A-Z Blogging Challenge

It's almost time for the off in the A to Z Challenge for 2015. I signed up last month, and entered a new blog I'm hoping to expand. And yesterday I declared my intent and announced the subjects and theme of my challenge posts.

Last time I answered the challenge, I only reached the letter G. Even so, my Google rankings soared and I met many other bloggers, found some very useful blogs and learned a lot about what makes a successful post. This time I am determined to do better. 

There is a great camaraderie about working on a blogging challenge. There is the excitement of knowing others are looking at your posts and every day they must be the best possible. There is the inspiration of reading new, unknown blogs both in your own field and in completely unrelated subjects.

Speed up your writing

For me, the challenge is also in commenting on five other blogs per day. I am apt to anguish about writing, Even writing a comment can take me far too long. Doing it day after day speeds me up dramatically.

Nine days left for registration and already 1200 blogs are involved. I spent hours wading through them yesterday. Without knowing where I am on the list, I can't find the following blogs I must visit to leave comments. Panic set in until at last  I found me sitting at 629.

Plan for Success

• Any challenge is easier with planning. A month of daily blog posts with only Sundays off for good behavior is arduous.
• My theme--like the name of my new blog-- is Author Support.

As I think of anything that might fit the alphabetical article headings, I set up a draft blog post with the title already there.  A theme is not essential but it ties the posts together and makes it more cohesive and fun for readers.

• Make posts short and to the point. Bloggers have to visit five blogs a day. There will be no time to read long articles. 
• Vary content by using clip art, photos, podcasts and videos.
• Make each post useful and fun.

What do you think of writing challenges? Love them or hate them? Leave an opinion in the comments below and if you register for the A to Z Challenge for April, let me know your registration number so I can visit :-)

Anne Duguid Knol

A local and national journalist in the U.K., Anne is now a fiction editor for award-winning American and Canadian publishers. As a new author, she shares writing tips and insights at her very new Author Support blog: http://www.authorsupport.net

Her novella, ShriekWeek is published by The Wild Rose Press.

Writing is for Life

 
On days when I wonder if my works in progress are actually progressing or moribund, I cheer myself by singing a happy tune and rejoicing in the success of others who came to the writing table later in life.

And the passion and enthusiasm for writing that  keeps authors writing into their eighties, nineties and beyond, also seems to contribute to success.

 Self publishing at 97
 
Star contender this week has to be Nora Percival, self-publishing for Kindle at the age of 97, with help from author Scott Nicholson.
 
A retired editor, she was 88 when her first book, Weather of the Heart, was published to critical acclaim. The painstakingly researched memoir documents her family’s life in Russia where they lived through civil war and famine. Her father fled the Russian Revolution to safety in America but not until 1922 was he reunited with Nora and her mother in New York.
 
The sequel Silver Pages of the Lawn is the romance of her love story with her first husband, poet Herman Gund, told through their letters.
Three of her books are already available on  Amazon.
 
Editorial Memoirs
 
British literary editor Diana Athill retired in 1993 aged 75, after which she produced five books of memoirs, one of which, Somewhere Towards the End, won the Costa Award in 2009.
 
She worked with publisher André Deutsch and his authors including Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, John Updike and Mordecai Richler to name only a few.
 
Last year, aged 93, she appeared in the BBC documentary Growing Old Disgracefully. This year saw the publication of another book of short stories, Midsummer Night in the Workhouse.
 
If you haven’t anything to say...
 
One of my favourite authors, Mary Wesley was 70 when her adult novels were first published . Her books sold three million copies and included ten best sellers before she stopped writing fiction aged 84.
 
“If you haven’t anything to say,” she supposedly said, “don’t say it.”
 
I doubt if that thought ever crossed the mind of British author Barbara Cartland, the Queen of Romance. She wrote 723 romantic novels and totalled an estimated one billion sales in 36 languages. Famous for her spiky eyelashes and her love of wearing pink, she featured in the Guiness Book of Records as the world’s most prolific writer.
 
She lived to within weeks of her hundredth birthday, “still scribbling” according to a friend, and her books carry on selling in many parts of the world today. Whatever you think of her writing, the sheer ability to produce a book a fortnight, even by dictation to a secretary, is an amazing feat.
 
World’s Oldest Blogger
 
A review of the golden authors past and present of the publishing world would not be complete without a mention of the world’s oldest blogger Bernando LaPallo from Arizona. Now 110, his latest blog post was published on his birthday in August. He is author of Age Less and Live More and is reported to be working on his second book.

Secrets of Success

All these authors have taken publicity in their stride and played to their unique strengths. The initial marketing blurb may have promoted them on account of the late blossoming of their careers, but they also worked hard at connecting with their readers be it through public appearances, radio and television appearances, blogging and/or belonging to social networking sites.

Of course not all of us can have the advantages of Barbara Cartland who also happened to be the mother of Princess Diana's stepmother.


But we can pay heed to the best lesson of all.

Never Give Up.

 

 Read the article that inspired this post:

Nora Percival: Self-Publishing at Age 97

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Anne Duguid is a senior content editor at MuseItUp Publishing. She blogs at Slow and Steady Writers and at the moment is passionate about creating a new Joomla! website. The WIP? A romantic suspense series.