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When I signed up for the A-Z challenge , I was the 15th participant. I had no idea of how big it was last year, and certainly no forewarning of how mammoth it would become this year.

The one thing I knew, however, was that it would be tough.

Tough for a blogger like me, that is. I’ve never really posted everyday despite the name and intention of the this blog , Daily (w)rite.

Before I started the challenge I didn’t know I would do all fiction, maybe fiction a day or two somewhere, but not All the posts!

But on an impulse I decided to ask for prompts for the challenge, based on which I would write flash pieces, and once I got the first few prompts and had written the first few pieces,  I knew it had to be fiction. Throughout. I was having way too much fun, and I love a good challenge.

Thanks to the comments that flooded/trickled in each day, I managed to hang in there and now have 24 flash pieces (I combined two letters, twice). It did take a bit of courage, to write a new piece and send it out into the world each day, but it also gave me a lot of confidence.

I know most of the comments were kind for the sake of kindness, but even I can’t deny that some of the commenters on some of the posts seem to have really liked the stories, and meant every word of what they said.

I hope to do a collection of these, in an e-book format, and Arlee Bird  and a few others think it might be a good idea. I’ll cull some of the stories, which did not work, to my mind, and replace them with others I’ve written before or will write afresh.

As to visiting other blogs, I have to admit I did not visit all the blogs that participated. I knew I couldn’t do it and go on with my normal life, which is a little crazy at the moment, with a new home and a host of other things.

So I visited all the the posts at #atozchallenge on Twitter, created a Twitter newspaper of links. I visited, or tried my very best to visit, everyone who visited and commented. I visited others from the links on the comments they left on blogs I was already visiting.

After I discovered a few links on the main list at the host blogs and found they led nowhere or were not continuing with the challenge, I largely ignored the list, though I must have visited at least 30 blogs each day.

I’ll do a separate post for tomorrow, to especially thank all those who commented on my A-Z posts and to mention some of the A-Z posts/ blogs I really liked.

For today I want to thank the organisers:

Arlee Bird (Tossing It Out) ,

Jeffrey Beesler’s (World of the Scribe),

Alex J. Cavanaugh (Alex J. Cavanaugh) ,

Jen Daiker ( Unedited),

Candace Ganger (The Misadventures in Candyland) ,

Karen J Gowen  (Coming Down the Mountain) ,

Talli Roland ,

Stephen Tremp (Breakthrough Blogs )

The challenge increased the number of people who subscribe to my blog, the number of visits and commenters.

But the best thing it did was give me a shot in the arm, that I could produce fiction somewhat consistently, some of it  not half bad.

So, Thank You to all the organisers, and hope to take part in the A-Z again next year!

Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

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13 Comments

  • Ellen says:

    I am so glad you made it and crossed the finish line; Congrats! Great idea~

  • It was so nice meeting thru this challenge! What a fantastic idea to collect your shorts for an ebook!

  • Joy says:

    Great idea to combine your fiction into an e-book. I think you’ll get support if you publish.

    I didn’t get to all the blogs either and I hope I visited everybody who stopped by to comment on my posts.

  • I’m still impressed you were able to write a piece of new fiction each day. I enjoyed the stories I read. I’ve tried to participate in the story a day challenge and couldn’t manage it. Well at least not the true story a day, I did get in 10 stories the one May.

    I didn’t get to visit everyone either. There were so many participants it would have been extremely hard to visit the whole list, writing ahead or not. I did have fun, and the Twitter hashtag was great.

  • Dafeenah says:

    The ebook is an amazing idea! Your work was outstanding. Don’t you ever doubt that. Whatever good comments people left, it was because you truly deserved them. I have learned so much from reading your writing. I look forward to what you will produce in the future.

  • Marian Allen says:

    I’m so glad you’re collecting your stories into a book! You are an amazing talent, and I want to read more more more! 🙂

  • Hey, that sounds like a pretty cool idea to compile all your flash fiction into one e-book. All the best with that 🙂

  • I enjoyed all your stories and am very glad to meet you through this challenge.

  • After the first week, I was finding enough new blogs just through comments alone. Glad you enjoyed the Challenge and it made you stretch!

  • I thought it was amazing that you wrote so much flash fiction.. inspirational! Although I faltered with a few letters of the alphabet, overall it was a very fun challenge!

  • K.C. says:

    I was so impressed you did flash fiction every day!

    Great to have met you, and ‘I’ll be back’. 🙂

  • PencilGirl says:

    I loved almost all of your pieces, and I’m so glad I discovered you through the A-Z… 🙂 🙂 Eagerly awaiting the e-book!! 😀
    Thanks to you too for the support and encouragement.. 🙂
    I didn’t really go too far out of my way to check out other A-Zers, because I was pretty sure I would eventually tire of it. I would just check out a few everyday..
    Add my thanks to yours to the organizers.. It sure felt good to know that I was capable of blogging everyday! 😀 😀

  • Arlee Bird says:

    Thank you for amazing me and so many others with some extraordinary short fiction. This was an outstanding feat to not just blog for each of the days, but to actually be highly consistent in the quality of your work. I look forward to working with you in the future. Wish you the best with the Ebook.

    Lee
    Tossing It Out