Celebrating the A-Z Blogging Challenge! Have you signed up yet?

That time of year has come around again when bloggers all over the world are preparing for the A-Z Blogging Challenge throughout the month of April. The sheer mention of the Challenge is a celebration in itself!

For those who may be new to this, it's now in it's fourth year and was set up by Arlee Bird to challenge himself and fellow bloggers to post something every day through the month of April. As an added hurdle, you need to choose topics thematically from A-Z.

So, on day one you post about something beginning with A, day two is a topic beginning with B, and so on. You get to skip Sundays for good behaviour, which leaves 26 days of posting for the 26 letters of the alphabet.

To get the full lowdown on how it all works you can visit the Blogging from A-Z Challenge webpage which will give a much more thorough breakdown of whats involved.

This will be my third year doing the Challenge and I've learnt many things from the first two:

• Try and pick a theme for your posts. It can make it a bit less daunting to concentrate on one overall theme covering each letter rather than scrabbling about for something to write about each day.
• Planning can be crucial! It can be tiring and stressful keeping up if you are writing each post the day before or even (gulp!) on the day itself. I wouldn't recommend it! Try and make a schedule for your posts that you can tick off when you write and schedule each one. It'll feel good to see those posts disappearing.
• Keep your posts short. As I write this there are over 1000 participants taking part in the challenge. If you're visiting others on the list it makes it easier if you don't have to scroll through reams of words every day. It also increases the likelihood that people will return to read further posts.
• Have fun! It's all abut discovering new blogs, meeting new people and expanding your blogosphere. You'll be surprised at how much you'll learn.

Before April itself kicks off though, there are a few people having a little A-Z Theme Reveal party on 21st March.  

There's a sign up list for this too, where everybody will have a grand unveiling of their intended theme for the Challenge. Make sure you head on over to check this out too, and bring the A-Z fun to your blog early!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This post is brought to you as part of the Celebrate the Small Things blogfest, a weekly adventure courtesy of VikLit. Why don't you head on over to her blog to check out what everyone else is celebrating?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~