Monday, May 4, 2015

One Epic Month - Reflections from A to Z

This was my 4th year participating in the Challenge and my first year co-hosting it. I would like to thank my amazing Legendary Ladies, Corinne, Lanise, Mary and Courtney, for doing a great job during A to Z, visiting blogs and gathering links. You are the best!



In my personal opinion, this one was the best A to Z year I have participated in so far! I realize that is partially due to me taking on a much more active role: The more blogs I visited the more intriguing things I found, the more new friends I made, and the more visitors I got. I also dropped in on a few Twitter chats, which were always a lot of fun. In addition, I was happy to see a lot of my fellow professional storytellers participating this year!

Here are 5 things I got out of this year's challenge:

1. New followers! The number of my followers on Blogger and Twitter is slowly yet surely creeping upwards. I also followed quite a few new people :)

2. New blogging ideas! I am fairy active in blogging about storytelling adventures, but I want to structure more. I am starting a weekly series on this blog for Story Saturdays (#storysat), and I am also going to participate in Top Ten Tuesdays and the Blood, Boobs and Carnage Blogfest (which could have been the title of either of my A to Z themes this year, really...)

3. A translation for Escanor! I wrote about how I wish there was an English translation for this Arthurian romance, and the same day I posted it, lo and behold, the Internet worked its miracle! Thank you all who helped connect me to the lovely lady who is working on a translation! (And blogging about it!)

4. More activity on the MopDog! My other blog is about Hungarian weirdness. My theme of 26 Ways to Die in Medieval Hungary was immense fun to write, and got a lot of visitors who left me hilarious comments. All in all, I am glad I was crazy enough to do two blogs at a time.

5. A whole new repertoire of epics!
One of my goals with the epics theme was to read a large number of sources, and figure out which epics I want to dig deeper into during my mentorship project this year. I have to pick two, but it will probably be more than that on the long run. *drumroll* The first one I picked was the Shahnameh, and I am already working on it. For the second, I am still hesitating between the Lianja epic and Thidrek of Bern. Decisions, decisions! :)

My 15 favorite blogs this year (in no particular order):

1. The Wee White Hoose - Scottish folklore and folktales, what's not to love?
2. Things Matter - LGBT+ superheroes and comic book characters, because representation is important!
3. The Little Princess - Daily tales of love from Indian mythology, beautifully written
4. Sara C. Snider - Tree inspired short fiction, eloquent and with some gorgeous imagery
5. Pensuasion - Movie smackdowns! :)
6. La Fotografía Efectista Abstracta - Gorgeous abstract photos on the theme of Dreams
7. Heidi Dahlsveen - Understanding Trolls, straight from a Norwegian storyteller!
8. Part Time Monster - Female monsters in myth and pop culture, and musings on monstrous femininity
9. Shells Tales and Sails - Inventions by women!
10. The Art of Not Getting Published - Famous and interesting people from the 16th century and their adventurous lives
11. A Year With the Mad Grad Student - Greek mythology, mused and retold
12. J.H. Moncrieff - All things chilling, mysterious and creepy
13. Modhukori - Tales from Indian epics, eloquently re-told
14. Wendy of the Rock - Fictional letters with great humor and wit
15. The Old Shelter - A to Z of the Roaring Twenties!

And finally, shameless self promotion:
Check out my book, Tales of Superhuman Powers!
It is a collection of folktales, myths and legends that feature the same superpowers we see in comics and movies every day - everything from invisibility to flight, shapeshifting, and eye laser beams. It includes the stories, the sources, comments and notes, and even lists of pop culture heroes who have the same powers...
Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and McFarland, both in print and ebook formats.

Check out other A to Z participants' Reflections today! Follow the Linky!

42 comments:

  1. Thank you for all the new blog recs! This last month has been awesome. I loved both of your blogs immensely. I also see you got the reply button figured out, so yay!

    I've added about four of the blogs from that list, here... for some reason my RSS feeder didn't know who they were though, so I'll have to wait 24 hours for the other ones to go through.

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  2. I enjoyed your A-Z theme, the posts I read and your reflections. So cool you found the translator! Some of your blog recs are already in my feed..will look up the others.. A great April and A-Z :) Thanks!

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  3. I loved your posts throughout the month! And thank you so much for being a part of my challenge! Glad to have connected to you and will keep dropping by to read your other posts..:)

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  4. Loved the Challenge... as this was my first year of participation I enjoyed writing and Reading .. Hope to be part of this Challenge every year..

    http://serendipityofdreams.blogspot.in/

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  5. Thanks for the shoutout! Your book looks awesome, I put it on my wishlist!

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  6. I enjoyed reading about all the epic tales on your blog. It was cool seeing all the commonalities to more modern tales.

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  7. I don't believe it. I'm still discovering new blogs I never saw during the challenge.
    Thanks so much for sharing.

    I enjoy your challenge a lot. You will see me around ;-)

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  8. Great job! Many blogs that I haven't really looked at, or only in passing. But I have followed about 50 new ones. Maui Jungalow

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  9. It's all a bit overwhelming, but it has been fun <3

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  10. I never got over to this blog. I visited Mopdogs almost daily, and saw you link to here, but clicking never passed the thought stage. I can still go back and read at least. =)

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  11. I am so glad that you were able to find someone translating that story! Isn't it great how the internet works sometimes? Thanks for a great series. I didn't get as much time to read through it as I would have liked, but I will be returning to browse through what I missed. :)

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  12. How cool is it that you found a translator? I love it when the Internet gods Make Things Happen. And thank you for the shout out!

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  13. I loved reading all about the epics. they were so fascinating.

    That's awesome that you found a person translating it!

    And I don't know how you pulled off two blogs. I'm usually scrambling to finish.

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  14. i don't know many from your list - that challenge had a lot of good ones this year - i will have to check them out! (women inventors? roaring twenties?- love it!)

    great job! and i love making new blog friends too!

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  15. Best year yet! Everything went so smooth from my standpoint that it was almost hard to believe it was April Challenge month.

    We're getting this Challenge thing down and we have a great Team of co-hosts and team assistants to thank.

    Arlee Bird
    A to Z Challenge Co-host

    Tossing It Out

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  16. Thanks so much for the shout-out! I loved your posts too, but it sounds like your other blog would have been even more up my alley. Once things calm down, I'll check it out.

    I agree, this year was awesome. My newsletter subscriptions and blog following doubled! And I got to meet wonderful people like yourself.

    Congrats on successfully finishing a double-header Challenge!

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  17. You are a superstar!! Not only did you do two blogs for the A-Z Challenge but you co-hosted as well. I bow to you. You have a ton of energy! Great reflections post. Congrats on doing such an amazing job all the way around...
    Michele at Angels Bark

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  18. Finding great blogs like yours is the MAIN reason I participate in A-Z. I loved reading your epics! Great job.

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  19. Thank you so much for the special mention... I am SO glad to have found you and your wonderful stories in this great big blogosphere and look forward to lots more fun. Glad you were able to make yourself comfortable down at The Rock... You're always welcome.

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  20. Wow! You did 2 blogs on the challenge AND were part of the team?? Congratulations!!! That's the biggest effort someone made for the A2Z challenge I've heard of!

    I'm glad it payed off - wonderful that you got inspired, and that it helped you to develop a scheme! Good for you that you gained new followers - it's so fun when people appreciate what you're doing!

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  21. Hello there.
    Well done for completing the challenge as co-host too!
    I don't know where you found the time to be co-host and manage your own blogs as well...I'm worn out just from my one little blog! We participants really have no idea of how much work goes on behind the scenes of the AtoZ challenge. I just want to thank you for your efforts.

    Entrepreneurial Goddess

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    1. You are most welcome! Being a co-host was actually a lot of fun, because it gave me an excuse to spend waaaay more time visiting blogs than last year... :D

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  22. Thank you so much for the shout-out! I just posted one for your blog too (and also ordered your book!)

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  23. Finding you through your good reflection. It's a great experience for sure. You've given me several things to think about for net year. Thanks. Leaving one thought for you. The font size on your blog seems super small to me making it difficult to read your good work. Anyway to bum it up?

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    1. Thank you for the suggestion! I'll see what I can do :)

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  24. J here, stopping by from the #atozchallenge. Thank you for visiting by my blog recently.
    Those are some fantastic thoughts! Excellent job.
    -J @JLenniDorner

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  25. Wow! What a great review. Thank you for the list of top 15. I found 4 intriguing enough to check them out. Now you have given me an additional goal for next year, to make your top 1% list.

    Thank you for visiting my review post and leaving a comment.

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  26. Wow! What a great review. Thank you for the list of top 15. I found 4 intriguing enough to check them out. Now you have given me an additional goal for next year, to make your top 1% list.

    Thank you for visiting my review post and leaving a comment.

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  27. Congrats on finishing on both blogs as well as co-hosting! Definitely an epic achievement. I'm afraid I didn't visit here as much, I think the grisly side of me subconsciously prioritised MopDog's blog. But I find epics fascinating and your book looks great - goes to show there aren't too many new ideas!

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  28. Congrats on completing the A to Z Challenge! Looking forward to next year! Thanks for co-hosting!

    Mary @ Jingle Jangle Jungle

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  29. You had a really interesting theme, too! I hope to read more of it even if they don't do a Road Trip this year.

    Congrats on completing the challenge! And thanks for your visits!

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  30. I'm still getting around to checking out all the blogs that participated in the Challenge! Thank you for co-hosting. Next year I will try extra hard to make your list of top blogs!!

    --Mee (The Chinese Quest)

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  31. Visiting back from Sue’s Trifles It's been a great A to Z Challenge.

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  32. Thank you for your kind comment in my blog.
    I enjoyed the challenge very much, and I'm looking forward to taking part in it next year, too.
    Thank you for being the co-host.

    Letters from the Land of Cherry Blossoms

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  33. All I can say, is I am a fan, period!

    We made it...Hope you had a great time, thank you for your Reflection!
    Jeremy [Retro]
    AtoZ Challenge Co-Host [2015]

    HOLLYWOOD NUTS!
    Come Visit: You know you want to know if me or Hollywood... is Nuts?

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  34. Looks as if you're a real veteran of the A-Z. Thanks for al your hard work co-hosting; it must have been a real challenge to do that as well as your own posts. This was my first try at A-Z, and I'm looking forward to next year!

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  35. Thanks so much for the mention, and apologies for dropping by so late! Work has been manic! What a blast April was - I can't wait till next year :D

    Fee | Wee White Hoose

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  36. Wonderful reflection post and I agree that this was the best year ever. The only negative on my end was not visiting as many blogs as I wanted to and that was my fault for not preparing all my post in advance . I don't know how you managed to do it for two blogs, but it's quite impressive . Thanks for the list of new bloggers. I will be sure and visit them all.

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  37. Hello! I am flying in with the A to Z Road Trip. This was a great reflection post. There were so many blogs and I didn't get to nearly as many as I wanted. Hoping to make up for lost time now.

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  38. That's awesome someone volunteered to translate for you! The world really is such a small place since the advent of the Internet.

    I'm already looking forward to next year's Challenge, and have both my blogs' themes picked out, with the list of topics for my main blog and a few for my names blog.

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  39. Loving your theme :) I think it's really interesting seeing what everyone chose for their themes! Doing this on 2 blogs at once is hardcore!
    Popping by on the A to Z Road Trip
    Debbie
    www.myrandommusings.blogspot.com

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