Blogging from A to Z in April Theme Reveal

Today is the Theme Reveal Day. If you are taking part in the Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge and haven’t found yourself the Theme Reveal Badge, it is here. This year for the A to Z Challenge I have taken my 2013 Challenge as a starting point for most of the posts. In 2013 I wrote posts with an alliterative theme, mostly ending with something relating to the Bible.

For the 2017 challenge I have written posts based around something or usually someone from the Bible. Sometimes it is a fictional story, for example when I have changed the narrator or added some back stories (as a writing exercise). Sometimes my post is a summary.

Some of the characters are well-known, others less so.

I hope my readers will be challenged to consider the original texts in more depth. (If only to discover what liberties I have taken with them!)

 

Knock, knock

Today’s Daily Prompt asks

Pick a letter, any letter. Now, write a story, poem, or post in which every line starts with that letter.

I have taken a more or less random post from my series for the Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge earlier this year.  Not all the lines began with the letter, so I have restructured a few sentences.  My original post is K is for…  Of course O is the most symmetric of letters, so I am also linking here O is for…

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K-nee, k-nife, k-nob, k-nickers was the chant of a child learning to spell.  She soon knew that knitting was another word with a silent K.

Kindness among kinsfolk (one’s kith and kin) kindles affection.

Kings keep kittens in kitchens.

Kingfishers, koalas, kangaroos and laughing birds (kookaburras) are creatures.

Kilimanjaro has I, J, K, L, M, N and O and its top is covered with snow.

Kingcups are yellow and knapweed could be picked and the stem wound round itself to shoot the head off.  (Probably not allowed unless you have grown them in your own garden!)

Kettledrums are timpani and a klaxon also makes a noise.

Kick  may be free in football or start a motorbike and a kick-pleat allows a longer stride.

King Saul was the first king of Israel.  David and Solomon were the next kings.

King of the Jews was the title of Jesus when He was condemned and crucified as  Luke 23:32-43

Reflections on Blogging from A to Z

The A to Z challenge came as a surprise to me.  I had started blogging about eight months previously as a way of storing content which my daughter could view at her leisure – or not at all!

When I started out I knew nothing about the social-networking aspects of blogging, but I began to learn and to make blogging friends.  I started to take an interest in challenges, but (unless I could write them in the same style as my blog) they seemed out of place.  So, on the Monday of Holy Week I set up a new blog.  I had seen a new theme on WordPress (Pachyderm), which I really wanted to use and I began.  After a few days (and as many posts) I typed “challenge” into the “Reader” and soon found a blogger who had signed up for the A to Z challenge.  I was in time to join in and did so with no more ado.  Two posts on my original blog were about letters of the alphabet and I had been thinking about a few more, possibly to spell out a word or words, but it was difficult to find words which didn’t overlap in the letters used.  So an alphabet challenge was ideal.   My theme was alliteration.

I found five A to Z bloggers to follow from the outset and have added more during the challenge.  I was thrilled that Arlee Bird (the founder of the challenge) looked at my early posts and commented on two of them.  I have been following one of his blogs since then.   He used the same word as me for X on his Tossing it out blog.  My X post was of a slightly different format from the others.  I think xenophobia is a serious issue.

I have tried to visit and comment on blogs, but commenting on blogs on platforms other than WordPress can be fraught.  The html to provide a link to my blog does not always work, sometimes the comment disappears, other times it produces an error message.  I have learned to copy (as a precaution) any text I type into a box before clicking on any links, buttons or what you will…

…so I have not left quite as many comments as I’d have liked and people returning my visits have mostly found my original blog rather than the challenge one.  I am grateful for the new followers and hope to continue following most of the blogs I have been enjoying.

I have written posts ahead of time in order to allow for unexpected delays or demands on my time.  By the end of the challenge I was a week ahead with all the remaining posts scheduled to publish automatically.

Part way through the challenge I set up a facebook page for my blogs, but I only have a few friends on facebook, so I wondered whether I was wasting my time.  I had posted every post up to and including U, when I noticed there was a facebook page for the challenge.  So my  posts from Q onwards are linked there!

The five blogs I set out to follow are

Victoria’s blog

Rebeccah Writes

Never cry over spilled milk

life as a journey

Unveil the Other Side

Blogs I discovered and began to follow through the challenge are:-

Pressing in and on

Faith, Life and Compassion

A few words A blog by the founder of the A to Z challenge.

Writing under fire

Roll Away the Stone

Being Positive with a Depressive Soul

Stratoz

Ephesiansfour2

Fruitful Words

Mary e agius

Joe’s Musings

Writingwildly By Linda Garcia

I have visited other blogs too.  Only one blog shocked me.  One person who commented on my blog had marked his (AC) but I didn’t check the list before I clicked on it.  Live and learn.

Apart from alliteration I have had at least one Bible reference in each post.

If you want to know more, press the button!