Reflections

     It's been an amazingly productive blogging month, though, I had many ponders that were put on the back burner, since I chose to blog in the verse form, taking it to a hardcore level of starting each line of the poem with the same alphabet :-)) And suddenly, when the month is over and my obligation to blog came to an end along with it, I realized that the ponders I wanted to blog about had vanished miraculously, or may be they are there, but the will to ponder upon them completely disappeared form the system.

     I thought, I'd reflect upon the challenge at least, and not let the lack of the pressure to participate come in between me and my blogging journey. So, here goes the unedited 'shitty first draft' christened 'Reflections'.
I took the challenge in last April - and when I look back at those postings, I clearly see how most of them were 'forced' to keep up the self-imposed obligation. This time around, I had a wonderful support system, an audience that stopped by for each post and said things that made me want to write more and more. It is just amazing, how a little encouragement takes us a long way in giving out our best. So, thanks to all the blogger friends who lavished their generous praise on my awkwardly chopped verses (if I could have the audacity to call them that ;-)
   
     I also had my world open up to many different shades of blogging - the travelogues, the mom's memories, the blogs that put a smile to your face, the blogs that dripped of sarcasm, making you laugh out loud, the pictorials that made me gasp, the personal stories, the fictitious ones, the book reviews, the humorous blogs, the Haiku poetry, the lessons of life profound enough for every grown up, though aimed to teach kids, the culture blogs, the poems...it was a true grand gala buffet of varied view points, and styles of writing. I did not for once, regret having stopped all the books I was reading before I started the A-Z journey, for the blogs I was reading were filling up for the bestsellers I choose to read. I made many friends, discovered many talents that I'd not have discovered otherwise.I should thank Arpna Singh for introducing to the A-Z challenge last year and being my biggest supporter till date, Corinne Rodrigues for leading me by example, and Shail Mohan for introducing me to all these gems of bloggers that I'd have otherwise missed out on - and more importantly for bringing me out of my 'talking to myself' mode of blogging...as much as I enjoyed the calm and quiet of this blog, I must admit, I shall cherish, very dearly, all the visits, comments and attention A-Z 2013 had brought into my blogging world.

     Lastly, and most importantly, I discovered yet again, that writing on a regular basis does not really need a endless source of ideas or inspirations - All it takes is the commitment to log into the blog and make an effort to write...I was amazed at how productive I was the whole month, jotting down words from my memory bank and weaving ideas out of nowhere, just because I had the obligation of writing every day. It also made me realize that writing need not be  'intellectual' or 'creative' - it should just be sincere - and when sincerity reflects in your writings, even the most flat ideas come across as works of art ;)