Reflections: The A-Z Challlenge 2012

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Today, those of us who participated in the A-Z challenge have been asked to reflect on the experience.

Reflection is interesting. Things done in the past, even the recent past, take on a rosy glow in hindsight. You forget the sweat and tears and remember the good stuff. But it can also give insight, so here's hoping for a little insight.

I decided rather late in the remaining days of March to participate. I'm often like this (insight #1: I'm often a last minute participant, the train has to be about to leave the station for me to get on it). The challenge struck me, at first blush, as daunting. I am not a great blogger. I'd much rather write a poem or a bit of fiction than an essay, and blogging is a form of essaying.

While I have far too many ideas for fictional stories to ever finish writing them, when it comes to ideas for blogs, I find myself straining my brain to try and think of something to write about. In truth, my life isn't all that interesting. I doubt that anyone wants to hear about how I forgot to pick up the pizza after a run to the store yesterday. Heck, my own family, who were deeply invested in said pizza, didn't want to hear about it.  So the idea of writing twenty six blogs in thirty days boggled my mind. What would I say? Who would care?

Then, in late March, as I was on my usual walk at the local park, I had a revelation (insight #2: for better or worse, ideas seem to float into my head unannounced while I'm walking in the park).  I have several hundred, maybe several thousand, poems in various stages of development, most of them on little pieces of paper stuffed into the back of a supply closet. What if I took those poems, or twenty six of them, and posted them on my blog? It seemed a terrific idea. And since April is National Poetry Month,  a timely idea as well.

So I signed on to the challenge and made an alphabet of poems. To my great delight and relief,  I had at least one poem for every letter except X. Some letters had so many that it was hard to decide. I dusted off my old work, rewrote and revised a bit and added pictures where appropriate.

It was good, having a blog post for nearly every day of the month. And it was overwhelming. (Insight #3: sometimes those terrific ideas I have when walking turn out to be bigger than I bargained for).  And I didn't even start from scratch. Frankly, I'm in awe of all of the participants who sat and wrote a post nearly every day. Even with having something to start with, I found that it took up a good deal of my writing time. My work in progress was slow to move forward. I'd hoped to finish a novella by the end of May, now I'm looking to the end of June or July. Such, I suppose, are the pros and cons of keeping up a blog.

I don't think I'll do the challenge next year. Then again, late next March I might be walking in the park and--