Reflections of… A to Z 2012

It’s time for my reflections on the A to Z challenge 2012. It’s hardly surprising that my mental soundtrack is the theme from the series China Beach which I’ve been re-watching on cable TV.

Anyway, what are my thoughts on A to Z, a week after successfully completing the series? I barely made it into the start of the series, prompted thanks to a post by my geneabuddy, Julie, from Angler’s Rest. With my single-minded obsession on family history, there was no doubt in my mind that my posts had to have a genealogical theme. I chose to write on places of relevance to my family history, not just from the distant past but also more recent history of our own family or that of our parents. Added to that was a dash of straight travelogue but there were relatively few alphabet letters that ended up just being about my second obsession, travel. In essence it was a blogging version of Around My Genealogical World in 26/30 days.

My plan was to write posts which I could incorporate into a blog-to-book publication which I could give to my children. I’ve already done the first pass of editing on that project but taking a breather for a day or two.

The downside of posting, apart from the timeline, was that there was so much I could say on these genea-places and although that made most posts quite long, I opted to go for it based on my overall goal. I particularly admire and thank my mates who hung along through what was a pretty hefty journey. They gave me the added commitment to keep going all the way to Z.  Feedback from some of my readers commented on how much they had learned about Australia and Papua New Guinea. With such a specific focus it’s no real surprise that most of my dedicated supporters came from the Geneabloggers community. However I also had support and positive comments from other A2Zers along the way.

If I have any regrets over the series, it’s that starting late meant I was on the back foot a lot of the time. Consequently I didn’t get to as many other blogs as I’d have liked, but I did find a few that I thoroughly enjoyed and will keep an eye on. I also want to keep dipping into the other bloggers’ posts over the coming weeks. I’ll be starting with Julie’s ABC Award list.

Would I do it again? Yes, if I had a theme I really wanted to follow and also if I had time to support others more effectively. It was fun and I learnt how to do new and different things. I also completed my goal and have a sense of achievement. Thanks to the A to Z coordinators.

My A to Z posts can be found through this link.  My highest rating post (ever and in this series) was V is for the Valiant of Villers-Brettoneux.