April flew by! Can't believe another A to Z challenge has come and gone! I laughed, I cried, well I didn't cry. But I had fun! And met tons of new people. Yeah!
Big THANKS to all the hosters!
So being the silly mathematician I am, I looked at this challenge statistically. I visited as many sites as I could (almost 1000), alphabetically (not counting A, The or My). Above is a word cloud taken from first words of the blogs I visited that occurred at least twice. Thanks, Peggy for showing me Wordle! That site takes whatever words you want, like a paragraph or even your whole MS, and the more the occurrences of the word, the bigger it shows up in the cloud. Cool, huh? Think we write much? I love it!
And here are some stats. Reasons for my not commenting were mainly not participating, non existent, or way too long - in the interest of quantity:
I have to say I am a bit surprised at the lack of comments back. I wonder why. Oh well. I found plenty to follow who I think will be a good influence on me and my writing and I hope vice versa! Another great experience! And here are the top five blurbs from the challenge, as chosen by you all...
FROM THE FENCE POST - MG Noir. Junior suburban detective solves innocent neighborhood mysteries and finds a dead body.
KICK ME - MG. Alternate universe where nerds are the cool rulers of the school picking on the beautiful people.
NAKED PASSION - Sci Fi Romance. In the future humans no longer interact in person and two subjects answer an ad for an experiment on natural procreation.
QUAKES - YA Sci Fi. Larken Rho seems to have seizures that last only seconds, but while she is out she is transported to another dimension for days at a time.
YOU ARE MINE - Thriller. Old Charlie Sterling dies in a nursing home, but confesses to being a serial killer in his journal and leaves clues of where he disposed of the bodies and who his accomplice/protege was.
Thanks again! And congrats to all who participated!
Some people focus on commenting back, but I think with the Challenge many were just visiting new blogs. Or their regular blogger buddies. And I think the statistics for follows would be about the same. (Although following without commenting would be even lower.)
ReplyDeleteTara, I don't know if you remember, but you were the one who told me about this blogfest last year. It was too late for me to participate then, but I'm so glad I did this year. Thanks! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing - I had a blast reading your posts! :)
ReplyDeleteI expect great things from you, Tara. Great things!
ReplyDeleteI had so much fun with your book ideas and your great new words.
Thank you!
Heather
Wordle is awesome. Thanks for telling me about it.
ReplyDeleteI noticed about the lack of return, too, Tara. But it was still worth it. Met some great new friends.
The lack of comments back to you is a bit strange :( It seems like that's like an unspoken rule in the blogosphere. But maybe they were overwhelmed by your sheer awesomeness :D
ReplyDeleteI'm such a math person too. Totally got excited over your little chart. :D Wish I had thought of that, but then again, I probably would have overanalyzed the crap out of it and wondered if I just scared too many people that they saw my blog and ran away screaming. :)
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the stats... I find it fascinating. Perhaps people were just burned out at the end? ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm really into stats, so that was cool to see.
ReplyDeleteAnd congratulations on finishing the A-Z! What a tough challenge.
It did get a bit frantic at times with all the new blogs to visit. Hopefully now the dust has settled you'll get a better idea of who the friendly bloggers are (if you do find out, please let me know).
ReplyDeletemood#Moody Writing
@mooderino
The Funnily Enough
Tara - I really enjoyed your A-Z Challenge posts - they were all very creative. Your blog is always one of my favorites, thanks!
ReplyDeleteMy brain glossed over when you got to the math :) But I love you and I love your quirky posts.
ReplyDeleteI'm in awe at the statistics bit! Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteI didn't quite finish the challenge this year and am only just returning my comment, but I am a follower and intend to stick around. I look forward to doing this with you next year and to see if the stats change any :)
omgosh, i just love your chart!!
ReplyDeleteExactly! I, too, wonder why so few commented back. I found that one of the most frustrating parts to the challenge, especially since I worked so hard to single out, read, and comment. But what are you gonna do? I am grateful for what I got though. And if there is some way to organize the blogs next year, I'll consider doing it again.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by today, Tara!
I loved your Challenge posts! I visited them all. I didn't get to all the participating blogs, but I got about the same response as you did. Few commented back and even fewer followed back.
ReplyDeleteI always made sure I commented back - usually individually, but sometimes, when they all said the same thing, with a sweeping 'thank you' comment at the end. I replied before I checked out that day's posts or visited new blogs. I'm surprised how low some of your stats are.
ReplyDeleteI'm a stats geek too, so I fully sppreciate your chart - I started taking numbers, but stopped pretty quickly!
I love a good chart but the math had me running scared, especially the % sign. :)
ReplyDeleteNow, I love stats as much as the next person (actually, I love them far more than the next person, unless the next person is a statistician), but I never would have thought to keep track of all that for the Challenge. (Mostly because I'm also lazy.) I really would've thought the comment/visit back rate would've been higher. Well done. And thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteOoh, and maybe for next year you take the best title/blurb from each letter and write the book's first page. (If that sounds like a lot of work, that's because I only come up with alphabet ideas that take a lot of work.)
I'm mathematically-challenged... and stats boggle my brains (which are already 'fried' from the challenge).
ReplyDeleteAs per usual, you did an awesome job entertaining bloggers during the challenge!
Love your stats! That's awesome!
ReplyDeleteLove your mathematical brain! I thought it was odd when people didn't comment back either. But I, too, found lots of blogs I loved! :)
ReplyDeleteI found your blog late, made at least one comment but plan on following your blog now. I'm slowly paring my list down but LOVE yours.
ReplyDeleteI've already seen a dramatic drop in my blog stats...back to 40 or so views a day. That's okay, I'll keep plugging away. LOL!
Your posts were one of my favorites. SO much fun. So creative you are!
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked a to z by the numbers! Don't be afraid of the math =)
ReplyDeleteThanks again, Alex
Dana, I remember! And I love how you have blossomed!
Samantha, scared by my sheer snarkiness maybe!
The wordie program looks fun! And your stats . . . whoa - I never keep charts - so I'm impressed/awed. I try not to worry about comments back . . .
ReplyDeleteWOW! I love that you graphed all of that....there were some blogs I went to that visited mine and if they were long, I passed them by because of time constraints as well as lack of interest in the topic!
ReplyDeletelove the wordle...
Thank you Tara, for you fun musings and great take on the world. I'm hooked! :) Thank you for the Wordle "tip".... if i can just figure out how to do it, i'm in business. Hey - i just figured out how to post the A to Z Challenge badge on my page yesterday (now that it's done) and still can't find an HTML code for the survivor one. I tell you, i'm lost - at least it's in good company! Cheers, Sylvie, aka Little S
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoyed visiting your blog. In fairness, I wasn't here every day and didn't always comment because I did try to move through to new people too. I'll be keeping up with you here because yours was among my favorites. So glad that we met. :) Now we can pat ourselves on the back bit...woohoo we made it!
ReplyDeleteYou kept stats???!!! Hope I fell in the comment back category on most letters. I tried.:0
ReplyDelete