A post and a tweet from another blogger prompted me to get started on reflecting on challenges. So thank you Charan Deep, for your shout-out and for that unintentional nudge to reflect. I did however do a quick wrap up post – here.
The image below is from my previous reflections post (2018).
I faced technical challenges in my blog (detailed in a couple of my Sunday Scribblings below) but soldiered on and did manage to complete them all – a bit delayed, but reached the end.
What I love (about the challenges and in general blogging itself):
- The Challenge itself! It gave me a focus, a motivation to keep going, and challenged me (well, of course:-))
- Community: Everything is better when shared – even a challenge. And that is certainly the case with this as well. Knowing there are others (many, many others) doing this challenge with me all over the world gave me a boost; and the interaction with this supportive community gave a further boost.
- All those beautiful, encouraging Comments kept me going even when I was behind because of issues on my blog.
- There is more, I know, but this is what I could think of at this time …
What I can (hopefully) do better:
- Schedule my posts beforehand so I can focus on interacting during this challenge month and writing future posts (haha to myself): This is something I keep talking about but have not gotten around to doing yet; but Hope Springs Eternal!
- Visit more blogs and comment more than I currently do(did). I am hoping to do this going forward at least over the next few months by visiting a few blogs each day (and glad that the A to Z Challenge has the Road Trip coming up for that express purpose.
- Stick to just one theme next time (unlike three this time!)
- There is more here too, I know, but this is what I could think of at this time …
What is pending for my Reflections Post:
- A Shoutout List of favorite blogs (ones I know from before and newly discovered) – coming soon in a separate post here
- Something more….. like a Bingo card I had planned to fill for a previous year and while I did try to, I never completed filling it up and did not post about it later…
And here are my A to Z Posts for 2019 for you to peruse. A trio of themes spanning entertainment (books vs movies), poetic forms, and QA/Tech terminology:
- A is Amazing: A is for Alice, Acrostic and Ad-hoc
- B is Brilliant: B is for The Book Thief, the Bop and Boundary
- C is Clever: C is for Coraline, Cascade and Cloud
- D is Dynamic: D is for Da Vinci Code, Diminishing Verse and Defect
- E is Exciting: E is for The Exorcist, Epulaeryu, and Exploratory
- F is Fabulous: F is for The Fault in Our Stars, Fibonacci, and Functional
- Sunday Scribblings #7: The One Where I…Well, You Will Find Out Soon Enough
- G is Grand: G is for Gone With the Wind, Golden Shovel and Gorilla
- H is Happy: H is for Heidi, Hir a thoddaid, Hypothesis
- I is Intelligent: I is The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Imayo, Integration
- J is Jazzy: J is for Jungle Book, Jueju, JIRA
- K is Kindly: K is for The Kite Runner, Kyrielle, and Keyword
- L is Laughter: L is for Life of Pi, Lanturne and Localization
- Sunday Scribblings #8: Where I Played Catch Up and (Almost) Did
- M is Merry: M is for Matilda, Macaronic and Mutation
- N is Neat: N is Nim’s Island, Nonet and Negative
- O is Original: O is for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ovillejo and Orthogonal Array
- P is Playful: P is for Percy Jackson, Pantoum and Positive
- Q is Quirky: Q is for Q & A, Quatern and QA
- R is Radiant: R is for Rapunzel, Rhupunt and Regression
- And I wonder where the Sunday Scribblings #9 disappeared :)??
- Sunday Scribblings #10: Catching Up? Forget It and Keep Plodding On…
- S is Serendipity: S is for Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Shadorma and Sanity
- T is Tenacious: T is for To Kill a Mockingbird, Tricubes and Testing
- U is Upbeat: U is for Under the Tuscan Sun, Utenzi and Unit Testing
- V is Vibrant: V is for Vertigo, Verso-Rhyme and Volume
- W is Whimsical: W is for Wonder, Whitney and Workflow
- X is Xenial: X is for X-Men, Xenolith and (e)Xtensibility
- Sunday Scribblings #11: Scribbling Furiously…..
- Y is Youthful: Y is for The Yearling, Ya-du and Yoda
- Z is Zenith: Z is for The Zookeeper’s Wife, Zejel and Zero-Bug
My 2018 theme was the world ‘Within Books‘. Books contain so much within them – whole worlds themselves in all those words, and I went cruising through the alphabet in a journey of discovery within wondrous worlds, letter by letter.
My 2017 theme was Favorite Childhood Memories, where I reminisced about my childhood (games or books or food or movies or just random somethings) – with one additional twist – memories I would like to build in the future as well – with my kids, if possible! (And I have done a few of them with them in the couple of years since)
So dear reader, what about you? What have you learned from any recent challenges you faced? And if you participated in these challenges yourselves (the A to Z Blogging Challenge, Blog Chatter A to Z, or the Ultimate Blog Challenge), what are your feelings now?
I agree with your reflections, especially where you say, “Schedule my posts beforehand so I can focus on interacting during this challenge month”. And over-committing – I thought a serialised story and a music segment would be straightforward.
thanks Roland:) and yes, i am guilty this time of over-committing too – just like you, I thought what I picked would be straightforward (and had absolutely not done any part of it beforehand..)
I love challenges for reading and blogging. They make the whole thing more fun, right? I am glad it worked so well for you.
Thanks G! And then there were weeks of nothing 🙂 but hoping it changes soon
I somehow missed this post last year and stumbled upon today only. Your posts always make me reflect. My reflections post is upto. And second year consecutively you have featured there. Your blog is inspiring.