A-Z REFLECTIONS

This was my first year participating in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge. It was a lot more fun than I expected and also a lot harder/more grueling than I expected.

What did I learn?

-Blogging every day (particularly Saturdays) is not for me.-Blog traffic seems to be highest on Tuesdays (I'm not sure why this is)-Blog traffic seems to be lowest on Friday/Saturday (that makes sense to me) (and, of course, Sunday - when nothing new was posted)-Next year, I'm going to try to have all my posts written beforehand, to free up more time to visit other blogs-There are a lot of awesome bloggers out there-Participating in a blogging challenge is a good way to get visitors (even just for a day or a month)-My "hits" went from an average of 14/day in March to 45/day in April, and my comments increased dramatically as well!

Who did I enjoy visiting?

John Wiswell - a snarky, thoughtful blogger who was a truly faithful commenter/dialoguer and spent the A-Z challenge blogging about the most in-depth world-building I have ever had the privilege to read about. However Improbable - who was also wonderful at commenting daily and revolved her theme around movie reviews, and proved to be a "kindred spirit" when it comes to most of our tastes in movies/storiesSmurfin' the Web - whose theme of transportation in TV/Movies was quite cleverTales of  a Pee Dee Mama - a homeschooling Mom and fellow Christian whose blog I will continue to peruse for homeschooling tips and tricks... and humorYA Writer and Hobbit in Training... - whose "hobbit in training" title caught my eye and whose blog is thoughtfully written with lots of great writing tips/questions/etc

Those were my favorites on the list. I visited close to 200 blogs last month, (can we say "exhausting"!?!?!) and could say nice things about all of them, but these were the ones I visited daily and left comments at on a regular basis. These are also the ones I will definitely be returning to. (Who really has time to visit hundreds of other blogs all day?!?!?!) I have no illusions of keeping the numbers I saw during the month of April. I know most of the people who stopped by during the A-Z won't keep coming... but if one or two do, then I count the exercise a success!

Barring anything major, I definitely intend to participate next year!