Blog Boggled: Blogging From A to Z April Challenge

I Challenge

You

          For those of you who missed my post from Saturday, I have set forth a challenge to all bloggers for the month of April.   Can you post every day except Sundays during this month?  And to up the bar, can you blog thematically from A to Z?

       If you subtract Sundays from April, you then have 26 days--one day for each letter of the alphabet.  Using this premise, you would start this Thursday April First with a topic themed on something with the letter A, then Friday the second a topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until you finish on Friday April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.  It doesn't even have to be a word--it can be a proper noun, the letter used as a symbol, or the letter itself.  The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day.

         Most of you are probably familiar with Sue Grafton and her best selling series of detective novels known as the "Alphabet Series" that started in 1982 with "A" Is For Alibi up to her most recent "U" Is For Undertow".  She has made a franchise with the series and there have been  other authors who have taken similar approaches.  This Blogging From A to Z Challenge will be in the same vein.

      I was inspired to put forth this challenge after reaching my 200th follower on Saturday and as I near my 200th post later this week.  Not one for contests and the like, I thought it would be fun and helpful to celebrate with my fellow bloggers in some special way.  We know that blogging can be fun and what fun we can have merrily blogging together with a common purpose--something where we can keep up with each other's work and share in a common experience.  Any of you who participated in NaNoWriMo know what that can be like.

      But perhaps even better than the fun, will be the usefulness of the exercise.  Several times I've read where bloggers said they couldn't think of anything to blog about.  Writers often engage in exercises which involve prompts, or suggestions for topics.  There are books, blogs, and websites devoted to providing prompts to be used as topic ideas.  Using the letters of the alphabet you can just think up words for each letter and pick one to write about.  If you're still stumped scan a dictionary or encyclopedia.  Come on!--the prompts are everywhere.

       To provide an example:  My "A" topic will be my regular Thursday debate using the topic of April Fool's Day.   On Friday when I often write about mysteries I will be talking about Babylon.  On Saturday I always have a review of my past week's posts and the upcoming posts so on April 3 my topic will be Capsulization.  I will resume the challenge on Monday with one of my Persnickety Penman installments-- D as in Dictionary.  See how easy it is.  I don't really have to change my format of what I normally write, just come up with topics that correspond with the letter of the day.   I printed out a calendar grid for the month of April and x'ed out the Sundays and wrote the letters in each of the daily squares.  In less than an hour I came up with all of my topics for each letter.  And I can still change them if I want---I probably will change some.  It was fun just filling in the 26 topics and imagining the possibilities.

         Try to be inventive and surprise us.  Hopefully your posts will be at least 100 words to show that you really put some kind of effort into your post.  But if all you do normally is post a quote, then keep it in the alphabet theme.  Don't worry about subject matter-- this will work for absolutely any blog.  If you only post about food or animals or crafts or whatever, you can come up with alphabetized themes.

         "But I only post poetry," you might say.  You can easily post poetry about any topic, right?  Yvonne at Welcome to My World of Poetry does it all the time and she's going to be joining our challenge.

          Or what if you have a photoblog or just post artwork?  It still works the same--creativity is creativity no matter what you do.



           So are you up to the challenge?  Do you have what it takes?  Even if you start and don't finish that's fine. Or will you just support us and pledge to follow our challenge?  Mention it on your blog and link back to this post.  If you plan to be a participant or pledge to cheer us on (and give us comments) let me know in the comments of this post and I will add your link to the sidebar of my blog.

          Just one more thing for this tech-challenged blogger:  If anyone knows how to create one of those "buttons" or logo-thingies that participants and supporters can put on their sites, I would love to get your help for that.

         Let me know if I have overlooked anything or if you have any suggestions.  Thanks to all of you who will make this a smashing success.