Why You Should Blog from A to Z This April...

Founded in 2010 by Arlee Bird of Tossing it Out, the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge is basically this: Every day in April (except for Sundays) you post a blog connected in some way to the alphabet, in alpha order. In 2013, the first day of this Mac Daddy of a blog hop is Monday, April 1—on that day, you blog about something that starts with an "A." Tuesday, you blog about something beginning with "B," Wednesday it's "C," and so on, till you've reached the end of the alphabet, the end of the month, and the end of your sanity.

Just kidding about that last bit. (Or is she...?)

But wait—there's more!

You sign up to participate on the A to Z linky-list, so other A to Z-ers can find you and check out your A to Z posts. In turn, you check out their posts, striving to read at least 5 (five) different participants' blog posts daily.

This isn't Sparta, folks. It's madness. It's a lot to keep up with, for sure. Picking a theme and writing/scheduling posts in advance can help. Some folks "pants it" and just post on the fly, daily, with no particular theme in mind. And, if they're staying true to the spirit of the thing, they're visiting as many of the other (over 1000) A to Z participants as they can, every blessed day in April.

Why the hell do they do it? Damned if I know. Here's why I do it, and why I think you should too:

• A to Z is the biggest, baddest blogger-networking opportunity I know of. Not getting a lot of traffic to your blog? Sign up for A to Z and that'll change. I started getting regular comments on my blog posts and my follower count shot up over the course of last April (my first go at A to Z). Your mileage may vary, of course, but even if you experience but a mild spike in visits/followers, it beats the hell out of talking to yourself in cyberspace. (Talking to yourself at home is totally normal, though, or so the Voices tell me.)
• You can learn a lot about self-discipline and sticking to a schedule, both of which aid in increasing your creative output, whatever your art/craft. (Sure, everything else in your life may grind to a screeching halt and you learn to live on 4-5 hours of sleep every night but, you know, art is pain, no pain no gain, time is money and money is power, the black hawk squawks at midnight, etc.)
• You stand to learn a lot of nifty bloggy tricks, such as how to make your own link-back signature (and why the devil you'd ever want to make one).
• If you're new-ish to blogging, you can rip off get a lot of good ideas of how to style your blog from checking out what others are doing on theirs.
• You can make blog-pals that'll stick with you through the dark space of the blogosphere.
• Damn it, it's fun, OK? (Sheesh.)

Anyway, click here if you want to learn more. I know it seems a daunting challenge suitable only for the dangerously insane, but...no, I can't follow that up with anything soothing. What the hell, give it a shot, what've you got to lose? (Aside from the aforementioned sanity?) (Sanity's overrated, anyway.)

Or, in the immortal words of the great Edgar A. Poe:

“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.”

Word up, my brother. Word. Up.