Theme reveal – soniasmusings

Theme reveal post – Blogchatter A2Z-challenge 2020

This is my third year at the A2Z challenge / Blogchatter A2Z challenge. The first year was thrilling. I wrote on the theme ‘A dollop of Bengal’. I followed it up with my debut Detective Thriller ‘Deal of Death’ that is available on Amazon here. The second-year was a little hectic because my son started school in mid-April. I wrote on parenting with a dash of humor.

This year, I was in a dilemma whether to go ahead with the challenge or drop the idea. I am into my fourth month of an MFA creative writing course and currently, I’m juggling three fiction classes there. At one point, I almost thought of giving up this challenge because I was already writing 4000 words on a weekly average.

But the excitement of participation didn’t take long to rub one me. I started hunting for themes. Blogchatter gave me some great advice. All I knew was that I couldn’t write beyond 100 words per day. So, after ransacking my brains, I realized that I am going to go ahead with the theme ‘Laugh in the time of Corona’.

Considering the anxiety that all of us are going through, I wanted to speak about anything other than the deadly virus that seems to have brought our lives to a standstill. So, I will talk about Indian stand-up comics on the net, shows that promote humor in the form of a stand-up special or through YouTube channel. As we grapple with the pandemic engulfing our existence, this is my way of dealing with stress.

So, hop on as I start preparing this joyride beginning on April 1st, 2020. Subscribe to my blog to stay updated. You can also follow me on FB/Twitter/IG @soniasmusings.

In the meanwhile, stay safe, stay indoors and don’t forget to wash/sanitize your hands.

Getting back to writing through My Friend Alexa – Season 4

Over the past few months, most of my updates have been limited to awards and recognition. While the blog was making a way to quite a few esteemed lists and my writing got me my first award of this year, I was grappling with recurrent health issues rendering me incapable of maintaining a regular writing schedule. Not the one to give up on my dreams, I have finally decided to face one of the lowest phases of my life heads on and get back to blogging and writing September 1st onwards. Blogchatter is back with the fourth season of My Friend Alexa and it will be my second year of participation in this campaign.

What it is about –

I will be writing 2 posts every week on my blog (a total of 8 posts in the month) in September while reading a lot of my fellow bloggers every day. The Alexa rank of my blog which is the highest in the last one and a half year is expected to come down due to consistency in writing and also because of being read by others (the lower the rank, the better for the blog).

My experience from the campaign –

Last year was my maiden attempt at My friend Alexa. This campaign came at a time when I was consistently blogging every month and had a decent Alexa rank to begin with. Through this campaign, I wrote 12 posts in September and discovered a bunch of new bloggers. It helped me sustain my writing momentum, improve the quantitative parameters associated with my blog while also giving me an exposure to some prolific writers. I understood the need to write short posts (compared to some really long ones that I was writing until then) and helped me gain a grip on writing flash fiction.

Theme reveal –

In the last few months that I couldn’t write much, I finally utilized the time to catch up on my reading list. During the process, I discovered some brilliant Indian detective thrillers, a genre I enjoy reading the most. So, this September I intend to write about eight of my favorite Indian detectives from literature. To know which detective is the first one to make it to this list, please visit my blog to read the post on September 3rd. I hope to give you a great reading experience on my blog this September.

Thank you for reading, If you like my writing, please consider subscribing to my blog by clicking on the follow button at the bottom right end of the page.

Theme Reveal A2Z challenge with Blogchatter

The A2Z blogging challenge with Blogchatter is all about blogging on every single day through April except on Sundays. So essentially there’s an alphabet associated with every single day. A on the first day, B on the second and so on until it’s Z on the twenty-sixth day. When I took up this challenge, I had already been posting two to four blog posts every week. However it looked like a Herculean task to post every single day and that too on the basis an alphabet. I felt challenged and there’s no best way to overcome the fear than to face it. So, here I go with my theme reveal of my first ever A2Z challenge.

A dollop of Bengal.jpg — *Theme reveal of A2Z Blogchatter Challenge – A DOLLOP OF BENGAL*

Through a series of twenty-six posts, I am going to help the readers enjoy a journey down my state West Bengal through ‘A dollop of Bengal’. My blog belongs to a multi-niche category and through this theme, I intend to cover cities, places, food, restaurants, personalities, characters, festivals and a lot more that define this state. So that looks like a huge list right?

Wait, there’s a twist! Among the multiple options in various categories starting with any particular alphabet, I am going to choose and write only about the one that has a connection to my life. Stay tuned to know who makes it to the list and what is their significance in my journey.

I am waiting to make this my biggest project till date. Can’t wait for you to come sooner, April to get this started.