A to Z Challenge: Reflection

When I first discovered this challenge, it was only a day or two before sign-up closed. I ended up making a snap decision to participate, hoping to build up my blog. It would be easy, right? After all, it was just a simple post every day except Sunday throughout the month of April. I could probably wing it. Maybe.

So signing up, I now had to chose a theme. Easy enough. This blog is all about writing, so I would make my theme Everything I Love about Writing. There! I was going to breeze through this. Then I stumbled over my first obstacle. I actually had to come up with subjects the fit this theme using every letter. Do you know how hard it is to find X and Z words? Neither did I.

My good intentions of getting all the posts written ahead quickly fell through and I was writing a blog post every day. That actually turned out to be fun as I could approach it from a fresh perspective. Also, as I mentioned several times during the month, I am a pantser, not a plotter. I had a master list of the subjects I had picked, but every new post was a delightful surprise.

For example, my theme was Everything I Love about Writing.  However, I realized that that was too one-sided of an approach to what I consider my writing journey. After all, how can you recognized good if you never see bad? So I expanded it to all aspects of my journey. Something that surprised me was my G post, G is for Grammar. I didn’t like that post, I don’t like grammar, it was the antithesis to my theme. It was one of the most popular posts from the entire challenge. Every post revealed something new to me, challenged me to change and grow.

A particularly fun part of the A to Z challenge was getting to blog hop to other bloggers. I only visited about ten consistently, but I was delighted to get to know them through their blog posts and A to Z journey.

So how can I sum up the A to Z challenge? I still don’t know what happened to April. I scrambled to keep up with the posting and comments. There were days when I felt like I fell far short and others that I felt like I’d won a gold medal. I got to met new bloggers and made some amazing friends over the course of this challenge. As my dad says, ‘Would I do it again?’ The answer is yes. I’m looking forward to next year.

My thanks to everyone who stopped by during this challenge, you’re the best!

 

D is for Dedication

So I’m going to be real for a moment. I love almost everything about writing (editing is another matter, but let’s not go there right now). Even when I’m wondering why I gave my character a name that’s a pain to write or spellcheck is upset for the umpteenth time about I word that I created and have added to the dictionary multiple times. But sometimes, writing is hard.

This is where dedication comes in. There are days when I’m sick, when I’m exhausted, when the whole world just seems to throw every roadblock they can in my way. There are days when I am so frustrated with a character that I sit at my keyboard and literally cry. I have spent hours looking at a blank page and blinking cursor because I have written my book into a corner and there is literally no way to proceed. I live through my characters’ emotions as I write and there have been days when I’ve been emotionally depleted and my family still expected me to be a functioning human being. I have argued with my family about how much time my writing takes, I have argued with my characters, I have argued with my family about arguing with my characters. After all, I’ve created them, I should just be able to write whatever I want to happen.

Then there are the physical problems. I’ve had computers restart themselves, losing everything I just spent hours typing. I’ve had cats step on my keyboard to the same effect. There is also the ongoing battle between the cats and my writing for attention, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dropped cats off my lap only for them to levitate back less than two seconds later. I’ve also lost track of how many times I’ve told them to get their paws off my keyboard.

So with all of these obstacles, why do I write? I write because it fulfills a part of my soul. When I write, I can become anyone or anything. I can go anywhere and do anything. There are literally no limits for what I can do, see, feel, or think. Also, it’s a duty. These characters have entrusted their story to me and it is my job to make sure that it is not forgotten, lost to the grind and stress of daily life. And in a way, I write because it’s magic. Because not only can I become anyone or experience anything, so can people who read my words. They can share the experience, but with a totally unique filter to them. A thousand people can read the exact same thing, but it will be retold in a thousand new ways. That is why I write.

What is something that requires dedication in your life? How do you overcome the daily stresses that life throws at you?