If we were having coffee, I’d tell you it’s been a crazy, hectic couple of weeks. Lots of family stuff going on. We’re gearing up to relocate and haven’t moved in almost ten years, so the packing and sorting is going to be quite the chore. And of course, this weekend is Easter and while you are reading this, I will be at the Little Jedi’s birthday party.
Getty stock image.
It’s also been a long, long work week. I don’t know if it’s the time of year or the anticipation of Good Friday, but it’s been one of those weeks that just seemed to go on and on. It was a productive one, though.
I’d tell you I am finally done with everything I have to do for Sourcerer to be set for the entire month of April aside from scheduling a few contributor posts that will come in as I need them. Setting up an A to Z Challenge with 11 contributors has been quite the task, but worth it. I have a better idea now than I ever have about how to organize such an undertaking, and I think the next project of this magnitude (always another one for me) will be easier to manage.
Since we’re talking about Blogging A to Z, I’ll tell you I discovered a blogger who is doing a Tolkien-themed challenge on Day 1, and I’m calling it my new find of the week. And I’ll tell you how I am going about doing the visits for the challenge, in case any of you want to follow along.
- I started on Wednesday with the blog right after me on the list (I’m #92).
- I’m visiting in order on Mondays-Saturdays, not paying attention to the codes, and visiting friends who appear after me on the list as well as new blogs.
- I’m visiting as many as I can each day, and leaving comments on at least five.
- On Sundays, rather than continue through the list, I’m visiting from either the bottom or from the top. I’m starting at the bottom this week and will start at the top next week.
- I’m also trying to visit as many of Sourcerer’s commenters as possible this month.
In addition, I am scanning the A to Z Challenge and April A to Z tags on WordPress and liking almost everything. That first one seems the busiest.
I’m sharing as many good ones as Twitter and Facebook as time pemits, and retweeting generously from #AtoZChallenge and #GeekPastiche, which some of Sourcerer’s contributors and a few other bloggers are using to share geeky and nerdy A to Z links this month.
That’s a lot of visiting and sharing, of course. Having the ability to do all that for most of April and to write for May is why I worked so hard to get as much of the A to Z set up ahead of time as possible, and why I decided on reveal day to withdraw this blog from the challenge.
Then I’d grab a second cup of coffee and ask you how your week has been.
Just Gene'O 
A to Z has definitely kept me busy, and last night I had a panic when I realized that I probably didn’t want my specific “D” topic at the top of my page after interviewing for a writing job where I included my blog on my resume. I’ve moved it to later and had a last-minute scramble to write today’s post. It all worked out (and now I don’t have to figure out a “T” post…win-win) but it was a bit of a panic.
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Now I am intrigued 🙂
And it is sooo very cool that that you are using your blog as a resume. I think of mine and Diana’s whole social media as a sort of portfolio at this point, myself.
Proving I can build and manage a huge network/following/audience is my ticket out of the middle management. (But I rarely say that on the blog threads, and never on the front page, Twitter, or Facebook).
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I’ve visited so many A – Z blogs I’ve lost count. What I’m finding is too many are still making it hard to comment. Also some people are already dropping out, I’ll see an A post or a reveal, but nothing else. Overall year two of A to Z has been much easier for me! I don’t feel so stressed out. And I think you’re right, when Heather and I do a big event again, we will be ready for anything! Have fun at the party!
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Thanks! Yes, this year is going much more smoothly, and my experience with commenting/dropping out is the same. What I’ve taken to doing is opening five or six at once in separate tabs and quickly scanning from the good ones. I’ve given a LOT more visits than comments.
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I had planned on doing the A-Z blogging challenge but realized in late March that it would be far too much. I’m trying to get my book ready for the editor at the moment. I do enjoy reading the A-Z posts though and will be doing a bit of sharing and commenting. Thank you for sharing. Just wondering how do you join in the weekend coffee share thing?
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1. Write an “If we were having coffee” post. You don’t have to call it that, and you can choose your own beverage. Some bloggers do tea, and I’ve even seen them done with cocktails.
2. The post itself is just about as flexible a format as you can come up with. Can be long or short, a personal post or a rant about something your stirred up about. I’ve used mine to promote things at times, and often use them to update my friends on the progress of my blogging & networking.
3. The key is in the tone — write whatever you write as though you were sitting down with someone and sharing a beverage.
My sister hosts a linky every week at http://parttimemonster.wordpress.com. It opens on Saturday morning and closes on Sunday night, U.S. time. Anyone who’s written one of these posts since the last linky closed is welcome to join the linkup. Most people do them on the weekends, but we have one friend that does them on Monday and sometimes joins the linkup the next Saturday.
We also have a registered hashtag, #weekendcoffeeshare that you can use to find links to coffee posts on Twitter and to share your own link, if you tweet. How much we’re on Twitter depends on what else we are doing, but I work Twitter hard more weekends than not, and sometimes, when we are both available, we both retweet all the links from that hashtag over the course of the weekend.
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Thank you for your helpful comment, I’ll be joining in for the first time this weekend, got my cup of tea all ready to go. 🙂
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Fabulous! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
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I feel for you on the moving. It’s amazing the things you accumulate without realizing it!
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Yes. We’re not accumulating things like we were ten years ago, but we still have a lot of stuff. Lots of things are getting sent to goodwill or left in the dumpster for sure.
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I have yet to come up with a way to pick/choose blogs to check out. I have been picking up a lot of new ones from people who come to me first, but I really need to return the favor.
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I basically hit the list and open about six or seven at a time in separate tabs. Then go one by one and decide whether to read or close, then whether to comment or move on after I read the ones that interest me.
The mistake I made last year was in being too literal — tried to actually read and comment on everything I visited. That is not advised.
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I’ve already found so many new blogs that I’ll never live long enough to read them all!
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Oh, I know. It’s hopeless. All about finding the ones that really grab you, or that say “make friends with this blogger” to you.
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I’m not liking getting through Blogger blogs in A to Z. It takes forever to be able to comment and I just don’t have the time. I’m also finding that many bloggers in A to Z have chosen to list their link directing to other than the “blog” page. They send you to About Me or a Home page that is not their blog then you have to search all over for the blog to comment on and it takes at least twice as long as other blogs. I am also a minion so I have even more to read. I think next time I volunteer to be a minion I will specify that I will not read Blogger blogs. Just too time consuming.
You’re doing a great job helping to keep everyone engaged. I really appreciate it.
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Blogger’s giving me trouble, too. I’m still opening them and taking a look, but commenting less there, and only on things that are as good as “26 Ways to Die in Midieval Hungary,” which is a pretty high bar.
I open them because I don’t want to miss things that good, but as far as having any hope of having the sort of conversation that ends with one person persuaded to keep up with another, that’s only happening on WordPress so far, and it’s because WordPress sends me response notifications.
If I want to know a person responded to me on blogger, I have to follow the thread by email, which I can’t do when I am visiting this number of blogs, or else I have to go back to the thread the next day, which I also can’t do when I am visiting this number of blogs AND they are all posting something new every single day.
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It’s definitely been crazy. I’m glad I have Sunday to catch up after two days out of town! After I read your post here, I have 96 more to read on Bloglovin’, haha. I will get them done though, but, starting next week, I’m going to start focusing more on blogs that have commented back on mine, and then replace those that do not engage with new ones from #700 onward… after all, the point of the challenge is to find new people to network with, and I want to make sure all this work will pay off with more active people in my/their comment section, which was one of my goals for this year.
I should probably be on Twitter more. I’ve been visiting here and there, but just the commenting has been keeping me busy!
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Yeah. The commenting is a lot of work all by itself. I’ve not been able to Tweet as much as I like in the last couple of weekends, and I was basically offline all weekend because of I’m going to see how far I can get tonight. I’d like to look at 30 or 40 blogs before the week starts all over again tomorrow.
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Hope you meet that goal!
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A to Z has been quite the challenge, between the posts and the commenting on other blogs such as ones hosted elsewhere. It is a bit difficult, and also a lot seem to have dropped out. I do wonder, if someone from blogger comes to my wordpress site, if they have difficulty commenting as I do on theirs? But it still is a lot of fun, I’m learning new things, for my own posts, and via hopping on by others as well. I like the engagement if it’s possible.
Good luck on the relocation, and all that it entails. Hope you had a great time at the Little Jedi’s Birthday party and a lovely Easter Weekend as well. Thanks for the coffee 🙂 ~Paula
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Thanks 🙂 The party was fabulous and got some new, silly profile art for my social media. On the non-WordPress visitors: How easy it is to comment depends on how you have your commenting set up. You can allow people to comment with just a name. email address, and (optional) website.
The problem from there is the same problem I have with Blogger — they aren’t going to get a notification when you respond unless they follow the thread by email. So very low potential to have the sort of conversation that’s useful for getting to know people.
I have other problems with blogger — most of the time my WordPress account doesn’t work even when the other blogger has that option enabled. Sometimes I can’t tell whether my comment was held for moderation or just did not go through. And sometimes, even with my Google account signed in, when I press “publish,” it kicks me back to the Google sign-in and wipes my comment out. I still comment on Blogger blogs sometimes, but the combination of no notification and these time-eating problems makes me choose carefully and only comment on the highest quality blogs over there, say the top 2%.
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So glad the party was a great time, and yay for silly profile art! That makes much more sense to me now. I believe I have it set up to accept all comments, at least I know I also shut off the comment moderation. I will have to double check though. I agree, the times I stop at a Blogger site and take the time to comment, it bumps me out and I feel bad because I would love to comment, but it is a bit of a time waster. Plus I’m dealing with using my phone at the moment so the convienience of my computer is not there. But I shall keep at it when I can. Thanks for the clarification! As always you’re a great deal of help. Enjoy the rest of your weekend 🙂 Paula
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