#AtoZChallenge 2023 Reflection

Published on by Yinglan

I made it! I survived yet another A-Z Challenge although I did not doubt I wouldn’t. I think the two things that made this year’s challenge easier than prior years is 1. the theme and 2. it helped to not procrastinate. I began crafting the stories early in the year in a Word document before copying and pasting the stories into blog posts. The word count came to just under 6,500 words.

Thank you for all those who had chosen to read my daily tales. I hope you’ve enjoyed the 26 stories told from 26 perspectives. I sure enjoyed writing each of the stories as writing in the first-person narrative allowed me to dive deep into each of the characters’ heads, which is always fun.

If you didn’t notice, I divided the timeline of the story into 4 periods – each week covering one period of each character’s day. I wrote this based on my high school’s class schedule.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before but I went to 3 different high schools in 3 different states – California, Texas, and Utah. Of the 3, California had the most different school schedule. There would be 8 classes a day, one lunch, and each class was 50 minutes each. There were also no lockers nor hallways in my California high school. Instead, I spent the 5 minutes in-between classes running from one class to the next as the classrooms were often faraway from each other.

On the other hand, the other 2 schools also had 8 classes but the classes were held on alternate days – 4 classes on one day and 4 classes on the other day – each class was 90 minutes – with two lunch periods so the cafeteria was never crowded and there’s never a long line to get food.

Can you see which schedule I adapted for the story?

The school in the story looked like the high school I graduated from in Utah. Of course, the school is no longer the same. It was torn down and re-built about 2 years after I graduated. I returned in 2019 for my 10-year anniversary to find the school completely unrecognizable from the days when I roamed the halls. That school shall always live in my memories.

Although I did have a bit of trouble getting through the last week of April due to exhaustion and other minor problems, I am glad this is finished because now, I get to think about my theme for next year.

You can check out every A to Z Challenge posts ever posted on this blog by clicking on this link.

19 thoughts on “#AtoZChallenge 2023 Reflection”

  6. Well done. I liked your post about your stories the most. I think this is the first time you have revealed something of yourself without planning to. It is refreshing.
    Keep writing. I read you just about every day. All the way from South Africa

    Liked by 1 person

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  7. I’m glad you made it! It’s wonderful you’re planning for next year, too.
    I enjoyed the April Blogging from #AtoZChallenge 2023.
    Proof of Existence, book two in my dark urban fantasy series, came out in April. I hope you’ll check it out.
    And please don’t miss the amazing giveaway on my blog. Act fast and enter now!

    J Lenni Dorner (he/him 👨🏽 or 🧑🏽 they/them) ~ Speculative Fiction &Reference Author, OperationAwesome6 Debut Author Interviewer, and Co-host of the #AtoZchallenge

    Liked by 1 person

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