Reflections on the 2016 A to Z Challenge

For my 2016 A to Z theme I used a meme that I ran across on the blog of Bridget Straub who first saw it on the blog of Paula Acton.  This meme was a natural for me to use on my memoir blog.  It's an A to Z concept and it's about me.  No research and nothing complicated.  I' was given twenty six questions or topics to discuss that are about me. 
          In April I kept my posts short and uncomplicated.   In the midst of it all you might have learned a few things about me that you didn't previously know.  


Reflections on the 2016 A to Z Challenge

        It's time to get back to the regular Wrote By Rote schedule, however my first regular post will be a backward glance at this year's Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. For anyone who is not familiar with this yearly event you can click on the preceding link for more detailed information, but in short the Challenge is blogging daily through the alphabet in one month. It's fun and if you've never tried it you should keep this in mind as something for you to do next April.

       For the 2016 Challenge, I blogged according to a theme which is described at the opening of this post. As I have found in my past several Challenges, a theme is an excellent way to do the A to Z as it provides a continuity in the posts and allows for a cohesion of thought that makes writing the posts easier. In my case it was especially easy since the posts required no research--each post was free form writing about the answers that came to my head for each question. Free form is a good way to go if you want to create posts quickly. Keeping posts brief was also easier on me and most likely more acceptable to those who visited.

       My posts didn't receive too many comments because there were not very many visitors to each post. I did almost no promotion of this blog during the Challenge.  My only post that broke 100 visitors was for the letter "B" which received 132 hits while the least visited post was for "V" which only had 32 hits. My average number of hits per post was about 70. For the most part comments came from my regular visitors who tend to comment throughout the year. My thanks to all of the loyal readers who keep me motivated to keep this blog open.

       No great revelations to report regarding my experience on this blog. As usual I had a great time, especially considering that my theme was such an easy one to use. My expectation is that this blog will keep on posting and most likely will be a part of the 2017 A to Z Challenge.

      For those who followed this series, did you enjoy what I did? Have you tried this "about me" theme on your own blog yet? Do you enjoy reading blog posts that provide a look into the writer's life and view of the world?

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A to Z Reflections for Wrote By Rote

What I Did In April

        As a participant in the 2015 Blogging from A to Z April Challenge I'm joining in with others who are offering their reflections on this sixth edition of the annual event.  The Reflections posts have been a tradition from the first Challenge in 2010.   To see the entire list of bloggers with Reflection posts visit the A to Z Challenge Blog.   The Linky List will open on Monday May 4th.

         Wrote By Rote is one of four blogs that I had entered in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge of 2015.   This year to make things somewhat easier for me in posting content I took the approach of using a common theme on all four blogs.  My theme for April was Elements of... which in the case of this current blog was Elements of Memoir.  

         In essence I explored what memoir is and what type of content it might contain.  My aim in presenting this particular content was to provide some ideas to those who have considered writing memoir or  who have some sort of interest in the literary genre of memoir writing.  My posts looked at the components that make up memoir, the approaches to writing memoir, and some memoir topics that can be used by someone writing about their life experience.

 Audience Response

       This year had a much lower response on this blog that last year.   One explanation that I can think of was that I didn't promote my posts as much as I did last year as I focused primarily on directing readers to my main blog Tossing It Out.  Also my duties as a Challenge co-host kept me preoccupied to some extent with matters aside from my blogs.

        Another factor that may have attributed to a lower rate of following is that my posts this year were focused on the mechanics of writing rather than the personal stories that I presented in the Challenge of 2014.  I think that readers found the stories more appealing than the somewhat dry technical posts.

       Hopefully readers weren't bored by the posts and the comments seemed to indicate some interest in my topic.  Also most of the posts were kept very short, a factor which probably had little affect on the visits my posts received.   There were few to no new visitors on my memoir posts this year with my comments coming from loyal readers who regularly visit Wrote By Rote.    My thanks to all of you who faithfully visit this blog and leave comments.

My Reaction

        This blog did acquire some new followers as a result of the 2015 Challenge.  I didn't keep track, but there were probably 10 to 20 new followers added to my Friend Connect since the A to Z sign-ups opened in January.   Under the circumstances I don't consider that to be bad at all.

         Only one post received over 100 visits and that was the post for "A".   All of the other posts received about 60 visits on the average..  Comments were light for the most part but they were good comments.

        Since I was not on any strong mission of promoting this blog this year I am not disappointed in my results during April.   I added what I feel is some fairly decent content to this site and to me that is a worthy achievement.  If some of these posts add to any search engine credibility for Wrote By Rote then the time compiling this series was not wasted.  

        Again I thank my regular readers for your support.  If you are here for the first time or have only visited occasionally I hope you will continue to return and interact with my posts.   If you are interested in guest posting with a memoir related topic then please let me know.   It's been a while since I've had a guest post on this site and it's about time for some more of them.

        If you're interested in guest posting please let me know in the comment section.  Or just leave me a comment with any observations you might have about my A to Z strategy this year, the blog in general, or what you think about the A to Z Challenge.

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A to Z Reflections 2014 #atozchallenge

About Wrote By Rote

         This blog has been my pet project since its beginning in October of 2011.  At that time my main blog Tossing It Out splintered out into three additional blogs in order to move my interests in memoir, dreams, and Bible study onto their own sites and leave the main blog with more focus on issues of writing, promotion, and controversial topics.  The memoir pieces that I had been writing on Tossing It Out had been particularly popular and since I have a strong interest in writing memoir Wrote By Rote has been the blog I've been trying to grow.

         For the 2014 A to Z Challenge my thematic approach was as follows:

"During the month of April I will be doing a different spin on my memoir posts. It starts with a song. Each song will be followed by a brief essay that is evoked or inspired by that song. You might want to click on the YouTube link to hear the song as you read the piece I've written. Or you can listen to the song lyrics first and then read. Whichever way you choose, I mostly hope you'll read and leave a comment with your thoughts about my post. "

April Results

            Since the opening of the 2014 sign-ups Wrote By Rote has gained another dozen or so new followers.  If you are not yet following I'd love it if you'd be so kind to click on the "Join This Site" button in the sidebar at the right.   It would be nice to see the block of followers hit the 300 mark as a result of the 2014 Challenge.

           During the month of April my highest number of views came on day two with 161 visitors and my best day for comments was on the opening day when I had 26 comments.   As would be expected, after the first few days my numbers dropped significantly to an average of about 50 views per day and 10 comments.  This is much lower than my average per post views during the rest of the year when a post gets an typical average of about 250 views, but keep in mind that this rate is for posts that are active for a period of a week rather than posts coming up daily.  And my comment per post rate averages at about ten most of the time so that rate shows little change.  Taking into account the six posts per week count in April, my weekly numbers are considerably higher.

           The turnout was somewhat disappointing as most of the time I was promoting Wrote By Rote by using the signature link to this blog in all of my comments.  Reciprocated visits nevertheless mostly went to Tossing It Out.  I don't know whether to attribute this outcome to a fear of clicking on the links in the signature or the bloggers I visited just going to my main blog as a matter of habit or clicking on the name that leads to my profile.   Not many visits were reciprocated to Wrote By Rote.  

         Also it is important to add that I fell very short in my visiting to other blogs and leaving comments.  This was mostly due to issues with slow computer or internet as well as other interferences to my blogging activity.    I'll blame most of my shortfalls on all of my blogs to this factor.  There is a direct correlation in regard to reciprocated visits based on numbers of blogs commented on.    I scored very poorly on this account and my stats show this.   I don't blame the Challenge as much as I blame my own performance.  The large numbers of participants certainly diffuses visits on all blogs, but the active blogger is more assured of increasing visits to their own blogs when they show more attention to other bloggers.

My A to Z Posts Can Still Be Read

        I still have hopes that some of you might go back to read through my Challenge posts and leave your comments.   This is the blog that I had hopes would have the most readers.  My thanks go out to the following readers and I include what some of them had to say about my April posts on Wrote By Rote:

        First a somewhat lengthy endorsement from Faraway Eyes at Far Away Series:

I’ve read all of these A to Z posts this year.  I have not commented before this because I didn’t want to be tempted to start in on some of my own ‘stories’ that might relate to your post. Cheap, I know, but then, ‘you know me’. It’s my opinion that NOTHING should take away from the sheer beauty of your words here.

Today I decided to come back because I wanted to tell you something about you. These are marvelous posts, wonderfully written, the best thing I’ve read anywhere in the A to Z Challenge (or elsewhere for that matter) EVER. I have also been reading and following your posts at ‘Tossing It Out’ and perhaps if I was more interested in marketing or currently had something to market I would be more excited, but really it’s just more of what everybody else is posting, BUT these stories here are something I could read/listen to all day.

You state openly that your desire is to be a published author. Well, my friend, here is your ‘gold mine’.

I hope you don’t take this wrong, but after reading Wrote by Rote, I’ve decided you are a writer with real author potential and not just a yakker, like most of the bloggers out there. Oh look, now I’ve offended a whole ‘nother group of folks. Oh well, like I said earlier; ‘you know me’.

Please feel free to use any portion, or all of what I have said in your A to Z Reflections post. Actually I would be honored. I wish more of the A to Z posts were this interesting and well written. I've been faithfully following about a half dozen or so of the A to Z blogs, and some of them are really interesting, but not as well written as yours. So many of them are the same old, same old. So many of the participants are writers or at least wannabe writers, that it becomes easy to see who has any chance of making it as a real author. 

FAE

          Teresa at Journaling Woman, who posted her A to Z entries at her memoir blog The Ruralhood with some her own wonderful stories with accompanying photos, was another regular visitor at Wrote By Rote with uplifting comments like:  "You know what???? I'm really enjoying your Wrote by Rote posts. Love your choices of songs and artists."   My thanks to my long time blogging friend Teresa.

           JoJo at Tahoma Beadworks & Photography blog was incredible in her support at not only this blog but my other blogs.  I believe she left comments everyday and on a few days at my dream movie themed posts at A Faraway View  she was my only commenter.  A long time supporter of the April Challenge JoJo didn't participate in the A to Z on her own blog, but she played a big role behind the scenes as a member of Tina Downey's Terrific A to Z Team.   Thanks JoJo! 

            CW Martin at Tilting At Windmills said:  "What a wonderful life you have led. Every story makes one wonder how you packed it all in."

            I want to give a special mention for the support given by my long-time blogger friends Larry Cavanaugh at DiscConnected and Stephen T McCarthy at Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends.

            A big thanks also to all of the rest of you who visited and commented during April and the rest of the year as well.  I hope you will keep coming back.

For more Reflections Posts see the Linky List which will open on Monday May 5th at

a-to-zchallenge.com

.