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Category Archives: AtoZ April Challenge 2017


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#SoCS – Appreciative of the #atozchallenge

To find the prompt and participate in SoCS, click the picture. It’s fun!

Any of my fellow WordPress bloggers who are participating in the A to Z Challenge and haven’t heard yet, you can post your links to the new WordPress “A to Z” blog here: https://atozchallenge.wordpress.com They’re doing a daily post for each letter, so it’ll be as easy as a pingback to record your post and find readers. You’ll find the one for the letter “A” at the top of this post if you click on the letter. 😀

Now that that’s out of the way, my first thesaurus word for the challenge is “appreciative.” And I am, for so many things. First and foremost on my blog are all my readers and those who join in on my prompts week after week, as well as those of you who have done it once or twice. I’ve made so many friends here on WordPress and really, it was a surprise to me that there is such an amazing community here. When I started my blog I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I might find a couple of people who would read what I wrote and that would be it. It wasn’t until I discovered the interaction in the comments, and that discovery I still thank Jason at HARSH REALITY for, for showing me how great it can be to get to know people, that I knew there was so much more to this place than meets the eye.

And prompts like A to Z help expand our horizons. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there who share the same passion as we do – writing, communicating, and sharing our work. The possibilities are endless. All we need do is tap into it. How can we not appreciate something like that?

***

If you’re stopping by my blog for the first time or you haven’t picked it up yet, please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“Delightful, Light-hearted tale with great twists!” ~ Lori Carleson, 5 stars, Amazon review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories

 


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Apr. 1/17

Hey there! It’s Friday and time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. The month of April, as you might have heard, is time for many of us to participate in the A to Z Challenge. With this taken into consideration, I’ll start the prompt with the letter of the day, just to potentially help people along. Here’s your prompt for this week:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “any.” Begin your post with the word “any.” Bonus points if you theme your post on another word that starts with “A.” Have fun!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!

To make your post more visible, use our SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!


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The Brand New Crazy Way to A to Z and Theme Reveal!

Incredibly, we’ve somehow made it all the way (almost) to the end of March already, which means the A-Z April Challenge is mere hours away. And if that’s not mind-blowing enough, they’ve changed the way they’re getting everyone together this year! Yes, gone is the Linky list (because who needed 2,000 participants easily found in one place) and now, to confuse us all, they’ve decided to go all SoCS style on our asses. Which would be wonderful if only the A-Z Challenge was on a WordPress account… but it’s on Blogger!

So every day we’re to go to their daily post and drop our link in the comments, and look around for other blogs to visit. It’s gonna be a free-for-all! Yay!

Ahem. Where was I?

Oh yes. I’ve decided to participate again this year because self-flagellation extra work is good for me. That, and I miss writing. Seriously, I do. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m at such a loss in the creation department that I’ve started colouring. Colouring!! (Colouring is fun! 😀 But it ain’t working my author muscles.) So I’m doing it. Come rain or shine, flood or drought, high water or hell, I’m going to write a post every day this month except Sundays if it kills me. Because you know what? It’s not even just the writing I miss. I miss you guys!

Are you ready then to find out what my theme is going to be? Are you? Are you sure?

You’re going to have to look at the banner first:

Clicking the banner will take you to the AtoZ Challenge Theme Reveal page

Okay, that took me ten minutes. Is the drum roll almost finished?

My A to Z Theme for 2017 will be…

…

…

RANDOM AGAIN!

I had so much fun with my thesaurus a couple of years ago that I’ve chosen to do it again. This year, when I open my thesaurus to a page with the letter of the day, I’ll write a post based on the word listed second from the bottom, on the right-hand page, in the left-hand column. No exceptions. For those of you who are also playing along, I’ll choose a word to match the letter of the day that the Stream of Consciousness Saturdays of the month fall on. They are:

April 1 – A
April 8 – G
April 15 – M
April 22 – S
April 29 – Y

That’s that then! If you’re joining in on the torture fun this year, let me know in the comments and I’ll make sure to visit you.

Let’s do this thing!!