The End of A to Z

April 30th marked the very end of the A to Z Blog Challenge. Many thanks to Arlee Bird at his blog home and his team of eager writers. I feel like I've run a marathon, at least mentally!

Not only was I attempting to use the alphabet as my muse for writing, I also continued participating in the Red Dress Club's writing prompts, so those prompts had to reflect the parameters of both challenges. That was kind of hard. A couple of times I had nothing to submit to the Red Dress Club, mostly this last week, because we had the horrific, vile, and completely useless TAKS test to administer to middle school students. Administering that test always makes me feel vaguely dirty, like I am participating in some sort of horribly random experiment in the mind control of children. I'll stop talking about it now, since that would only bring back the post-traumatic stress reaction.

Sometimes for the A to Z, I would look up a word or two that started with that letter, and try to build a post around that. Other times I had an idea of what I wanted to post, but I had to make the letter fit. Other times, like my post for the letter U, just flowed right out of me as fast as I could type the letters. Apparently that one had been rattling around in my brain for a long time! It was good to get it out.

What I have learned over the last 30 days? Well, the first thing I learned is that I CAN do it. I can write every day. I used to struggle with that, but the challenge sort of gave me a push.

Next, I've learned is that there are a LOT of very talented writers out there in Blog Land. I've gotten headaches because I've stayed up too late reading all the different posts. Published authors were participating, and they were wonderful in offering up advice about writing, poetry, and blogs. One blogger was gracious enough to feature some bloggers on his site that began with the letter of the day--clever AND helpful!

I have enjoyed every second of the A to Z Blog Challenge. I hope that I get to participate next year. I loved it.