A to Z 2015 - reflection post

EDIT: I just realised I didn't miss it!! Yay! :) Oh gosh, I really intended to do this on Monday - but it entirely slipped my mind. I am embroiled in kitty rescue chaos with lots of cats & kittens being adopted / still needing homes / needing new foster care, etc. Also, the A to Z totally whacked me over the head and made me a zombie this year! So there was that.

Even though I missed out on the linky list and everything, I thought I'd post for this anyway, because I do always like to participate in this reflection part of the A to Z each year. So let us reflect...

I have usually done things by the seat of my pants with the A to Z, but this year it really didn't work for me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed compiling photos, and visiting other blogs (when I got the chance), but I was spending most of each evening after work scrambling around for photos to post (and on a couple of occasions it took me most of the night to even decide on a theme for that day's letter!). This meant that I had very little time to visit other blogs and leave comments. For the first few days I was doing well, but after that it all went a bit sideways.

There was one year when I had scheduled most of my posts ahead of time, because I knew I'd be travelling most of the month of April. Obviously that year I didn't have much time for comments either, due to that whole 'travelling' thing. But I really do like the idea of having everything scheduled so I can spend April commenting.

That is my plan for next year. And I think I already have a vague idea for next year's theme, which for me is another thing that's unheard of. ;)

So I guess that sums up the A to Z 2015 for me. It's an awesome challenge, but given how busy my life is with kitty rescue now, as well as me wishing I could actually find time for other things - like writing - I really can't do the A to Z pantser thing anymore.

My A to Z History

2011 

(random things)

2012 

(books from my GoodReads "tbr")

2013 

(Aussie music)

2014 

(follow up on 2012's theme, with links to GoodReads reviews)

2015 

(photos!)

A to Z 2014 ~ a REFLECTION post (plus BROKEN BRANCH FALLS cover reveal!)

These things happened during April:

• My blog hit 100k of views.
• I hit 600 followers - woo! thanks guys! ;)
• I took on 2 new foster kittens - arrrrgh, help me, I'm drowning!
• My cat, Smog, sat down on one of my printed out chapters (thankfully already edited) and dragged his bum across it, leaving a distinctly brown poo smear behind.

Just so you know, I decided not to hold the poo smear against my little boy, but it did make me wonder if he was trying to tell me something ... ha.

Oh, and you know what? Something else important happened during April ...

The A to Z challenge!

This year my theme was to revisit 2012's A-Z TBR selection and report on which books I'd got around to reading. I featured the same 26 titles spotlighted in 2012, and sometimes highlighted other books I'd read during the last 2 years. If I hadn't read any books starting with that letter, or hadn't read many, I also featured some other titles still on my TBR.

So how many books of those original 26 had I got around to reading since April 2012? Here are the stats:

• Read = 8
• Not Read = 18

I have to say that during April this year, I actually read one of the "not read" books - my "A" book, The Anatomy of Wings. It was a 4 out of 5 star book for me. So a revised count leaves me with 9 books read and 17 still to go. That's a fairly poor effort, but then I have read a lot of other books since April 2012. ;) So there you go. The verdict is in!

To conclude I will say I am an A to Z '14 survivor, and I can't see any reason not to do it all again next year. :) It's always a blast.

I'm stoked to be participating in the cover reveal for Tara Tyler's

BROKEN BRANCH FALLS.

Her cover promises a rather beast-tastic read! ;) What do you think?

Welcome to the Forest!

It's time for the highly anticipated, most spectacular cover reveal of the day!

BROKEN BRANCH FALLS (MG Fantasy)
by Tara Tyler
Release Date: June 24, 2014
Publisher: Curiosity Quills

Gabe is an average fifteen-year-old goblin. He’s in the marching band, breezes through calculus, and gets picked on daily by the other kids at school, especially the ogres. Gabe’s closest friends are goblins like him, but Gabe is tired of being a goblin – he’d like to try other things. And he has his eye on the new ogress at school. It’s against all beastly rules, but there’s just something about her.

When a prank goes wrong, Gabe is forced to join the football team as punishment – but finds a way to make it work. Soon the whole school is getting in on the fad of mingling with other species. Too bad the adults have to step in and ruin things by threatening to destroy the school and split up Broken Branch Falls. And Gabe is their scapegoat. With help from friends, old and new, Gabe sets out on a quest for the Book of Ages, which holds the laws of all beastkind and hopefully the key to saving Broken Branch Falls. After all that trouble, it better work.

Add it to your GOODREADS list!

Twitter ~~~ Facebook ~~~ Blog

Also by Tara Tyler, techno-thriller detective series,
The Cooper Chronicles, Book One: POP TRAVEL

Tara Tyler started out as a math teacher. After having a hand in everything from waitressing to rocket engineering and living up and down the Eastern US, she now writes and teaches in Ohio with her three active boys and Coach Husband. Currently, she has two series, The Cooper Chronicles (techno-thriller detective capers) and Beast World (MG fantasy) She's an adventure writer who believes every good story should have action, a moral, and a few laughs!

AND you can get up to five entries in this fun raffle just for commenting on five of the many cover reveal posts (see below) - This week only!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A to Z 2013 - reflection post

I have to tell you I am still hungover from this year's A to Z, and dragging of my carcass to the computer to sit down and write this reflection post has been quite the undertaking. But the glass of wine beside me is helping me stay in the moment. hehe.

Reflection

Yep, folks, I did survive 2013's A-Z challenge, and it's my third successful challenge to date. In 2011 I flew by the seat of my pants and did random posts, which you can check out here. Last year, my theme was an A-Z list of books from my GoodReads "to-read" shelf, which can be found here.

This year I focused on sharing an A-Z of Australian music. Many Aussie musicians, even our most well-known who have enjoyed international success, are not that well known globally, so I wanted to introduce the blogging world to some of my favourite (or other people's favourite) Aussie-penned tunes. I had a lot of fun this year and was glad to be able to fixate on one of my greatest loves - music - but I also found it quite a challenge and very time-consuming.

The posting: I didn't have anything pre-written, so each night when I came home from work I had to a) whittle down my list of songs (I have over 12k of songs in iTunes, to make the meaning of that a little clearer) to just Aussie songs b) choose which songs I thought worthy of sharing c) hunt on YouTube for videos for said songs, and c) compose my post for the day with links 'n all.

The visiting/commenting: My aim at the start of April was, quite seriously, to visit every single blog on the list. I wasn't really counting on the fact that a) sometimes one single blogger would have up to 6 different links in that list, leading to different blogs they were maintaining, and b) that is just a whole lotta blogs. Visiting 66 blogs a day did seem manageable, but really I was kidding myself there. I started out strong...ish...but soon enough I realised I had to get picky. In the end I mostly visited those who kept visiting me and commenting.

Reasons I may not have left you a comment:

• You had DISQUS comments enabled - at home these don't seem to work for me at all, so I can't even load your comments section
• You had 6 different blogs in the "master list", and I had already commented on 2 or more of them
• Your website was so high-tech and fancy that I couldn't even get it to load
• Your blog had so many posts about different things within one single day that I found it really difficult to even find any of your A to Z posts
• I couldn't find your blog at all! You don't have it linked on your Blogger or Google+ profile, and I couldn't even find you on Google (obviously this was if you had left me a comment and I was trying to do so in return)
• I gave up on the big list before even getting to the section your blog was in. Sorry! But  if this was you, see my P.S. at the end of the post :)

I was also tempted to give up on a fair few CAPTCHA-plagued blogs, but because I had taken that precious time to stop by, I generally persevered. I did wind up stopping posting on most religious-themed blogs, 'cause, ya know, I'm atheist.

What would make me want to return to your blog?

• I knew that you wrote fairly short posts for each letter!
• You kept coming back to my blog and leaving comments!
• Your theme was super groovy in my oh so humble estimations. :)

Anyway...all in all this year's A-Z was a good experience, but I did find it quite exhausting. Then again, that's nothing new. I'm exhausted after every A to Z season is done! It's still well worth doing, in my book. ;)

P.S. If I never visited your blog during April but you'd like me to, leave me a comment and I WILL come and visit you. And if you already left me a comment and I still didn't visit you back, let me know that too and I will leave you at least 2 comments in return. :) I promise!

P.P.S. I finished my wine. :( But there is more in the fridge. :)

Let us reflect upon the 2012 A-to-Z Challenge

First off...

Yesssssss I am! I made it this year. But it was quite different to last year's challenge. For one thing, I had many of my posts scheduled (the first half of April was basically taken care of before the month began). The reason for this was that I was travelling for the first half of April, dropping into Paris and being driven around the British Isles. I also chose a theme that was fairly easy to follow - an A to Z of books from my GoodReads TBR list. But scheduling is not my cup of tea, really. I am a pantser, after all.

Due to my constraints due to travels, this year didn't really have the same magic as last year's challenge. Last year, I had hardly anything planned, and each day was not only a surprise for me but for those visiting my blog as well. Last year's posts were unplanned and unpredictable. And that's how I tend to be with all my own creative pursuits as well. When witing songs, I will sit down and bash something out, hardly knowing what I'm playing. I've been known to write songs I actually can't play. I also don't plan much with my creative writing. Sure, it causes me problems in the long run (ridiculously overbloated rough drafts that need severe slash 'n burn attention), but it's how I like to work. It's how I feel aliiiiive.

Another downside of this year's challenge was that I...well, wasn't here for half of it. I attempted to participate from a distance, checking the odd blog while travelling...but as anyone who's participated in one of these challenges knows, you really have to be on the ball to keep up with it all (actually, I'm of the opinion that keeping entirely on the ball is impossible, more so each year as the number of participants grows exponentially). The A to Z challenge runs us off our feet, and oftentimes we're lucky to keep our heads above water for the month. It's not just about posting your own posts, it's about checking out 1400 other bloggers' posts as well. C.R.A.Z.Y.. Still, last year I did all right.

Don't get me wrong - I did get some new visitors this year. And I did manage to visit new people myself. But like I've said, it really wasn't the ideal way to be doing the challenge. And if I found myself in a similar position next year, I probably would bow out of the challenge. In closing, I did have great fun sharing some of my TBR list, and finding out what cool themes other bloggers had chosen.