Friday, May 1, 2015

A-Z April Challenge 2015: Thank you! See you in April 2016

Google Images
When I joined the A-Z April Challenge this year, though I was confident of completing it, I never expected to enjoy it so much. As I had mentioned in my “theme reveal”, I had tried the challenge last year but unfortunately, couldn’t complete it.

I love to write and hence my blogs. I enjoy writing fiction and have a few published novels and a collection of short stories to my name along with a few short stories on my website. I have an opinion about anything and everything and my blog is the best place that I can air them.

I have never been fond of contests. I find them too negative for my liking. I feel that competition eats into one’s creativity. I always steer clear of them. But the April Challenge is exactly what it says it is. A Challenge - one where you pit against yourself.

You decide on a theme - only if you want to. You can write about anything under the sun; in any form - prose, poetry or even pictures. Your posts are preferred to follow the alphabet - it could be names, adjectives, nouns, just about any damn thing.

This year, I decided to write stories from Indian mythology. Just in case I couldn’t find the names or topics to suit the alphabet, I gave myself the freedom of borrowing from Grimm’s Fairy tales and European mythology – wrote two for ‘C’ & ‘X’. I was sure I would never find anyone in Indian mythology for Z and had planned to write about Zeus. But the response I got for my typically Indian stories was so overwhelming that I challenged myself to write a post from Indian mythology for the last letter of the alphabet. And that’s how Zealous Little Squirrel from the Ramayana was born.

I must say I loved every bit of the challenge while I made a number of new friends as we interacted with one another via our blogs. Better yet, I was amazed at the ideas my fellow bloggers came up with while presenting their posts. Simply incredible! It’s been a wonderful journey and for that I have to thank the team of “Blogging from A to Z Challenge” for organising such a wonderful blogging exercise - one without too many rules - the only kind that I love.

Thank you so much Arlee Bird, Alex J. Cavanaugh, Jeremy Hawkins, Stephen Tremp, Tim Brannan, Rob Z Tobor, J Lenni Dorner, Jenny Pearson, Jeffrey Bushman and a host of others who have made this humongous effort possible.

Catch you all next year during A-Z April Challenge 2016!



33 comments:

  1. Congratulations on completing the challenge! I loved your posts, and also learned a lot from them. Thank you!

    @TarkabarkaHolgy from
    Multicolored Diary - Epics from A to Z
    MopDog - 26 Ways to Die in Medieval Hungary

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much Tarkabarka Holgy. and you are welcome :D

      Delete
  2. I am glad that this year you successfully completed it. Kudos to you

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congratulations, Sundari, on completing the challenge and so brilliantly too! I loved going through your posts which gave me a fresh nugget of wisdom every day! I am also happy that we could get to know each other more closely through our posts! Here's to more writing, more creativity and more friendships!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yayyyyyyyyy! Thank you Deepti. It has been fun, visiting one another's blogs throughout this month. I learned a lot too. :D Most of your posts kept me laughing throughout the day.

      Delete
  4. Love the A-Z thank-you word cloud graphic you posted.
    Congratulations on completing the A to Z challenge for 2015.
    We made it! (I did 5 blogs this year for the series - all on different topics. Whew.)
    Thanks for stopping by at
    The Mane Point: A Haven for Horse Lovers . Hope you will visit again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much Linda. 5 blogs???? *jawdrop
      will surely visit your blog again :D

      Delete
  5. Once again, congrats on making the journey. I loved every single of your posts. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. So glad that you made it and even more so that you enjoyed it! This was my 4th year and 1st one serving as a minion. I had more fun this year than any other! Now, it's not a rule, just something to do if you desire, ;) But don't forget to link this post to the A to Z Reflects Linky List that will be up Monday or to grab your survivor badge! You can find them both at A to Z Challenge
    Visit me at: Life & Faith in Caneyhead
    I am Ensign B of Tremps' Troops

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for stopping by Barbara! I took your advice and have grabbed the survivor's badge. Will link my post up the moment it becomes possible on the A-Z website :)

      Delete
  7. Thank you for stopping by Emmanuel :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Congrats on finishing, and glad you enjoyed yourself so much. For me, I'd like to see more rules to get people to do what they signed up to do, it really frustrating to hit blogs where you feel you're wasting your time because after reading it you can't leave a message, or they never reciprocate the comments etc.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for stopping by Sandy. What you are saying it true, but then people will be individuals :)

      Delete
  9. Congrats on being a survivor and completing the challenge. So glad you enjoyed it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much Susan :) Yeah, I did enjoy it, a lot

      Delete
  10. You are a terrific story teller, Sundari Ma'am and ur take on mythology was bang on:)

    ReplyDelete
  11. :D yes the experience was really wholesome.. enjoyed it..

    ReplyDelete
  12. Congrats on surviving the A to Z Blog Challenge and thank you for stopping by my blog and commenting :) It was very much appreciated!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much Teacher-mother :D And you are welcome

      Delete
  13. Hey, I think I visited you early on but fell off my radar somehow. I'll have to catch up because I love all things mythological! Congrats!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for visiting Nick. You are welcome! I hope you like the stories from India :)

      Delete
  14. Congrats on completing the A to Z Challenge! Looking forward to next year!

    Mary @ Jingle Jangle Jungle

    ReplyDelete
  15. I don't think I found you during the Challenge, but here I am reading your reflection. Because I am a writer too, I started with the blogs who categorized themselves as (WR). It helped me tackle a long daunting list. Finding fellow writers like yourself has been a great teaching moment reading others work. I will try and catch up with you ASAP.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much Stephany. You are welcome :) Glad to meet you through A-Z challenge

      Delete
  16. I am going to miss your mythological stories. I used to look forward to them everyday. Congrats on completing the challenge. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much Shanaya! No worries. Will soon be publishing a book of mytho stories after adding some more to these. :D

      Delete
  17. Hello there.
    Congratulations on completing the challenge! I actually got to visit your blog during the crazy month of April. I'm popping over again today from the Road Trip/Reflections linky.

    Entrepreneurial Goddess

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Entrepreneurial Goddess,
      thank you for stopping by and posting a comment. Will surely check your blog :)

      Delete