A to Z Blog Challenge 2025 – Reflections

A to Z Blog Challenge 2025

Reflections

I have completed my 10th year of the A to Z Blog Challenge, and this one was one of the most intensive ones I’ve attempted. 

Following the idea that D. B. McNicol used last year of generating 26 random words, one for each letter of the alphabet, to write a 26-part serialized story, I took the plunge. I had Mac ChatGPT generate 26 words, one for each alphabet letter, that were either a noun, verb, or adjective. The words that were generated were Apple, Bright, Climb, Dance, Elegant, Forest, Grow, Happy, Idea, Jump, Kind, Lake, Marvelous, Nest, Observe, Peaceful, Quake, River, Strong, Travel, Unique, Venture, Wander, Xenia, Yearn, and Zephyr.

I made two changes to the words in the list. The adjective Bright, I changed to the adverb Brightly, as it worked better in the story, and I had ChatGPT regenerate another word for X, as I didn’t think many people would know what Xenia meant, being a scientific term. The new X word was Xylophone, which had its own issues, which I’ll describe later.

Having all the words, I then wrote a sentence for each word, such as A – Apple: “It was an ordinary apple, or so she thought.” and B – Brightly: “The moon shone brightly upon the barren landscape.  Suffice it to say, I had a sentence for each word. Was it a story? No. But it did have the air of a fantasy one. All I needed to do was come up with a starter, and using the sentences, incorporate them into whatever letter day it was. There were a few sentences that I had to change when writing the actual story, but most of the sentences I created that first time fit into each part. 

I had Apple as the first word, and the sentence, The inspiration for Part 1 came in January at a writing group I was in. The writing prompt was “Beginnings,” with a quote by Meister Eckhart: “And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” We had 20 minutes to write.

I ended Part A with a cliffhanger; from there, I just made up the story as I wrote it. In my writing notebook, I made lots of notes. The story begins with the main character turning 19 years old. So at one point, I needed to write the backstory to that character, which I did, not to post, but so I could add pieces of her backstory in the other pieces I wrote and did post. Knowing where she came from helped me guide her, and then about ? of the way through writing, I decided to write the Z part, so I knew how the story would end and could guide her to it. 

As I continued to write, I constantly revised earlier pieces so that what I was writing made sense.

As more characters got involved in the story, I chose to make the story non-linear so I could jump between different characters and what they were doing while the main character was doing something else. 

The Xylophone became an issue since this type of folk/fantasy tale doesn’t lend itself to a xylophone being mentioned. It would have been out of place. I did find a workaround for it. I included the word in an author’s note at the end of the X part, and within the piece, I worked in an audio clip of a tune I needed, and played it on a xylophone. The fact that I needed a xylophone in the story made me create a song earlier in the piece, which became essential to the plot. 

My favorite comments were many. One person was so enamored of the story that they would comment after every piece, yelling at the characters and what they should do or what should happen to them. D.B. McNicol’s idea from 2024 spurred me on to do this, and her comments throughout my writing, including the last one with the suggestion that I publish my story, were much appreciated. 

I posted my writing on my blog and shared the link daily on Facebook, Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Substack. I’m not sure who read it from the links on any of those. I switched my Facebook sharing from Friends to Public. What I noticed was that there were a lot of bots that started, and I have continued reading random posts on my blog site. I’m not sure if that was due to my going public.

Even though I started writing this in January, I didn’t finish the last bit until the night before Y was posted. This left me little time to read anyone else’s posts. I did read D. B. McNicol’s and enjoyed it. With this over, I hope to read more during the A to Z Roadtrips. 

I learned a lot about writing this year. I wrote a 26-part story in 2023 (https://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=3431), which worked similarly to this. However, I had control over which words I could use for that one. And since I was the main character, it was easier to write.  This year, there was a lot more writing.

I’ll do the A to Z challenge next year. I enjoy doing it, and I’m always trying to devise a different way to write about things, so I’m unsure what my theme will be. You’ll have to wait and see. 

For those of you who want to read “Destiny,” this year’s story, I suggest you start at the beginning, Destiny—Part 1, though going to any letter starts with a link you can choose to get to Part 1. Don’t go to Y or Z first; they’ll ruin all the fun.

Until then, I’ll see you on the Road trip.