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Women's Legacy Project > Blog > How To Curate > Reflection on the A to Z of Personal History, A to Z Challenge, 2022

Reflection on the A to Z of Personal History, A to Z Challenge, 2022

Written by: Nancy Hill
Published: May 2, 2022 -- Last Modified: May 3, 2022
8 Comments

The all in one review summary post with a Table of Contents and a Timeline and a Reflections Section

Table Of Contents for April Posts
  1. CLICKABLE TIMELINE OF ALL 26 POSTS
  2. Writers
  3. The “Reflection’s” Structure

CLICKABLE TIMELINE OF ALL 26 POSTS

April 1, 2022

A is for About

<div class="twitter" id="twitter-before-13900" data-url="https://womenslegacyproject.com/a-to-z-of-personal-history/a-is-for-about/"…
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April 1, 2022
April 2, 2022

Why write about Personal History? Because…

Throughout this month we cover the interesting snippets of what we know about women’s culture, family culture, and local cultures that are often overlooked as…
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April 2, 2022
April 4, 2022

Changing Climate and the Urgency of Women’s Knowledge

Women are creating our history by recording it for the first time, and by doing so we are nudging the future in an unknown,…
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April 4, 2022
April 5, 2022

DNA & Diaspora

I understand that the surprises people can find out from genetic or genealogical research can be upsetting when information that does not fit what…
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April 5, 2022
April 6, 2022

Mama’s Egg Money

My foremothers had gumption, as they called it back then, and made sure there was egg money.
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April 6, 2022
April 7, 2022

Tell-tale Food

d is one of the richest sources to mine for stories to share. Women’s lives have centered around food tech and food stuffs…
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April 7, 2022
April 8, 2022

Genomes and Genealogy

he job of a brand is to make you comfortable with brand. Big corporate brands want you to be comfortable with the product…
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April 8, 2022
April 9, 2022

Hille and Henges

What we build reflects how we view and organize ourselves.
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April 9, 2022
April 11, 2022

INTERLUDES OR INTERCESSIONS

Women should record, write down, or somehow capture inspirations and insights.
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April 11, 2022
April 12, 2022

Jupiter and Juleps

Appearances can be deceiving. What we presume from logical presentation of “facts” can be totally wrong whether we are talking Juleps or Jupiter.
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April 12, 2022
April 13, 2022

Kinship and Kindness

This is a lot harder to do than it sounds, but we women have to put it into practice now, or our species and…
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April 13, 2022
April 14, 2022

Love and Light

When I say sending love and light, I mean it. I visualize the person or situation bathed in radiance and love. Sometimes…
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April 14, 2022
April 15, 2022

Munchausen by any other name

Nearly every family has skeletons in their closets. But what does this mean? What one family hides, another might celebrate. Share…
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April 15, 2022
April 16, 2022

NAMES, NAMING, NUMBERs, AND FACTS

Naming is arbitrary. We associate meaning with sounds, but there is no intrinsic relationship between the sound and what it means. I…
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April 16, 2022
April 18, 2022

Origin Stories

I’m cheating a little bit in that much of my Letter O entry for this A to Z challenge is about origin stories I…
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April 18, 2022
April 19, 2022

Side Channel Meaning: Paranormal and Pets

I know that many people would never share such stories, but my attitude is, “Why not?” Even anthropologists and folklorists study…
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April 19, 2022
April 20, 2022

Quilting Fabrics, Quilting Lives

. That quilt kept me toasty warm, except for my nose. Being kept warm by the clothes of previous generations was comforting…
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April 20, 2022
April 21, 2022

Referencing Your Research

is always good to answer the question, “How do I know what I know?’ Then document it so others will be able…
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April 21, 2022
April 22, 2022

The Scent of a Memory

Why do scents evoke such strong memories?
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April 22, 2022
April 23, 2022

Timelines as Sequences of Time and Thought

All in all, I cannot imagine doing personal history research without using timelines.
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April 23, 2022
April 25, 2022

Underneath

So all I’m say here is that if you want to know who is programming your knowledge, you have to understand both Brands and…
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April 25, 2022
April 26, 2022

Violins on Television

How we put all those things together, especially in this world, we do in ways totally different from the way our parents did, and…
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April 26, 2022
April 27, 2022

Websites & Blogs

I feel very strongly that you should write your own history. Get help if you need it. But try it out on…
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April 27, 2022
April 28, 2022

Xs on the Map

I decided to, for today’s “X” post, for the A to Z challenge, focus on a happy, forward-looking aspect of Xs on the…
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April 28, 2022
April 29, 2022

Yearning for Youth

What I am saying is that yearning for what once was is silly. One: you can’t go back. Two: the back that…
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April 29, 2022
April 30, 2022

Zero to Zenith

So this is a success, a zenith for me. I’ve learned a great deal, gotten back into writing through themed bits of thought,…
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April 30, 2022

Writers

Not everyone who participates in the A to Z Challenge that occurs every April, or has every April for the last 9 years anyway, considers themselves to be a writer. Some of us, however, do lay claim to that moniker. Writers are people who have to write, at least that is how I define who we are. Most of the people who sign up for the challenge probably are writers, even if they do not admit to addiction. I began to identifying as a writer in 7th grade. There have been years when I considered myself a poet, but that has been at least 10 to 15 years since I workshopped with Will Inman and actively identified as a poet for a while. One of the things I will always remember is when he paid me the compliment of insisting I should submit some of my writing to a particular editor. “Send him some of your dirty stuff,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

I’ve never considered myself an author, but I want to author a publication in the next year or so. It is something I have wanted to do for decades, and if I succeed, it will be partially thanks to this challenge. I need specific deadlines to accomplish things. But I like these specific deadlines to be set by myself. “Working and playing well with others” had never been my strong suit. Growing up in fairly isolated circumstances probably contributed to this tendency more than anything else. I’m not anti-social or anything.

But anyway, this challenge is just perfect for me, as I can adopt the constraints of the challenge as enabling constraints because I actively decide to participate. I do not have to create the rules, procedure, and such and thus do not fall down a structural rabbit hole as I am wont to do. I love to play with structure and will sink absurd amounts of time into structural activities if left to my own devices.

Even the rumination about the project and summary activity has structure provided, as well as a specific time period, Monday, May 2nd, through Saturday, May 7th.

The “Reflection’s” Structure

  • tell us how it went for you
  • what you want us to do differently
  • what you think you’ll do differently next year
  • and anything else you’d like to share with us

I think I’ve already fulfilled the anything else you’d like to share with us part above.

I do wish all the sites involved were httpS. In this day and age an unsecured site is really unacceptable.

Onward, it went very well for me. I connected with a few people, learned a few new techniques such as timelines and T of C. And I accomplished my goad of writing about aspects of doing personal history.

So I think I will try to write the entries for A to Z ahead of time for next year.

I wasn’t sure about this all as I have previously opted out of finishing the challenge on a couple of occasions when I had actually started the challenge. These false starts, I prefer not to think of them as failures, were very informative for me as I know what can stop me when I now sign up for the challenge.

I don’t think it is required that you have a theme. The event has a theme every year, but no one is forced to follow along with it. One year, I think the first I actually finished it, I had no theme other than what struck my fancy. It was fun.

Another year that I finished, it was the year that I most enjoyed, I was trying to understand Pinterest, so I designed and pinned a coordinated and templated pin for every single A to Z post. It was fun too, pretty colors, pretty pictures, interesting stories.

Examples from 2018 pins that went along with posts.

To have fun is most important, but to minimize stress – write the entries ahead of time, you can always change them if you feel so inclined.

#AtoZChallenge 2022 WINNER badge

Categories: How To CurateTags: Table of Contents, timeline

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Previous Post: « Zero to Zenith
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Diane

    May 2, 2022 at 10:55 am

    Nancy, your posts are always amazing, entertaining, and informative. Taken as a body of work, they’re monumental! Well done!

    Reply
    • womenslegacy

      May 2, 2022 at 6:25 pm

      Oh Diane, thank you! You are so kind. I try. And I will put a book together.

      Reply
  2. Ronel Janse van Vuuren

    May 3, 2022 at 8:43 am

    Congrats on finishing the challenge! Writing posts before April is definitely easier than having to do it on the day 🙂 Oh, if you’re interested in publishing your work, check out The Creative Penn for informative books, podcast interviews, and links to external resources. (One of my favourite places to learn new stuff.)

    Ronel visiting for A-Z Challenge Reflections 2022

    Reply
    • womenslegacy

      May 3, 2022 at 11:29 am

      Thanks so much Ronel. I am working on a book and have been learning through https://writepublishsell.com/ and am trying out Atticus. I will check out the creative pen.

      Reply
  3. Alana

    May 3, 2022 at 3:16 pm

    What impressed me about your posts was the amount of time and effort you put into it, and your Reflections post was even more time and effort. Well done and, once again, congratulations on completing the Challenge.

    Reply
    • womenslegacy

      May 6, 2022 at 11:47 am

      Thanks Alana! I’ve always written in this style. I’m such a nerd. And working on a book now too.

      Reply
  4. Red

    May 19, 2022 at 1:33 am

    I didn’t make it to your blog during the A to Z, like so many others. I’m using the Reflections list to try to catch some of the blogs I missed. I’m with you: Next year I’m going to be much better prepared. Maybe then I can visit all the blogs I wish to!
    Congratulations on making it to the end!

    Reply
  5. womenslegacy

    May 30, 2022 at 8:53 am

    Thanks Red, I’m still behind in getting started on the Roadtrip. Thanks for stopping by!
    womenslegacy recently posted…Blood Moon Total Lunar EclipseMy Profile

    Reply

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