Tag: Blogger friends

LAST CHANCE TO GET YOUR EARLY BIRD TICKETS FOR THE 2018 BLOGGERS BASH. #BLOGGERSBASH #BLOGGING

AJ.DixonLeave a comment

Thinking of coming to this year’s Blogger’s Bash? If so, time is running out to get your early bird tickets!

 

The Bash will be held on May 19th in the leafy London suburb of Chiswick, and tickets are already selling fast. The day is a great chance to socialise with other bloggers as well as learn more about blogging, with talks, Q&A session and a panel discussion all included in the price.

 

Our early bird offer means you can get your ticket for the discounted cost of only £20 – but only until January 11th. After that, prices rise to the standard ticket price of £25, with late entry tickets available between the 4th and 18th of May for £30.

 

So be like the bird and get your worm, figuratively speaking! Follow this link (insert link here) to join the party – we hope to see you there!

 

Please take note of the small print: 

  • Tickets are non-refundable
  • Tickets are non-transferable
  • Tickets are limited on a first come first served basis
  • Cost of a ticket is for entry to the event only (not for food or anything else)
  • Those buying a ticket agree to comply with any health & safety rules set by the venue and to behave in a way that will not impact upon the enjoyment of other people
  • The Committee reserves the right to change the venue and/or agenda of the event
  • Payment for tickets via PayPal only.

WHAT IS THE BASH?

If you’ve never attended a Blogger Bash event before then you’re in for a treat. Created by Sacha Black and aided by her intrepid committee of eight bloggers, the Bash is open to any blogger, regardless of age or niche. Previous events have included speakers, competitions, a panel, and attendees from all over the UK, Europe, the US, and Canada.

There will be an opportunity to network, eat cake, and meet some amazing online friends in person! The event takes place in a single day, and you’ll be guaranteed a fantastic time and a sore face from all of the smiling you’ll do!

Timings and the exact breakdown of the day will be available closer to the event, but it will start mid-morning and end in the evening. We announce the winners of the Bloggers Bash Awards, which you, the blogging public, vote for. You can see last year’s winners here.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

Join Sacha and the committee on our Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/991165987611263/

You can also join us for our weekly Twitter Hour, every Sunday 7pm-8pm using the hashtag #BlogBashChat, or join in the conversation on Twitter by using the #BloggersBash hashtag.

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO NOW?

  1. BUY your ticket! https://wp.me/p885Ux-1Qc
  2. Send us your blog name and link to annualbloggersbash@yahoo.co.uk so you can be added to our attendee’s post. (NB: if you don’t send this information you won’t be added).
  3. Pop the date in the diary and tell the world you’re attending a fabulous blogger soiree.
  4. Sort out your travel and accommodation.
  5. Pack your bag, remember to bring business cards, throw in a notebook, and join us for a fantastic day of blogging fun.

NEW Bloggers Bash Website COMING SOON!

 

Post-Bloggers Bash Update

AJ.Dixon44 Comments

Hello, everyone.

It’s been over a week since I attended the Annual Bloggers Bash Awards in London, and it has also been over a month since my last post. My apologies for slacking, because as usual I’ve swamped myself with projects other than writing for the blog. However, as expected the Bash inspired me and I feel the need to write a short follow-up to it and to inform you of the changes I will be making to this blog.

First things first, a massive thank you to the Bash committee, Sacha, Ali, Geoff and Hugh for once again forcing a group of introverts to leave their desks and interact in real life. There was very little squirming or embarrassment, but rather an abundance of laughter, swapped stories and new friendships being forged. In all, it was a resounding success. Every single person I spoke to was incredibly interesting and each had their own take on blogging and what it meant to them. I received some touching compliments and encouragement regarding my own efforts as well as some practical advice which I will be acting on from today.

The first piece of advice I will take is not to beat myself up about the infrequency of my posts in recent months. I both admire and loathe those of you who can write consistently and well for your blogs, but I am not part of that elite group. I need more time to edit and rewrite my work so that I am happy enough for it to be put online, so I need to chill out and recognise that my readers don’t want me to rush. Thank you to all of you wonderful bloggers at the Bash for spelling this out to me, as apparently I needed to hear it.

Secondly, I will be providing links to my previous stories in new posts. If I have an older story which is similar, I will link to it. Sounds obvious, right? Evidently not, as it hadn’t occurred to me before! This is something I will whole-heartedly get behind, as anything which brings fresh eyes to my older stories is a winner to me!

Finally, I will start posting fiction from other blogs on here very soon. There is a wealth of excellent writers of fiction on WordPress, many of whom encourage and inspire me every time I read their work. So, expect to see some great work from other writers in the coming days, courtesy of this fiction addict!

That just about rounds it up for me today. Thank you to all my followers for your patience and your kind words. Thank you to the new friends I made at the Bash for listening to me waffle on about story writing and actual following me afterwards! I hope to remain worthy of your interest.

WordPress informed me that I have been blogging for two years now, and I can scarcely believe it! Here’s to the next year, and watch this space for exciting new things!

 

P.S. – Please do check out the list of bloggers who attended the Bash, as seen below. I must admit that I pinched this list from another more diligent blogger. I am far too lazy to create my own, so I must apologise for the blatant steal! Check them out anyway, they are all such excellent and admirable hobbits!

But I Smile Anyway

Shelley Wilson

Willowdot21

Graeme Cumming Dot Net

If Only I Could Read Faster

M J Mallon Author (Kyrosmagica)

BlondeWriteMore

SC Skillman

SaylingAway

A View From My Summerhouse

Allie Potts Writes

Journey To Ambeth

My Dad Is A Goldfish

E. De Sousa

Julie Lawford

Sun In Gemini

Alex Raphael

Ellenbest24

Elena Peters

Inside The Mind Of Davy D

Lance Greenfield

Smorgasbord – Variety Is The Spice Of Life

Icy Sedgwick

The Gay Stepdad

Susie Lindau’s Wild Ride

Rereading Jane Eyre

BOOKSTORMER

Image & Word

Melanie Roussel

Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo

Suzie Speaks

My Chestnut Reading Tree

Jot to Jot

NaNoWriMo Success!

AJ.Dixon27 Comments

Hello, WordPress!

As some of you may be aware, I took the plunge this year and took part in National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo hereafter), a challenge in which participants aim to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. Today I am ecstatic to report that I am one of those who succeeded, as this afternoon I validated my word count at 50,116 words! My novel isn’t finished but I am over the moon and filled with new confidence about my writing. I now know for certain that I can make time to write every single day regardless of what I have going on. It’s an eye-opening and exciting thing to realise!

However, putting in the effort has had some downsides. First of all, my poor blog has been neglected this month despite me promising myself to add and update or two. To be honest, everything got put on hold for Nanowrimo: WordPress, my social life, my various smaller projects and my music practice all had to be shelved for the duration of the challenge. I still managed to find time to read, though, as I can’t be doing without books! Nonetheless, I have no regrets over taking part as I have thoroughly enjoyed it and I have great pride in myself for seeing it through. I plan to right some of these wrongs starting today, and I’ll return to writing short stories to post on here shortly. I’ll also be kick-starting my ‘Fiction Fursday’ posts once again and doing my best to keep up with any writing competitions and challenges thrown my way. I’m planning on catching up with you wonderful people on the blogosphere, too, so that will be great fun!

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read, as always, and I’ll look forward to interacting with you soon! Well done to anyone else who took part in Nanowrimo this year. Win or lose, you’re all writers to me!

I Survived the A – Z Challenge

AJ.Dixon2 Comments

It has now been a full week since I completed the A – Z Blogging Challenge for this April. Being relatively new to blogging it was the first time I have taken part and I thoroughly enjoyed it! I set myself the task of writing a posting a short story for each day, with the word count set between 500 and 100 words. To make it even more fun, I wanted to include some of my new friends on the blogosphere and beyond and so I invited anyone who reads my blog or follows me on social media to suggest a prompt word for the letters I would be using. This turned out to be a great success as many lovely people chipped in and helped me out!

I stumbled a bit during the last few days, but I managed to pull it all together and complete my final three stories on the last day of April. It was quite demanding having to write even a very short story every day around my full-time job, but it was eye-opening as well. It showed me that if I have a set goal and I put pen to paper every day then I can achieve a lot in a short space of time. Although the stories were mainly thought of on my bus journey into work, preliminary notes scribbled on my lunch break and then written out in full once I’d finished work, I still managed to produce a variety of tales which my readers found engaging and interesting. I tried to avoid the more obvious connotations of each word and strove to come up with something which would surprise my readers. I ended up writing fictional pieces about a lonely dog, a calculating murderer, a perverted stone imp, a Dickensian double-act, a swarm of militant wasps and an invigorating love-affair, just to mention a few.  It’s given me a whole new confidence in my writing ability and my time management. I plan to print out these stories soon, so that I will have physical proof of the roughly 23,400 words I wrote in just one month…if that won’t drive me forwards with my writing, then I don’t know what else will!

If you’d like to revisit some of my stories, here are the links to the blogs and also links to the amazing people who helped me out.

A – ABANDONED (Niki’s Simple Life)
B – BOMBASTIC -(Kate McClelland)
C – CONCUBINE (Kate McClelland)
D – DRAGOON (Kate)
E – EFFERVESCENT (Kate)
F – FRAGILE (Kate)
G – GARGOYLE (Kate)
H – HESSIAN (Kate)
I – INKLING (Kate)
J- JACKASS (Kate)
K – KARMA (My partner in crime, Samwise)
L – LEGERDEMAIN (Sakina Hussain)
M – MALEVOLENT (Esther Newton)
N – NORTH (Sakina)
O – OVERCOMPENSATE (Sakina)
P – POLYGAMY (My younger brother and great sport, Ben Kenobi)
Q – QUISLING (Geoff Le Pard, the man who inspired this Challenge)
R – RANCID (My dear old Mum-well, not THAT old, obviously!)
S – SAUSAGES (My work colleague, Sarah)
T – TORRID (Mum)
U – UNREAL (Geoff)
V – VACUOUS (Esther)
W – WASTED (My work colleague, Jamie)
X – XENOPHOBIA – (Viki Allerston)
Y – YURT (Viki)
Z – ZANY (Viki)

Thank you to every single one of you who read my stories and gave me feedback. You’re all brilliant, wonderful people! Alas, I have been a blogger far too short a time to post among such excellent and admirable hobbits!

 

How did your own A – Z Challenges go? Let me know in the comment section!