My first A to Z Challenge – Reflections Post

A to Z Challenge - April 2015, Blogging 2 Minutes

April is over, 30 days that went by in a flash!

There is more than one reason for that: April was a beautiful month, we had summer weather most of the time. | During April I worked quite a bit more than in the previous months. | And of course there was the A to Z Challenge! 

I had so much fun with the A to Z Challenge, I signed up when my blog was not even two weeks old. Before I did sign up, I made sure that I would have some things to write about, because I did not want to commit and then give up in the process. It was like signing a contractual agreement. I managed to put up a post for each letter of the alphabet, and on the correct day, but some posts exceed my self set limit of 250 words (but this was sometimes necessary).

I think that I visited a lot of blogs, but I should have done more, but I have had a busier month than usual, and well a great family to spend time with too. Thus in May I will continue browsing through the A to Z blogs, who knows I might find some great hidden gems.

It wasn’t always easy to come up with a word and a good post, but seen your feedback, I do guess that I did quite well most of the time. The funny thing is some of the best posts were actually the ones I struggled most with (the inspiration wasn’t there, or the writing flow didn’t start), and then ended up writing in the half and hour between doing the dishes and cooking dinner, (I tried to have my posts ready a day in advance where possible, as I hate doing things like that last minute).

What did I get out of A to Z?

  • The discovery of some amazing writers and bloggers.
  • I have discovered that I can write, at least that’s what the positive and encouraging feedback shows me.
  • I have some great projects for the future, some stories that started in April are begging to be continued, and why not start writing a novel?
  • I have gained in confidence in my capacity to write and to be creative
  • Writing during the whole month of April has done a lot of good.
  • I have established a great blogging community!
  • Now I can proudly display my A to Z survivor badge in the sidebar 🙂

Thank you all for reading, liking, commenting, following, recommending my blog! Thank you to the hosts of A to Z for making this possible! And providing all of the A to Z related badges.

How have you enjoyed A to Z? Did you participate? What were your hardest letters to cope with? Which of my A to Z posts is your favourite? Are there other challenges that are worth joining?

If you haven’t done so yet, have a look at my A to Z posts.

Written by Solveig Werner

Published

53 thoughts on “My first A to Z Challenge – Reflections Post”

  1. I enjoyed your reflection of the challenge. Like you there are so many blogs to visit so I’m joining up for the road trip to visit a few more over the coming months. Linda

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  2. Hello Solveig – I visited so many blogs, I’m not sure if I got to you, but tried to do all the WordPress ones before starting on the Blogger blogs. Your name is familiar so hopefully I did. In my first year i too had only just started to blog – it was a baptism of fire, because not only did I do amazing animal facts. I also drew and painted each animal AND wrote a poem. I ended up half dead, but I knew how to work my blog at the end, and gained 200 followers. It’s never been as fruitful as that first year! This is my fourth, now I schedule the blogs, written in March, which gives time to go and see all the other blogs. Makes March quite busy as well, though! And I use photos, instead of spending half the day drawing! Congratulations on reaching the end in this, your first blogging year. ~Liz htp://www.lizbrownleepoet.com

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    1. Hey Liz, yes you visited my blog, and even left a nice comment on my post “Emerald” (thanks again for that), I think that I stopped by your blog once or twice during the challenge.
      I didn’t make it to the 200 followers mark, my current tally is 62, but maybe it will continue.
      Thank you for the congratulations!

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  4. Congratulations on finishing your first time! Too many people sign up and then forget to start, or drop out fairly soon, even when they’ve announced an awesome theme. I actually had a trickier time with my secondary blog, my names blog, since a lot of letters had so many great names in The Decameron to choose from. It was hard to narrow it down to just one for each sex for letters like A, G, and L. Other letters were surprisingly hard to find names for, like V, and others had more male names than female, like M and S.

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    1. On two blogs?! Wow congratulations for that! I will stop by there soon, I don’t think that I came across either one of them during the challenge.

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  5. I think anyone who starts a blog and a few weeks later signs up for the A to Z Challenge should be hugely congratulated for finishing!
    I didn’t find your blog during April, but the few posts I just read where lovely. : )

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    1. Thank you! I now feel like as if I have been doing this for ages. A to Z is a good practicing ground. Now I have a better idea of where my strengths are. Thank you for having a look around too.

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  6. Congratulations on a successful inaugural A to Z Challenge! I enjoyed your posts and wish there had been time to visit more often. I’ll be catching up over the next few weeks. Your “Xenophobia” post resonated the most, as I had personally experienced that as well.
    Liebe Grüße!

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    1. Danke Debbie! I am glad that you have enjoyed my posts. I know how hard it is to visit during the challenge. There is no rush. I’d rather you take your time now, instead of glancing at my posts during April. I do guess that xenophobia is something that people of German origin had to deal a lot with in the past, and still do now.

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  7. I really enjoyed the challenge and, as you said, part of the fun was all the incredible people I got to meet. Thanks for your comments and encouragement during the challenge, and I’m so glad you had a good experience 🙂

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    1. Thank you. Looking back, it was the right thing to do, jump in and go for it! I have developed a habit to sit down and write, or just come up with stories/things to share in my head (have to jot those down because else I might forget). Now I have the feeling that I am under pressure to continue with regular posts. But for now I have to comment back and visit others 🙂

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  13. A very postive write for your reflections and congratulations on completing the challenge.. Good also was you prepared for the challenge especially it being your first, Well done. I will look at some of your post later in the week.
    Yvonne.

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    1. I don’t think that there were many negative things, except that it was hard to keep up with reading and commenting on other blogs.
      Thank you, and please enjoy the posts.

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  14. Good for you for signing up for the challenge while your blog was still so new!! I don’t think I visited you during the challenge; tried to visit a lot of people, but did run out of time. Sounded like it was a good experience for you; hope you want to do it again next year!

    betty

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    1. Thank you Betty! well you can always have a look around now. I think we all ran out of time, at least that’s what it looks like when I see the reflection posts…
      I am mentally ready to do it next year, but with everything written in advance (I hope).

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  16. I didn’t find you during the challenge, but through your reflection. I have had a similar experience to yours as I have participated…this my 3rd year. It has made me a better writer, blogger, and I too have found wonderful examples of how it can be done. The Challenge is a great happening. I’m glad you and I have shared it.

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    1. I did stop over at your blog, before the challenge started, but then never came back for some reason. I’ll remedy to that asap. Now my reflections are giving me a lot of visiting work 🙂

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  17. Soveig, I did not find you during the challenge. But, am making amends to many bloggers (hopefully) that I missed last month. Congratulations on completing A2Z your first time out. That’s amazing for a new blogger to do, I think. It looks like you’ve taken away from the experience many positive vibes. To me that may be the most important benefit of the task, but meeting new friends in the process is also nice and I bet you picked up a few of those. Enjoy the blogging path where ever it leads you and I hope we’ll meet somewhere along the way in friendship. Happy writing!

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    1. Cathy, I do not think that I found you either, I will try to continue discovering some more great bloggers and blogs. April was definitely too short to do that…
      Thank you for the congratulations!
      I do hope that blogging will help me develop a writing habit and skills.

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  18. Congrats! The Challenge is one of the best things to do for a beginning blogger as you meet so many great people. (Talk about jumping in at the deep end!) And if you’ve discovered you have a passion for writing and are good at it, then job done. I’m sorry I didn’t find you during April but I’ll be back to check out more.

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    1. Thank you! No worries for only finding me now, better late than never I’d say.
      I have the feeling that now I have to write every day, or almost every day, A to Z definitely helped with finding a routine. 🙂

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    1. I think it is, but for taking the breath, I am not too sure, now I really have the feeling that I have to go on a visiting spree to visit everyone who commented on my reflections post.

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  20. Congratulations. Wouldn’t have dared do A to Z Challenge in my first year blogging, so really pleased that you succeeded. And the followers will grow steadily – just takes time. Comments are the first step, I think.

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    1. Thank you! I said to myself that if I don’t do it now, then I’ll never get started correctly. I did not realise that A to Z was going to be such an enriching experience, that it would lead to so many words of encouragement etc.

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  22. Wow, I’m impressed that your blog was only a few weeks old when you decided to participate in the challenge! That’s brave!! I’m glad to hear that so much positive came out of the Challenge for you. That’s awesome! I can’t wait to read your posts. I didn’t find you during April but this is what’s great about the Reflections posts and the upcoming Road Trip: we’ll actually get to visit many more blogs that we missed in the craze of the A-Z. Congrats on finishing! And welcome to the A-Z Family 🙂
    Michele at Angels Bark

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    1. Thank you! I said to myself that it’s going to be now or never to start blogging seriously, with A to Z I now have a routine. Ok over the last few days I had a bit of a hard time to keep up with posting, I have been trying to visit other blogs after all.
      I’ll definitely join in the road trip.

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  23. I’m glad that you had such a good experience with your first challenge . It can be challenging – guess that’s why it’s a challenge – duh, but it is so worthwhile and fulfilling. I’m sorry I didn’t visit you during the challenge. I didn’t visit as many blogs as I hoped to. I made the mistake, this year, of not preparing my post far in advance. I’m going to continue working my way through the list until I’ve visited each particpant at least once.

    Congratulations on making it through and on the success of your new blog. I’ve bookmarked it so I can visit again soon .

    Melissa Sugar
    @msugar13
    Sugarlaw13@live.com
    http://fictiontoolbox.blogspot.com

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  28. I’m enjoying going through your A-Z Challenge posts. Well done on completing the challenge! I thoroughly enjoyed it found myself looking forward to writing each day. See you along the road 🙂

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