The best thing that any of us can say about 2020 is that it’s almost over. I’ve already started planning for the blog year ahead, and at the top of the list is "What will be my theme for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge?"
This will be my tenth year of doing the Challenge. Here’s what I did in previous years:
- 2012 – I used the words from the NATO spelling alphabet and wrote on each. That worked out really well, and I’m almost sorry I started with that one.
- 2013 – I chose players from the Chicago White Sox, primarily from the late ’60’s and early ’70’s. I got no visitors.
- 2014 – I went without a theme, just pulling words out of my head and writing on them. That worked out better than I thought it would.
- 2015 – I chose words that started and ended with the same letter. I had to get a little creative, but it went well.
- 2016 – My original theme was portmanteaus, words that are made up of parts of two or more words, and that went really well. Of course, on April 1, I chose as my theme for The Friday Five songs that started with the letter "A," and many people thought music was my theme for the year. So, I decided to do both.
- 2017 – Similar to what I did in 2015, my theme as "words that start with today’s letter and end with tomorrow’s." That went well. No, really.
- 2018 – Picked an easy one: eight-letter words. The entry for K, kielbasa, got maybe the most traffic of any entry on the blog.
- 2019 – To celebrate the Challenge’s tenth anniversary, I chose words that have an X in them, "X" being the symbol for "10" in Roman numerals.
- 2020 – I did words that started with re- followed by the letter of the day.
What should I do this year? Whatever it is will have to have an associated word for each letter, especially letters like X, Z, and J. Then I’ll have to come up with a word list (which will probably change a half dozen times between when I come up with the initial list and actually sit down and write the entries).
Well, I have a few months to decide on that. Meanwhile, I forge on.
Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word about Pall Mall (pronounced "pell mell" like they do in jolly old England, don’t you know) cigarettes. Over, under, around and through, Pall Mall travels pleasure to you!
This is a creative collection of A to Z themes. Very impressive!
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Thanks! Wonder what I’ll do this year…?
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So creative! I haven’t done A to Z in a while, but when I did, I usually wrote them on the due date or the night before. Maybe there’s a way I can use some of my abundant drafts. Hmmm.
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Hey, why not? Hope you’ll join us!
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Thanks for the encouragement! I’d like to. I did NaNoWriMo, so I should be able to do A to Z.
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I give you credit for all the planning, John. That is a lot of work!
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It is. But it’s worth it.
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I wasn’t following you in 2012, so I’d vote for running that challenge again and finding a way to make it fresh.
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That’s a thought… the trick is making it different this time. Let’s see what I come up with.
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Yikes, thanks for the reminder. I’m wondering if I can use my musical scrapbooking again. Have to check my list of concerts :).
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You’ve got plenty of time. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
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Didn’t do A to Z this year because I had other commitments – which ended up not happening because of covid, but it was a bit late then. Instead I planned my 2021 posts. Theme decided, a word for each letter fixed (glad I did it early cause there were a few tricky letters to fit into my theme) and research done. Now I just have to write the posts which I will do soon. If I don’t have mine pre-loaded I won’t survive the month!
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I don’t know too many people who write each post on the day it’s “due.” I usually have had my posts ready well in advance and all scheduled. Look forward to seeing what you come up with.
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Almost time! Well, you are not late ;))
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True, but you know time can get away from you…
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