I’ve
been awol for a short bit here. During the past two weeks, I’ve been
attempting to write the next entry of my fiction series. I have actually
gotten most of it complete now, but I am uncertain how it sits with me.
I would hate to trash it all. Trying to determine if a piece is
worthwhile, when nothing I seem to write looks good, is exhausting.
Either
way, it's coming along. Finishing up the last section, and will likely
read it over a few times. Certain to rewrite some of it, as I already
have, and offer it up to those who may still be keeping tabs.
I
have also been attempting to prepare for an upcoming blogging event! An
event that has potential to drive me mad, and would like to share with
others. Maybe I won’t be the only one driven insane by the task.
A B C Its Easy as 1 2 3
The
A to Z Challenge is a blogging event coming up this April. Basically,
it consists of writing a blog each day of April (except Sundays)
associated with a letter of the alphabet. The first day is A, second B,
third day being C, and so on and so on all the way through Z.
Before I try to pretend I know a lot about it, you can find the information about the event here:
From
this main site you can access a variety of info about the challenge.
What it's about, where it originated, rules, and links to sign
up.
My
knowledge is limited, and it will be my first year participating. When
signing up, I believe you can pick categories in which your blog
postings will fall under. Originally, I wanted to do a theme (one of the
suggestions given for participating in the challenge), but I couldn’t
decide on any one topic. Movies? Gaming? Music? None of them seem to
fit in this blog setting.
I
contemplated (and still am) creating a new blog for such things as
entertainment/media topics/reviews. Movies and video games have always
been areas I wanted to dabble in review-wise. I figured I could then do
the A to Z challenge using one of those themes, on the new blog; picking a
game or movie beginning with the appropriate letter.
As
it stands, though, for the sake of simplicity I'm just going to post
here on The Cryton Chronicles. No theme, unless “Life” is one of them — I
should check again — so it will likely consist of miscellaneous
randomness. Thankfully, miscellaneous is an option.
So, I have the plan,
but can I actually make a post almost every single day? That is the
challenge, of course! I plan on utilizing another of the suggestions
they offered: write in advance and schedule posts. To be honest, I’ve
already been working on some of the ideas for specific letters. I’d like
to have them written, scheduled, and ready to post before April hits.
This should alleviate a lot of the stress I can imagine this challenge
causes.
Going
from a blog post a week *coughcoughbullshitcoughcough* to one a day is
quite the feat! I will give it a go and see what comes of it. I'm
pretty excited for the event.
My
hope in sharing the info here is that a handful of friends and readers,
who may not have been familiar with the A to Z Challenge, may check it out! Some
participated in the Flash Fiction Contest last month, and I
thought that was great. I’d love to see friends join in on this blogging
event.
The
other aspect that appeals to me about the A to Z challenge is the
networking, connecting, and possibly new friendships that can result.
From the sounds of it, the community is a really good one, and I'm
looking forward to discovering some new blogs/people and the stories
within.
They
just posted information about Adult Content, and how to know whether to
mark your blog with the (AC) code when registering. I was on the fence,
being sometimes my entries can contain some random vulgar language,
which would likely place it at an R rating. After rereading some of my
posts, though, they seem less frequent than I imagined. I should be able
to get away with a disclaimer if a post has any excessive use.
To be honest, I'm shocked at how little I use vulgar language. Maybe it's more prominent when gaming? That may be it.
Check out the link above, grab the info needed, register and give the challenge a try! What have you got to lose?
This One Time at NaNo Camp...
Soooooo...
as though the A to Z Challenge wouldn’t be stressful enough for April,
along comes Camp NaNo. NaNoWriMo was new to me this year, but it sounds
like this is another yearly event they hold outside of November.
There
seems to be one major difference, though. You can set your own word
count goal for the month! This means you don’t have to try and crack out
50k if you don’t feel up to it. Or, you can try to tackle double,
triple, quadruple that if you're one crazy bastard!
Camp NaNoWriMo seems a lot more laid back and I would love to participate,
but unsure how much it will conflict with the A to Z Challenge. That's a
lot of writing. It says Camp NaNoWriMo is in both April and July? Not
sure this normal, but maybe I can opt for July instead. That way I won’t
be overly anxious and stressed over attempting to get so much done in
April.
It's appealing to me, however, to possibly use Camp NaNo as a time frame for
revisiting my 2012 NaNo story. This is something I think could be
very beneficial. I haven’t even looked at it since the end of November.
It makes me feel kind of dirty. Not necessarily a good kind of dirty
either; Sad Panda Dirty. Hmmm... SPD: Sad Panda Dirty... you don’t have
to know what it is, to be it. Remember that!
What to do, what to do. So many things, and so little time to prepare.
Are
you planning on participating in the A to Z Challenge? If so, are you
planning on using a theme? What about participation in Camp
NaNoWriMo? If you’ve participated in either event before what was your
experience like?
I'd like to thank Shannon @ The Warrior Muse for her help with information and originally bringing the A to Z Challenge to my attention!
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