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!

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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?

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A230 - Reading and Studying Literature - An A-Z post

Welcome to the first post of this years A-Z Challenge! A huge thanks goes out to Arlee Bird, whose vision has brought us this brilliant annual blogging event. Without Arlee, none of us would have this event to look forward to throughout the year, and I for one am grateful as it was this very challenge last year that kick-started my blogging life.

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A230 Reading and Studying Literature is the full name of the course I'm currently studying through the Open University. It's the first kind of literature study I've done since leaving high school *cough* years ago.

The course itself is broken up into three books, covering six different themes, and focuses on the 18th Century, Romantics and Victorians and the 20th Century.

There are six Tutor-Marked Assignments, of which I have now submitted four, and a final three hour written exam. The thought of the exam terrified me to begin with, but one thing I love about the course is that we get advanced notification of the topics to be assessed. This certainly helps to focus revision, and relieve the worry of the unknown.

Throughout this challenge I'm going to give a brief overview of some of the topics I've been studying, both as an aid to my own revision and also to share with you some of the authors and works I've been introduced to as a result.

I hope you enjoy this journey with me!

             


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This post is part of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. To get involved and check out other blogs taking part just click here. You won't be disappointed!


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