Topic for BAT 14 is R _ _ U _ N .

From now on, each Blog-a-Tonic can submit ONLY ONE POST for this event irrespective of the number of blogs he/she maintains.

Date for Blog-a-Ton 14 : September 4, 2010

With a week to go for the fourteenth marathon of bloggers, here is the time to reveal the topic for the month.

But before that lets welcome the new Blog-a-Tonics who will be running in this marathon with us;

• Dhiraj Jain
• Vinati
• Crazy Fundu
• Kevin  (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• Palak Vasant

Hoping to see you all participating in BAT 14. You all will be blogrolled soon!!!

On the basis of the voting over last one week, we have narrowed down to the topic for BAT 14.

 Topic for Blog-a-Ton 14 : RETURN

Leo or what he likes to be called now, Leonnyes makes a comeback with this fourth suggestion of his making it to the Topic of the Month. Keep suggesting such wonderful topics!

Vibhuti's Lesson was another favourite this time. Maybe, next time!

Imp. From now on, each Blog-a-Tonic can submit ONLY ONE POST for this event irrespective of the number of blogs he/she maintains.

While dealing with the topic 'Return', you have the freedom to treat it the way you want. Its upto you; which genre of writing you choose, i.e. simple essay-type, article, dialogue, short story (even 55 Fiction for that matter), poem or whatever you feel like.

Moreover, its upto you; which mood or tone you choose to set it in, i.e. serious, witty, humour, optimistic or whatever that comes to you naturally.

Again, you have the freedom to choose the language of communication. However, we'll suggest you to write in English to put across your views to the maximum members which will also help you when its the time to vote for the BATOM.

I hope this clarification helps the new Blog-a-Tonics.

So, you all have ample time to write it but you'll have to wait till Sep 4 to post it finally along with everyone else.

Please write your posts on time as the late entries will not be allowed to participate in the voting round (though the links will be added to the participants list).

Other rules regarding posting will be conveyed to you later.

So kindly wait for that notification on next Friday rather than putting up queries right now. If the queries are regarding general pattern of the event, please go through the posts about previous events.

Wishing you all, a free flow of thoughts

Blog-a-Tonically yours

Vipul Grover

BAT 14 is here - Suggest a Topic

DATE FOR BLOG-A-TON 14 : SEPTEMBER 4, 2010

TOPIC DECLARATION : AUGUST 28, 2010

Hello friends, blog-a-ton.blogspot.com is now blogaton.in (though the previous link is still working). With this news, we initiate the fourteenth edition of Blog-a-Ton.

Lets welcome the new Blog-a-Tonics who have joined us in this journey

• Dobbi (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• Disha Doshi
• Chintoo
• Maria
• Indu Raghavan (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• Thinking Beans
• Anecdotes along the journey

You all will be blogrolled soon!!!

Please go through the following rules before suggesting or voting

• Each member can suggest only one topic.
• The topic should be general in scope, so that more and more Blog-a-Tonics can participate.
• If you like any suggestion, VOTE for them rather than giving a new suggestion.
• If you like a suggested topic but don't like the wordings, still VOTE for it and alongside suggest a new title for it.
• In case you have already suggested a topic but find some subsequent suggestion better than yours, you are allowed to vote for it. But this can be done only once.
• Rather than criticising the suggestions made by others, kindly give better suggestions.
• Give your suggestions and votes in the comments section of this post.
• Do not embolden your comment using HTML bold tag.
• Please keep these points in mind to make my job easier.

In case a comment is not posted according to these rules, it will be deleted.

Encourage your fellow bloggers to participate in this edition. You can share this post on your various social networking profiles through the ShareThis widget present at the bottom of this post.

And friends, I am off to a mini-vacation. So see you all on Wednesday!!!

Hoping to receive some interesting suggestions

 Blog-a-Tonically Yours

Vipul Grover

Three BATOMs and a VETERAN

Another great edition of BAT comes to an end as India celebrates the 64th Independence Day. In BAT 13, we have covered 3/4th of our journey thanks to 75 entries coming this month.

As always, even in this edition we read some great posts but only some could garner the desired votes. Before we see the results, let's welcome the new members of Blog-a-Ton;

• Sadiya
• Mehak Sagar
• Jinny (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• AV
• Akshay
• Naveen
• Lea Helmerich (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• Pratibha Singh

You all will be blogrolled soon!

So now, without loosing any time, lets see who are the BATOM 13...

BLOGATONIC 13

As evident, here are the three Blog-a-Tonics of the Month. Just Click on their names to read their respective entries.

GOLD BATOM	SILVER BATOM	BRONZE BATOM
Leonnyes	Vipul Grover	Karthik

Siddhesh also deserves an applause for nearly making it to the top.

You all can also read the voting comments now. Just click here to find who all voted for you or liked your entry and what they had to say about it!

In this edition, I came across some posts which were not doing justice to the given topic. They were written really well and even garnered votes but somehow, they had nothing to do with Goodbye. Please, do full justice to the given topic in future.

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List of Veteran Blog-a-Tonics

Last week, you all read the Blog-a-ton Experience of an anonymous blogger who blogs by the pseudo-name Tuppence.  She joined BAT in its second edition and has been a regular since then, missing just one edition in all this time.

Tuppence

 11/13 BATs 

 

You can read all her entries here - http://matuppenceworth.blogspot.com/search/label/blog-a-ton

To show my gratitude to this passionate Blog-a-tonic, I am inducting her into the List of Veteran Blog-a-Tonics. Join me in congratulating her!

Even you can get inducted to this list. To be eligible, you must have participated in atleast 10 BAT's.

Once your number of participation reaches 10, just drop me a mail with the links to all your posts (or simply label all your BAT entries and send me that single link).

Wishing you all a Happy Independence Day

Blog-a-Tonically Yours

Vipul Grover

My 2 Pennies - For Whatever It is worth

Are you here to Vote for BATOM??

Kindly visit this link to do so - http://blog-a-ton.blogspot.com/2010/08/vote-for-batoms-before-saying-goodbye.html

Or just continue reading this beautiful Blog-a-Ton Experience of Tuppence.

What an honor and the first of its kind in my blogging experience. From an unnoticed blog read by just select few friends , if I can call myself “Tuppence” in this blog world, have about 20 odd followers, know some people whose writing style I admire ,  I owe it all to blog-a-ton.

“Tuppence” is almost as old as Blog-A-Ton and I realized I never gave it a birthday hug or a birthday gift, neither did I celebrate its 100th post. So here is the story of the birth of Tuppence and Tuppence’s journey with Blog-A-Ton hand in hand.

Just like most people in blogosphere, I started off with a MyName.wordpress.com and ranted about my likes , dislikes and the mad things I was upto, the mood swings I was going through. Needless to say MyName.wordpress.com was an utter failure, not just because I wrote about those stuff but may be because it just did not click.
 
I thought about it and came up with the reasoning that

“Who wants to read about what I eat/do/like/dislike?”,
“Do my friends want to read about the same thing which I have cribbed to them about over the phone just an hour ago”?,
“If I have had a fight with a boss or am traveling places or experimented a new dish as a first cook, does the rest of the world care”?
“Why don’t I have anything to chit-chat /gossip about room-mate over phone when friends call, just because I had just blogged about it?”.
“Why am I obsessed every single moment , and always hunting for a blog opportunity., for that blog-able moment?"
“Don’t I just suck at humor to make it even readable?”
“Well, hell, nobody is reading and those who are, need not necessarily only read, I can talk to them.
..But if I quit, what happens to the writer in me, the dreamer in me, to my opinions on the things around me?”

Yes, The writer in me, the dreamer in me gave birth to Tuppence and the shy-person in me made me remain anonymous. Tuppence was thus born to put in writing my opinions about the things that I hold dear, the dreams I have nurtured, realized and lost – In all, my two pennies on anything I stumble upon starting from things as trivial as a movie that touches me, to a book that influences me to even as serious as a Dream Come True. “For Whatever it is Worth” , I was going to place my two Pence ( Tuppence) for the rest of the world to read.

I started with reviews of a few books, blogs, movies and soon, the same writer’s block upset me, got demotivated at not having a Mutual Admiration Club, not getting enough comments. Then came Blog-A-Ton. DaisyBlue deserves a mention and a big thank-you note through this post, for I have always been amazed at how regular she had been blogging and the virtual blog friends she had made. She was one of the blog-a-tonics who participated in BAT-1.
 

Here goes my Blog-A-Ton Journey so far:

After analyzing the cream and scum of blogging, I took a dig at the Lessons learnt from life, from the Teachers (people) in every walk of my life from whom I learnt and gave font to my opinions on life. I dreamt of having good readership, knowing people, getting tagged, writing guest posts, giving interviews and so much more on this blog. I nurtured my blog, by coming to it everyday, with motivation taken from other blog-sites like Nablopomo and blogged for all days of 2 full months. I felt as "If I were a baby again", longing for attention, gleaming with pride at comments.

After a few months of Blog-A-Ton, I was not getting encouraging readership, votes or even comments. I let it go as a passing cloud thinking it is "All in a day's work" for a blogger, one has to go through some downs to get up, so I kept the Connection with my blog alive, kept hanging to the thread of being regular to my blog, though I was brimming with negative thoughts.
My genuine reader community kept saying "What if" you don't, I was deeply upset. I used to think "Am I a fool?" to continue to write? I fought a struggle to Escape from these negative thoughts and to keep them Hidden and buried and to not let it affect my writing.

One fine day, I thought this was going to come to an end, I made a secret Wish to feature as guest blogger / Veteran blog-a-tonic when Vipul announced this. Nurturing this wish for days together, I was not getting a email from him for a long time, while I was on the verge of doing away with that wish and losing sight of it, the wish came true, and here is me living the dream I dreamt of writing a Guest Post, that too in Blog-a-Ton!
My two pennies are always here to place and a Good-Bye is not-near.

Here are my 2 pennies on Blogging

Blogging is a whole lot of fun. Being read, appreciated is a lot more fun. I see it as an opportunity to take a peek into people’s personality, get inspired by it and give vent to the myriad things that the human mind thinks up! Tell me your blog, I will find out for myself who I think you are.

A Thank-you note to Blog-A-Ton for being motivation for me to at least come to my blog once a month. ( I have realized in the last 6 months, I have written just one post a month, my BAT post). Thanks to all the people behind the blogs I follow, love and get inspired by.
 

Happy birthday to Blog-A-Ton and thanks Marshal for having me here.

Lots of love,
Tuppence.

Vote for the BATOMs before saying Goodbye to BAT 13

Voting gets over at 22:00 hrs (IST) on Aug 15, 2010. Remember, that means time stamp of your comment can be at most 21:59 and not 22:00.

Lets welcome the new Blog-a-Tonics

• Twish A
• The Madrasi
• RNSANE (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• Ajay (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• RiikaInfinityy
• Aarthi (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• Vyankatesh (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• MIRACLES
• Aparna (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)

You all will be blogrolled on the conclusion of this edition of BAT.

Click here to check the fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton along with the direct links to their posts.

In this edition,  75 entries came in from  73 blog-a-tonics within the stipulated time.

Please follow the following rules while voting.

1.ONLY THOSE BLOG-A-TONICS ARE ELIGIBLE FOR VOTING WHO HAVE PARTICIPATED IN THE EVENT.

2. You can cast upto 3 votes or cheers as we call them, and of course you can not vote for yourself.
In short, you are allowed to vote for one, two or three entries. All your votes will carry the same weightage.

3.  Your Voting Comment should start as follows:

---

I participated - http://vipulgrover.blogspot.com/2010/08/goodbye.html

I vote for - 
1. XYZ; his/her post = http://ABC/xyz.html
2. DEF; his/her post = http://LMN/def.html
3. PQR; his/her post = http://RST/pqr.html

Code:

I participated - <a href="YOUR POST LINK">YOUR POST LINK</a>

I vote for -
1. NAME OF THE FIRST BLOGATONIC YOU VOTE FOR; his/her postlink = <a href="HIS/HER POST LINK">HIS/HER POST LINK</a>
2. NAME OF THE SECOND BLOGATONIC YOU VOTE FOR; his/her postlink = <a href="HIS/HER POST LINK">HIS/HER POST LINK</a>
3. NAME OF THE THIRD BLOGATONIC YOU VOTE FOR; his/her postlink = <a href="HIS/HER POST LINK">HIS/HER POST LINK</a>

---

Replace the parameters highlighted in red with their actual values.

Remove the extra code in case you are voting for less than three entries.

3. While voting for a Blog-a-Tonic, use his/her name as provided by him/her in his/her participation entry and not his/her profile name.
Moreover, in case of double entries by that blog-a-tonic, don't forget to number his post as mentioned by him/her while commenting.

4.  Post your vote in the comments section of this post.

5. All your votes should be posted in a single comment. So, take your time - go through all posts - only then decide your one or two or three favourites.
In case you vote separately, only the first comment will be taken into consideration.

Now coming to the other rules:

• Voting ends at  2200 hrs (IST) on  Aug 15, 2010.
• I have started moderating the comments and won’t display the voting comments till the end of this process to keep the result secret till its conclusion.
• After the voting code mentioned above, you may also add the reason, why you voted for a particular post to help others know what you expect as a reader. Moreover, you may also mention the other posts that you liked though you can vote for just one of them. 
• In case of multiple entries by any blog-a-tonic, all his/her entries will be evaluated individually while deciding BATOM, i.e., the award will go to a post rather than the blogger.

The Votes will be discarded without any prior warning in case they are not sufficiently compatible with the rules.

So, if there is any query about voting or you do not find yourself blogrolled, feel free to drop in a mail. I'll try to get back to you asap.

Marshal's Tip : The more you visit others' entries and leave your genuine remarks, the more the others will visit your entry and more are the chances for your entry to be voted for.


Remember, the time stamp of your comment can be at most 21:59 and not 22:00 on Aug 15.

Hoping to see similar participation in voting too

Blog-a-Tonically Yours

Vipul Grover

Rules and Reminder for Blog-a-Ton 13

Publish the post on Aug 7, 2010 anytime between 0000 hrs and 2359 hrs (IST)!

Date for Blog-a-Ton : Aug 7, 2010

Before I give you the details about posting, lets welcome the new Blog-a-Tonics

• Mani (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• Namit Aggarwal (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• Moumita
• Jaspreet
• A Restless Mind with a Sensitive Heart (Please provide a shorter pseudo-name to be blogrolled)
• Samadrita
• Kshitij
• Dipali (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)
• Ranu_81 (Please provide a bloglink to be blogrolled)

I hope to see all of you participating this time.

 

As you already know, the topic for Blog-a-Ton 13 has been finalised as:

Goodbye

Please follow these rules while publishing your post and thereafter:

• The title of your post should be the topic itself; i.e. Goodbye
  Please do not use any alternative title or your post link will be removed.

• The post should start with this text within blockquotes and with link to this blog. Just copy the following HTML code and paste to your post in Edit HTML mode:
  
  <div style="text-align: justify;">
  <blockquote>
  This post has been published by me as a part of the <b>Blog-a-Ton 13</b>; the thirteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following <a href="http://blog-a-ton.blogspot.com/"><b>Blog-a-Ton</b></a>.
  </blockquote>
  </div>

• The post should end with this text within blockquotes and with links to the comments section of this post and this blog. Just copy the following HTML code and paste to ur post in Edit HTML mode:
  
  <div style="text-align: justify;">
  <blockquote>
  The <b>fellow Blog-a-Tonics</b> who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective <b>posts</b> can be checked <a href="http://blog-a-ton.blogspot.com/2010/08/rules-and-reminder-for-blog-ton-13.html#comments"><b>here</b></a>. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following <b><a href="http://blog-a-ton.blogspot.com/">Blog-a-Ton</a></b>.
  </blockquote>
  </div>

• Publish the post on Aug 7, 2010 anytime between 0000 hrs and 2359 hrs (Indian Standard Time)

• After publishing it, do not forget to leave the link in the comments section of this post.

• Use the following code to provide direct link to your post.

<a href="ADDRESS OF YOUR POST">YOUR NAME - Goodbye</a> 

It will look like this: Vipul Grover - Goodbye and will link to your post.
Please follow this rule to ensure easy navigability to your post.

• In case you are submitting two posts, use following code for your posts.

 <a href="ADDRESS OF YOUR FIRST POST">YOUR NAME - Goodbye 1</a>

 <a href="ADDRESS OF YOUR SECOND POST">YOUR NAME - Goodbye 2</a>

Post these two in separate comments.

• Use your blogrolled name in this code. In case there are others blogrolled with the same name, mail me some unique name by which you will like to blogrolled for future BAT. 
• In case you are following this blog and have participated earlier too but don't find yourself blogrolled, just drop me an email. Moreover,  check the blogroll and use some unique name (name + surname, surname + name, pet name, pen name, etc) in the above code and mention that in your email too.
• In case you have just joined BAT and this was your first participation, you will be blogrolled soon. Moreover, check the blogroll and use some unique name (name + surname, surname + name, pet name, pen name, etc).

•  Remember, you can not post more than two entries. This rule is not meant to encourage you to submit two entries instead of one but to discourage those who post three, four or sometimes even five entries to limit their entries to maximum of two. This is to ensure QUALITY over QUANTITY. 

• In case you post your link after the stipulated time, then your submission will not be considered for voting.

• Return on Aug 8 to vote for your favourite post. A separate notification for the same will be posted upon the conclusion of the event. So do not vote till then. Till then just enjoy reading the various entries, keeping in mind your favourite ones. 

Marshal's Tip: The earlier you submit your link (after midnight), the higher is going to be your readership. 
But remember, no link should be submitted before the stipulated time.

DO NOT USE THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THIS POST FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE. If there are any queries, ask them in the comments section of previous post.

Looking forward to some great posts

Blog-a-Tonically Yours

Vipul Grover