There’s less than ten days left for the Great A to Z Challenge which will kick off in April and I can hardly contain my excitement.

This will be my second month-long blogging challenge in less than six months, the first being NaBloPoMo from November 2013!


Considering that it will be vacation time for us , here in India, I was deliberating for a long while over whether I should take part this time. The kid will be at home, which will mean more family fun time and less actual blogging time. And I didn’t want to compromise on that.

So, I dragged my feet and then sat back and decided this wasn’t to be.

Then, in a casual chat with a blogger friend, +tulika singhΒ ,Β I asked her if it was worth taking up the challenge. She immediately pinged me back asking, ‘You mean YOU haven’t signed up??!! You MUST! You can do it!’

It’s a different matter that I had to chase after her much later and goad her to join the challenge, but that’s another story. πŸ˜‰

Flattered as I was by all the encouragement, I was still undecided. Then, I decided to go and read up the details on A to Z. A few things caught my interest:

  • I could schedule posts ahead since it was all alphabetical.
  • There was no word limit, which meant freedom to decide on the topic. (Phew!)
  • The theme was open to our choice. We also could choose to go without a theme! (Double Phew!)
  • I could really, really expand the blogging network, which is something very close to my heart. I love the connections we make through our blogs and feel that it binds us all very close together.
While I was still debating, although by now, my mind was leaning towards the challenge, a chat withΒ +Vidya SuryΒ pushed me to confirm my commitment. You want to be motivated? Look no further than Vidya πŸ˜‰
She made it even more appealing by inviting me to join the Facebook group for the A-Z participants, mostly from India. Working as a community helps us thrive and I find that to be very true for blogging.

We all got together and started off with the basics:

  1. Grab the participant badge to display on the blog.
  2. Work on a theme.
  3. Categorise and schedule posts ahead of time.
  4. Leave April as free as possible for blog hopping and commenting. (Believe me, you’ll need it!) Β 
  5. Encourage, motivate, push the other participants.
  6. Decide to read, comment on and share the posts that you love!
After a lot of brainstorming (and some hair-rending), I finally picked my theme for the challenge!
And,****drum roll please****, my theme for A to Z Challenge 2014 is:
Introspection in Shades of 11

Each post will revolve around some form of inward reflection- for me as a parent, a spouse, a daughter, a woman and a human being.Β 
In addition, every post will have a set word count and that number will be a multiple of 11. So, 33, 44, 55…but not necessarily in that order. You get the idea. The word count for each post will range between 33 and 300.
You didn’t really think all those multiplication tables learnt years ago were going to be wasted, right? Yes, you can thank me now πŸ™‚
So, I hope you are all set with your themes too! I am itching to know what’s in store for me this April. If you aren’t participating, that’s fine. Do stop by everyday and share your comments on the posts.Β 
I promise you, it will be fun!
For more themes by other fantastic participants, click here:
THEME REVEAL: A to Z 2014 Challenge

If you are checking the above link after the 21st of March, you will need to look for that post on the blogger’s respective page.

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