AtoZChallenge Blog Prep for April, 2018
As March turns the corner toward April, it’s time for AtoZChallenge blog prep.
If you don’t know what AtoZChallenge is, here’s a brief review:
26 blogs in April
26 letters of the alphabet
Write one blog per day (except Sundays unless the 1st is on a Sunday), working your way through the alphabet.
Any theme.
As I related on this post, when I revealed my theme for this year, I’m writing about a fictional retirement village in Arizona where supernatural happenings are the norm.
I started writing 800-1200 word posts in January. From A is for Arizona Heat to Z is for (Birthday) One-Zero-Zero, I wrote an average of five stories every two weeks. Twenty-six stories in six weeks. While still maintaining my regular writing and blogging schedule. I’m waiting for the parade of gratitude to start (hint, hint).
Writing is one third of the job
You’d think I’d be ready for April 1st, but blog prep doesn’t end with writing, grasshopper. Getting the stories ready for posting is the second third of the project.
How do you prep twenty-six stories for publication without losing threads and consistency?
Make a template. Make a checklist. Find images for each post. Determine keywords for the bulk of the posts and specific keywords for individual posts. Set the feature image. Edit. Preview. Schedule. Then realize you should do X for each blog and go back and add it.
I have thirteen blogs ready to go. “In the hopper” as my friend Tricia says. The last thirteen are on my accountability board for next Saturday. I’ll bet money the task will spill over to Sunday.
Once April 1st rolls around, the process segues into the last third of tasks to do: Marketing. I’m hoping to automate some of that as well using Buffer and Hootsuite to schedule the posts on social media. I still have to carve out time to visit others’ blogs and comment, but that’s part of the beauty of #AtoZChallenge—meeting other writers and learning, learning, learning.
I’m so much more prepared for #AtoZChallenge this year than 2017, when I jumped into it at the last minute and spent April scrambling. Not this year. I’ll have lots of free writing time. Which is a good thing, because I’ve committed 30K to CampNaNoWriiMo!
I promise to come up for air. After all, I have my monthly commitment to #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop on the 18th, and maybe my Cool Links blog on the Sundays I have free.
Nothing to worry about, folks. Nothing at all.
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Thank you so much!
Blessings,
Cheryl
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