Roadtrip 5 AtoZ 2021 Challenge

A trip round some of the blogs I didn’t manage to visit during the Challenge in April!

Time and again in the Blogosphere as viewed through the lense of the AtoZ Challenge, I encounter writers who demonstrate the maxim “A Writer is someone who Writes!” Given that it used to be said (before print on demand made self publishing so easy) that for every novel published, another 4000 were written but not published – the prospects of success as a writer are slim, is it then the case that many of us write simply as a hobby? I have two novels on the go and one seems to be trying to birth a sub-plot into a novel in its own right. I have, in the past been to a real-world writing group and being quite sanguine about making any sort of income from writing, I guess I can answer that question for myself – I write as a hobby! There are so many writing prompts in circulation – not least of all – the AtoZ Challenge and how many bloggers in its ranks can say that they are as prolific the rest of the year as they are in April. To be fair, there are certainly some that I am subscribed to who daily fill my social inbox with one if not more – often prompt inspired- pieces which certainly makes them writers who write daily. Myself, I really enjoy writing and other things being equal I could write all day – my novels for sure, but blogging too – and enjoy the socialising that blogging brings with it. When you are in either a real-world writing group or an online one, and Covid has certainly favoured the latter – then its not just the quality of the writing of your fellow travellers but their personalities, companionship and even friendship that are on offer. All of which musings were inspired by the first of this post’s mini reviews…

hdhstory.net is the home of a storyteller and in his “C” entry for AtoZ 2021, “A Computerised Mind” we have personal revelations aplenty. First a wish to have a mind like “Data” from Star Trek, whose positronic brain allowed for so many skills even though our writer would only wish for such a brain providing he could keep all the emotional attributes of a human being which “Data” lacked… Secondly, and bravely for a writer, he admits to being a slow reader though I think ruminative would be my choice rather than slow. And thus, through such revelations do we come to know the writer a little and if we like and we choose to interact, maybe friendship will follow…

Welcome to My Magick Theatre is the home of a prolific writer, novels abound as do blogs – truly she must be glued to her desk… The link I have chosen is to her “Z” post which was on the subject of Zealots since Carrie-Ann Brownian is a writer of historical fiction amongst other things and Zealots is a fascinating insight into feuding families in Florence (see what I did there? Who doesn’t love a bit of alliteration!) Reading the About page, Carrie-Anne endears herself to me by her choice of typeface – as a graphic designer (among many things), whose roots go back to hand-setting type at school, I love anybody who goes beyond accepting the default offerings of their computer. This is an author, and a blogger that one can, metaphorically speaking, get your teeth into! Unsurprisingly, of the six bloggers who Liked this post, three are known to me and two of those are also novelists. If novels are not your bag, then Carrie-Anne also has a page on which she lists all the music in her collection alphabetically, and giving the medium she possesses – shades of “High Fidelity”…

Ha! Not saying it’s greedy but here is Carrie-Anne Brownian again! Any relation to the eponymous discover of Brownian Motion – ‘cos this gal just cannot keep her fingers still and has two blogs in the AtoZ 2021 Challenge.

“This was my eighth year doing the A to Z Challenge with this blog, my tenth with two blogs. Much to my disappointment, for the fourth year in a row I had to suffice with a fairly simple theme, one I didn’t need to do a huge amount of research for. I remain hopeful I can return to more research-intensive themes in the coming years.”

Reflections page – https://onomasticsoutsidethebox.wordpress.com/2021/05/07/a-to-z-reflections-2021/

Given that the theme of Carrie-Anne’s blog Onomastics Outside the Box was Medieval Tuscan and Italian (plus a few other nationalities) Names – I tremble to think what a “research-intensive” subject might be. I realise now that here is an author who loves lists so the quip about “High Fidelity” might be nearer the mark than I thought. You have to admire the perspicacity of this blogger and if you love names, international versions of names, are a novelist or another list addict this is the blog for you…