{"id":660,"date":"2016-05-06T21:36:51","date_gmt":"2016-05-07T01:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=660"},"modified":"2016-05-06T23:34:35","modified_gmt":"2016-05-07T03:34:35","slug":"a-to-z-blog-challenge-2016-a-reflection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=660","title":{"rendered":"A to Z Blog Challenge 2016 – a Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reflection of A to Z Challenge 2016<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"A-to-Z<\/a><\/p>\n

I have completed the 2016 A to Z Blog Challenge and I have to say it was fun. Choosing the theme I had, Life\u2019s Choices\/Life\u2019s Changes, made it somewhat easier for me since I write about those things all of the time when I do write. My problem is that I don\u2019t write as often as I should. The best thing that came out of the \u00a0A to Z Challenge was that it encouraged me to write more.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once I decided on the theme, I started brainstorming a whole list of ideas that I could possibly write about for each letter. This was the original list I came up with:<\/span><\/p>\n

A:<\/b> Animals<\/span> B:<\/b> Breaks, Bill, Brother<\/span> C:<\/b> Cooking<\/span> D:<\/b> Dreams<\/span> E: <\/b>England<\/span><\/p>\n

F:<\/b> Fire Alarm, Father<\/span> G:<\/b> Genealogy<\/span> H:<\/b> Hair<\/span> I:<\/b> Instruments<\/span><\/p>\n

J: <\/b>Jewish<\/span> K:<\/b> Kazoos, knapsacks<\/span> L:<\/b> Lost, Leslie<\/span> M: <\/b>Mom, Marion<\/span><\/p>\n

N:<\/b> Neighbors<\/span> O:<\/b> Old<\/span> P:<\/b> Promoting oneself, Pet peeves<\/span> Q:<\/b> Quiet, Quotes<\/span><\/p>\n

R:<\/b> Raw Bits<\/span> S:<\/b> Stings\/Stitches<\/span> T:<\/b> Teaching<\/span> U:<\/b> Understanding, Unfortunately<\/span><\/p>\n

V: <\/b>Versing<\/span> W:<\/b> Winter<\/span> X: <\/b>X-rays<\/span> Y:<\/b> Yelling<\/span> Z:<\/b> Zoo<\/span><\/p>\n

I decided that I would write the blog entries in the order of the alphabet and do them as soon as I could, starting after the Theme reveal date: March 21st. Blogging on WordPress\"writing<\/a>\u00a0allowed me to schedule posts, so that I didn\u2019t have to write and<\/span> complete my writing on the day it was due. If I had to do it on the day it was due, I would\u00a0never have completed it on time. For the most part, I was about 4-5 days ahead of the due date. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some of my original brainstormed ideas worked for me, others, when I got to that letter didn\u2019t inspire me at all. As I reached a letter that I had trouble with, I would ask friends, family, and colleagues for ideas, or I would pick up a dictionary and try to find a word that jumped out at me ( L for Library, Z for Zoom in, <\/span>Zoom out). Then there were times that I was just in the right place or looking at the right thing at the right time (J for Journal, N for Noise). Sometimes it was just the people around me that inspired what I would choose (C for Christina, D for David, P for \u00a0Positive, Perseverance, Progress) or it just hit me out of the blue (X for Xanadu)<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is the final list and links to all of the entries I made:<\/span><\/p>\n

A:<\/b> \u00a0Animal Speak<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>B:<\/b> Oh Brother<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>C:<\/b> Christina<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>D:<\/b> David<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>E:<\/b> England<\/span><\/a>, <\/span><\/p>\n

F:<\/b> French, Foreign Languages<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> G:<\/b> Genealogy<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>H:<\/b> Hans Christian Andersen<\/span><\/a>,<\/span><\/p>\n

I:<\/b> Uncle Itch<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>J: <\/b>Journals<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>K:<\/b> Keyboarding, Knapsacks<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>L: <\/b>Library<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>M:<\/b> Misheard<\/span><\/a>,<\/span><\/p>\n

N:<\/b> Noise<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>O:<\/b> Oops Plan<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>P:<\/b> Positive, Perseverance, Progress<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Q: <\/b>Quiet Time<\/span><\/a>,<\/span><\/p>\n

R:<\/b> Relax<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> S:<\/b> Substitute Teaching<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>T: <\/b>Teachable moment<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>U:<\/b> Unity<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>V:<\/b> Voices<\/span><\/a>,<\/span><\/p>\n

W:<\/b> What do you want to be when you grow up?<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>X:<\/b> Xanadu<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Y:<\/b> You\u2019ve lost me<\/span><\/a>,<\/span><\/p>\n

Z:<\/b> Zoom in, Zoom out <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

I did all of my writing on Google Docs. After looking at some other A to Z blogs I realized that my writing would look better with illustrations. Some pictures I used I had on my computer. Where I didn\u2019t have pictures, I used Google Docs Research Tool to search out cartoons and images that went along with what I was writing. \u00a0After revising and checking over what I had written, I copied it to my WordPress blog, re-inserted the pictures, and scheduled my writing to post on the appropriate day at 7:00 in the morning. <\/span><\/p>\n

I posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ each morning the link to my blog entries. I got about 20 – 40 hits each day. I probably could have gotten more. It wasn\u2019t until the last few letters that I realized I should have used #AtoZChallenge on my Twitter posts and I didn\u2019t take part in any of the Twitter discussions (I don\u2019t use Twitter very often).<\/span><\/p>\n

All in all, I learned a lot. I really enjoyed reading a number of the other blogger’s writings during this challenge. I hope some of you got something out of reading mine. I hope I can follow this up with writing more often. I\u2019m definitely sure that I will do this again next year, but coming up with a theme could take time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Writing1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reflection of A to Z Challenge 2016 I have completed the 2016 A to Z Blog Challenge and I have to say it was fun. Choosing the theme I had, Life\u2019s Choices\/Life\u2019s Changes, made it somewhat easier for me since … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,7],"tags":[70,67,66],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-to-z-blog-challenge-2016","category-story-writing","tag-a-to-z-blog-challenge","tag-harvey-heilbrun","tag-writing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=660"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":667,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions\/667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}