It all started with a Twitter DM impromptu chat. Now if it were a mystery thriller , I would say “and the plot thickens” or a rom-com you’d know you aren’t where you are supposed to be , so you’d move on.But it’s neither of the above yet as dramatic and passionate as any of the two , with perhaps as much life changing results.

So yes. The Blog Buddy Mavericks decided to add some fun to the whole collective blogging deal they had signed themselves for on a fateful sunday late evening. We were looking for excitement that kept us going. Inspiration that helped us blog better , blog together and we were looking for companionship in the journey to see us through .

We got all that in #ChallengerSeries.

The rules were simple . A Challenge Chain with a 2 Day deadline to blog using a prompt. When you complete your’s you pass on the challenge to the next in line. A word , line , news item , song or anything else under the sun could be your prompt. And so when one blogs , we all cheer on. So that done , the fun began.

Akshay , the propagator of interesting memes threw the first Challenge Prompt at Ishani .

So as soon as Ishani hit the summit she did post her link , but it was a tad bit late, Earning Akshay a bonus prompt. And Next came Vikram and am I glad it wasn’t me!

No one but Vikram could do justice to a layered prompt as this one. It takes a wise man to accept and deliver on a challenge by another wise man – isn’t it?

 

It took Vikram two days of thinking and the result of the process is for all to see here. His quiet reflection on the seemingly satirical visual prompt gave us our first lesson of #ChallengerSeries as an activity .

Now was the time to avenge. And call it destiny or design , our sports expert in the house threw a psychedelic picture prompt to some one who’s idea of an indoor sport is scrabble That’s me and here’s the prompt I got.

After 3 unfinished drafts and multiple failed attempts at co-relating Golf with blogging , I finally took Richa’s advice and tried my hand at fiction. The aftermath in form of my post can be experienced here. Do drop in a line of encouragement [Shameless Self promotion].

Now , In the spirit of welcoming a Brand New Year and saying Goodbye to 2015 , I threw a prompt to Namrata .A line from my favourite poem ‘The Art of Losing’ . Could I ever  imagine her interpretation being so personal & poignant? For me , losing a year that we have lived before we step into unknown is as important to delve upon as resolving to have a fabulous next year . Her take was about loss and it was heart wrenching to say the least. Can experience that by reading Namrata’s post here.

So far , we have had a meme , a word and two picture prompts , What did we not have?

Yes – a video . Trust Namrata to show us her creative side by throwing this prompt at Rachit. His post on We’re holding on and letting go was up in a record time , you can read it here. 

Rachit threw a picture prompt and Omkar being the Rockstar he is combined it with his 1000 words challenge and wrote out this detailed piece exploring not just the mysteries of the universe but also of our own mind here.

 

Last but not the very least , Akshay’s shocking fiction piece titled ‘Savitri’ was the stellar finale to the 3 week long chain in response to Omkar’s visual prompt ‘Home and the world’.

The #ChallengerSeries was the first [of many to come] activities that we undertook as a team . In  just about 3 weeks, 7 complete strangers invested completely into blogging , engaging and cheering others on while sticking to timelines. The result? Not only did we prove a huge point to our own selves we stepped into each other’s lives getting to know each other beyond our online presence.

Every possible rule in the rulebook I created sometime back for me played out for real. But it wasn’t just about me anymore. The year changed from 2015 to 2016 together WE did transition to become slightly better bloggers and more connected as a community.

 

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This post was written to chronicle an exciting activity BlogBuddy Group Mavericks undertook in the spirit of ‘Blogging better , Blogging together’. There are some great links in there , do click and browse through them all.