That was nice 🙂

What I learned?
Oh gawd…. LOADS! How could I not! Doing the research on each author was hard work, time consuming, but really interesting. I learnt so much! I also learnt that there are some authors that I haven’t read who I really need to lol, and I’ve added about 30 books to my wish list lol.

What changes I might make next time?
Next year (ha ha ha) I want to try to pick a subject that I don’t need to research so much. It’s been very time consuming.

What surprised me the most?
How many great books I hadn’t read lol, but also, the authors who I found most inspiring. It wasn’t Hemingway or Woolf, not Orwell or Steinbeck, no, the two authors who I most want to read, who most inspire me to write were John Updike and Richard Yates 🙂

Special bloggers I met or a post/posts that impressed me?
Ahhhhh, now this is easy! There was a certain blogger who must now be more worn out than I am lol…. Hunter Emkay’s posts about Writing were absolutely incredible! Interesting, visually as well as information wise, full of links and great writerly advice! I highly recommend that you go and check out her archive. I will be going back and reading them all again when I get chance 🙂

So that’s it! Another year over….I didn’t manage to read as many of the participants blogs as I should have done, there were just far too many this year 😦 But I did manage to visit about 500. Met some lovely new bloggers and had some great engaging comments. So a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to read my posts and comment, it was a fun month!

So if you didn’t take part this year will you be joining us next year? 😉

If you missed any of my ‘Author’ posts, click the A-Z 2013 Tab above where they will all be listed.

See you in a couple of weeks when I’ve recovered!

32 thoughts on “A-Z Reflections”

  2. Vikki,
    Woohoo!! Congratulations on another blogging accomplishment. 🙂 I really enjoyed all your posts and have a very very long reading list now. Thanks for doing all the heavy lifting and researching all of these incredible authors!

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  4. Vikki, you certainly deserve a break after doing all those authors. I was able to catch most of your alphabet and about half of two other bloggers I know who do this every year. You already know that I loved most of it, so what I’d like to leave you with is a couple of questions:

    Do you think that doing this for 26 letters, the time,the work, the care each post was given, can be any harder than putting in the same hours writing a book?

    Does it translate into that monthly writing challenge? Or does it basically teach discipline?

    What do you think you’ve learned from this that you can apply to your writing?

    See you when you return 🙂

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    • Thanks Florence 🙂

      Ooooo, now there’s a question! I think it was time consuming because of the research, but writing a novel is definitely harder (IMO) because you’re creating new stuff, not going over stuff that’s already out there you know….does that make sense?

      As you probably know, I’m a HUGE believer in writing EVERY single day. In 2012 when I did the prompt a day I LOVED it, and I’ve begun to wonder if that’s the reason I’ve fallen out if love with writing a bit, because I’ve lost that discipline now I’m not doing the daily prompts. They say you never forget how to ride a bike, but I did. I bought a bike last year and I can’t ride it, even though I rode bikes easily as a child. Perhaps I’m the sort of person who NEEDS to write daily, or I forget HOW to 😉

      Ha ha ha, oooooo, you’re sneaky! Yes, ok, I could….should adopt the same principles to my fiction…ok, point taken ha ha ha, very good….thanks honey….you’re a star! 🙂

      Xx

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  5. You did a wonderful job Vikki, thanks very much, I loved reading the posts. Now you must concentrate on your own work so that one day you will part of an A-Z author list yourself!!

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  9. Wow, the researching and all that reading of other blogs, you must be exhausted. It was brilliant. I need to catch up on the ones I missed. Well done!

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  10. I confess I don’t have the stamina for the A to Z – well done for managing it and I hope you can put some of that research to good use. Nothing we learn is ever totally wasted though, is it?

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  12. I really enjoyed your posts this past months. It was obviously labor intensive but, I hope, well worth it. You’ve inspired me to pick a theme for next year and start thinking about it months ahead of time.

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  13. They were great Vikki! Entertaining and educational. I’m sorry I missed Hunter’s blogs. But with 1900 participants… as it was I made some new friends also. Good job Vikki!

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  14. I think it’s aptly titled A-Z…”survivor”. I thought you and Bridget (http://bridgetwhelan.com), the only 2 bloggers I followed that took part, did sensational jobs at a very challenging challenge. Will I be up for next year? No…without thinking twice…lol. I have not that much dedication left in my chaotic life. 🙂

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